This Fitness Community Will Not Be Ignored (with Will Lanier)

 I say, “We are nothing without our allies.” Out events are amazing. They’re great. They’re good gay fun. You’re going to have the best playlist. It’s going to be dancing. It’s just going to be a great workout, very supportive. It’s CrossFit in it’s heart.

Everyone’s so supportive, and they cheer you on. If you’ve been to a shitty CrossFit gym or even to a really great CrossFit gym, you can tell the difference. It’s always going to be that really great fun experience where everyone’s on your side.

Welcome to the “BarBend Podcast,” where we talk to the smartest athletes, coaches, and minds from around the world of strength. I’m your host, David Thomas Tao, and this podcast is presented by barbend.com.

Today, I’m talking to OUT Foundation founder Will Lanier. Formerly known as OUTWOD, the OUT Foundation’s mission is to remove the barriers that block LGBTQ+ individual’s access and participation in fitness, health, and wellness, to ensure their success.

Will takes us back to the group’s origins as an informal workout community in New York City. He details how over nearly 10 years it’s grown into a foundation that serves communities across the United States. We also discuss their goals moving forward, issues they’re mobilizing around, and why they felt the need to create their own leaderboard for the CrossFit Open.

Before we get into that, I do want to take a second to say we’re incredibly thankful that you listen to this podcast. If you haven’t already, be sure to leave a rating and review of the BarBend Podcast in your app of choice. Now let’s get to it.

Will, thanks so much for joining us. I really just want to dive in and focus a little bit on the OUT Foundation for those who don’t know what it is, how it came about. It’s got a new name. I still accidentally referred to it by the old name sometimes.

 I still do, too. [laughs]

You’ve been kind enough to correct me, but give folks a little background into what OUT Foundation is, what it does, and a little bit of the history over the last few years because a lot has happened in a very short period of time.

Oh, boy. Yeah. Originally it was OUTWOD.

Which is a great name, by the way. That’s why it still comes up.

It’s an amazing name. Well, you want to know what the original name was for the first year or so?

Yeah, of course.

Gaywod. [laughs]

That’s even better.

We were taking back the slur. OUTWOD started in 2011 as a social group. I had no intention of making a non-profit. There was none of that in my brain when I was like making this thing, I was like, “I’m gay. I’m at CrossFit and all I see with 150 gym members. Where are the gays?”

Which is I assume something, you just walked in one day and you were just like, “Hey, folks. Where the gays? Where is everybody?”

That was my first question when I checked in, I was like, “I’m going to join your gym where the gays?”

It was like a couple, but like… [laughs]

For background, I met Will around this time originally. Will is always been a very personable, funny person, so I wouldn’t have been surprised if he opened a class with that or something one day. I don’t think you actually did, though.

No, because I joined the CrossFit and all I see as a member. I was before I became a coach there, I was a member and I approached the owner and I was like, “Hey, I’m pretty good at CrossFit. Do you want to hire me?” Because I hated my job that I had and publicity.

Fast forward. I invited the three gays that I knew at the gym. I was like, “Hey, do you want to come to work out?” Because back then, the gym was still closed on Sunday. If you remember, back when things were closed.

Back on gyms aren’t open every day, [laughs] all day, every day, every 15 minutes. The gym is closed on Sunday. I was like, “I’ll come and work out.” We’ll go in around 11:00 AM. We’ll be done around 12:30 AM. We’ll go have brunch will be a thing. That’s what it was for a year.

More and more people started to come and we had to move around gyms and it blossomed into this movement that I never knew existed in filling a void that I didn’t know was there, that people wanted a place to be there, to be queer, but also in a healthy way, not just go to the bars and not drink every Friday night or every night, as it were.

We feel this void, that was an unknown void, and we started to get people to ask about us around the United States. We had Chicago, Miami and LA.

Was this is because people were seeing you all, like photos of everyone on social media and stuff like that?

Yeah, I created a Facebook group. I’m like, “This is how we’re going to organize.” because at some point it was too many for a group message. It was like, “Oh, there’s 40 and there’s 50 of us, there’s 100.”

No one wants to be on that message thread.

No one, exactly. This is pre-Slack, pre-WhatsApp, pre all the things, pre-Instagram. I created this group on Facebook. We ended up having one event at SOLAS — rest in peace — that had like 140 people show up. If you can imagine…We all worked out at the same time down there in the basement. We made it happen. It was beautiful. It was amazing.

It became this thing. Over the years, that happens to like 2011 to 2015 or so. I was like, “We got to do more what we’re doing.” We charged people to come eventually. We’re donating that money to different organizations, creating T-shirts and doing some really cool stuff.

It was never really a thing. I was still running brick [inaudible 6:22] berries. I still had a full-time or more than full-time job and then tried this thing on the side.

Then around 2017, I was like, “If this is going to be something bigger than it is and if I’m going to give it my proper attention, it means it could be my full-time job.” I was like, “But we also have to figure out how to make money.” What are we doing? We’re just giving away everything. We would bring in 25,30 grand a year, but we would be giving it out to worthy people.

That’s no way to make a… [laughs] I can’t live on nothing. I planned to make it a nonprofit. The whole idea behind the OUTWOD to becoming nonprofit was we were giving our money out to different groups of people and different people in need.

I was like, “There’s no one that we’re bringing into our fold. Everyone we’re serving right now is already doing fitness and already at a CrossFit gym or already doing something for themselves. How do we create something, like what is it that we can create that brings people to us, like shares the gift of fitness, and health and wellness to other people who don’t have it right now?”

That’s where the nonprofit got its start. We have a program now that’s now part of many programs. The initial program is…Let’s call it an accountability program. It’s a scholarship, but its still an accountability thing where people apply.

We give them a gym membership. We get a nutritionist. They get clothes. They get shoes. They get food. They have to go to the gym three days a week. They have to check in with their gym owner. It’s like, “We’re not giving you five grand. We’re providing you a bunch of tools. You have to use the tools or move on.”

That was the initial start of it. It’s just grown. Again, I don’t have a background in nonprofits. I don’t have…like the Summer Gym, with a publicist. Then I built gyms and [laughs] trained. Then I built more gyms, and I trained. Then I have this thing. It’s 10 years this year. It’s just so wild to me that we’re here. We’re doing it. We have full-time staff now.

We have boards and committees and all these things that are this big family that we’ve built that’s just here for the community. It’s so dope. I love it. [laughs]

Let’s talk about when was the transition from GAYWOD to OUTWOD. That seems like that happened pretty…

At 2012. [laughs]

That was a transition. Then OUTWOD to The OUT Foundation. That signals the change from, “This is in the existing CrossFit functional fitness community,” because it’s not all just CrossFit. I’ve seen Barry’s Bootcamp fanatics and Peloton junkies show up to Europe and some things like that. Not a lot of powerlifters, I will say. [laughs]

No. Pre-COVID, we were working on this huge lifting event that was going to be…It’s still being developed. We have it ready, but we have to have open gyms. Gyms have to be opened because it’s this nationwide thing. It’s going to be so cool, but you’ll be very happy when it happens. [laughs]

OUTWOD still has that functional fitness CrossFit mentality. When does it become The OUT Foundation and start to broaden its reach to other parts of the fitness community?

In 2017 is when it became a nonprofit. What we did was we created The OUT Foundation that enveloped OUTWOD. OUTWOD became a program of The OUT Foundation.

That transition for people to understand, “Hey, now we go to an OUTWOD event, and we know exactly where the money’s going. It’s going to support this nonprofit, which is going to support this thing,” instead of it being like, “Oh, we’re going to OUTWOD. They’re going to be giving our money to the ACLU, or they’re going to be giving our money to X charity.”

They knew that it was bringing people into what we’re doing. It was a great move of [inaudible 11:09] then back because more people got involved because they’re like, “Oh, cool, we’re bringing people into what I love to do. This is affecting my community in the way that it’s affecting me.”

It was 2017, never really a change from OUTWOD. Then 2020, OUTWOD, the program, changed throughout athletics for all the reasons you think. That happened [laughs] in 2020 with CrossFit.

Let’s talk about that because not all of our listeners are hardcore CrossFitters. We have powerlifters, weightlifters, strongman athletes. We have people from all across this spectrum who are listening.

OUTWOD is a program of The OUT Foundation. Then Greg Glassman takes to Twitter, and sends letters, and is recorded on Zoom calls saying a lot of things that don’t go over well, maybe the understatement I will make.

We see thousands of CrossFit gyms say they’re going to disaffiliate. Then we have you all saying, “OK, well, OUTWOD, WOD is very closely associated with CrossFit. We don’t want to be associated with CrossFit now. We’re going to come OUTAthletics.” Is that what happened?

Yeah. The thing is I got a text message one fateful evening, or it was like two o’clock in the morning from someone formerly at CrossFit Inc. They’re like, “Did you see this tweet?” I was like, “No, send it to me.” [laughs]

I got it. Then at that very moment, I took it to our Instagram, which I never do, I’m pretty hands-off with our social media. I’m just like, “Let them do what they do.” I was like, “We are out. Fuck this. It’s done.” We can’t stand up for this.

The thing is, is with Greg saying those things and with the disease internal team at CrossFit…It’s not just Greg. Greg is the top but flows down to many people.

Greg’s comments were a detriment to marginalized community. We represent a huge marginalized community. How could I, as the leader of said organization, live with myself for not standing up for other marginalized people? How can I show my face to a community who relies on us to be a voice for them?

At that moment, we’re like, “We’re out of here. Peace out,” and change our name in the next two weeks or so. I got to figure it out, and then rebranded, completely took WOD out because it was a great time for it to happen.

We love CrossFit. CrossFit is my gym. I’ve been doing it for almost 12 years, but it pigeonholes a little bit. CrossFit isn’t the end-all be-all fitness. We put all of our eggs in the CrossFit basket.

We know that there are other ways to get fit and other ways to be healthy. We want to embrace those. OUTAthletics makes it more approachable for everyone.

Let’s talk about your personal history with Greg Glassman, if you don’t mind. He’s someone who I know you had had communication with and had been at public events with when there was quite a bit of controversy years ago in the community around whether CrossFit was going to allow trans athletes to compete.

Give us a little bit of background on that development, how that developed, how you and what is now The OUT Foundation got involved, how you guys got involved, and how that communication with CrossFit evolved at the time.

I do remember there being an event where you and Glassman spoke together. It seemed to be something that you all came to agreement on something and were on the same side, which looking back on it, seems maybe unlikely or seem strange in hindsight, given what he did just a couple of years later.

We’ve been doing our work forever, as you know. I can’t remember what summer it was, 2016 or 2017. Russ Berger, if you recall, used to be at CrossFit as Chief Knowledge Officer.

He had a C-suite title. It was an uncommon C-suite title.

Very conflated. [laughs]

He was a Chief Knowledge Officer. Yes.

There was an event that was happening in Indianapolis, a pride event. It got canceled because the owner was like, “We don’t support Pride because it’s a sin.”

Owners of what? Was it a CrossFit box?

A CrossFit box. The manager said, “Put on this event.” That was a Pride event, a Pride workout. They were disconnected owners, not on the ground.

The owners caught wind of it and canceled it. Their community went crazy, like, “How dare you.” Whatever. Literally, all the gym members quit. All the staff quit. They had to close both of the locations in like four days.

Russ Berger went on his official Twitter with CrossFit in his bio. He was like, “I stand with this gym. Pride is a sin,” blah-blah-blah. CrossFit tried to distance themselves a little bit from him, saying, “We’re going to investigate this.” They fired him later that day because he doubled down on Twitter and was like, “Nope, stand by this.”

To each their own conviction, but that started the conversation that we were able to have with CrossFit. One of my great friends, Alyssa, was in contact with…

This is Alyssa Ruef, right?

Alyssa Ruef, yup. She was in contact with Greg and was like, “OK, now you need to understand that there’s an organization that’s been doing LGBTQ CrossFit stuff for 10 years, and you’ve done nothing with them.” She connected us.

She’s been a staunch supporter of many marginalized communities, like the trans community, anyone she’s an advocate for. She was able to set all these meetings up with us and got us to get the conversation with Greg about the trans ban. Not ban.

I say it’s a ban because you think like, “I’m going to look at the rule book and it’s like, ‘These people are banned.'” when it’s just like, “The rules say this.” I don’t like calling it a ban, but trans athletes were not allowed to compete as their gender. They were forced into another category.

It’s not a specified ban, but it’s effectively a ban. It’s a ban by omission.

Exactly. The event we had, the games. again, I can’t remember the year 2017, 2018, was the lifting of that. He announced that CrossFit would use the Olympic Committee’s rules when it comes to transgender athletes, which why wouldn’t you when they have all the money in the world for all the research in the world. Don’t try to recreate the will.

They’ve already invested tens of millions of dollars in this.

Just copy that, why not?

They did. Greg was a great advocate for that. He was like, “I never wanted anything bad to come of it. It was, ‘He said, she said.'” You look back at the history of it. Chloie Jönsson, who served on our board as president, sued CrossFit because they were forcing her to compete as a man.

They settled out of court. She never got an apology. All she got was like, “You don’t know biology. You didn’t go to high school.” from the upper echelon of CrossFit. Where did that come from? Why was that allowed to be said? Hindsight to 2020, I don’t trust anyone there as far as I can throw them.

You’re a pretty strong guy, Will. You could throw people.

I’ve seen you with this weight around.

It was a great price, and being involved with CrossFit at that level was really incredible. We did a huge activation of Epic Games under the Jumbotron. We were the only vendor allowed to have color on our banners. It was like this whole thing. They wanted the visibility. It was so cool at the games to see.

When you’re watching it on ESPN 17, or whatever it was on, you saw all of our logo, and the rainbow flag, and all these things as the flyovers were done. It was such a cool moment. It’s no small part of Alyssa making that connection and really working with us and our community.

We’re here. We’re doing CrossFit. We’re not in the shadows. We sold 500 T-shirts in four hours at the games with like, “Put the gay in the game.” That’s what it said on the shirt. People fucking loved it, and it’s there. I don’t know. That whole piece of our history is really important. With all that, it can be foiled by a tweet.

For folks who might not have participated in an OUT Foundation event, formerly maybe an OUTWOD event, now an OUTAthletics event. I’m going to get all these straight, I promise.

Did you say OUT? It’s fine.

I did. In an OUT event. They are a lot of fun, and it’s also something where I want to be clear to people, in interacting with folks from OUT, and interacting with your events. I myself am not a member of the LGBTQI+ community. I want to make sure I get all acronyms and letters. I’m really trying on the spot. I’m really trying on all podcasts.

You’re doing it.

I butchered on previous podcasts for sporting events and organizers. It’s about supporting that community, but you don’t have to be gay, to come out and have a good time and participate. I want to make that clear. What do you all say, or what is the company or nonprofit line as far as who can participate in what aspects of OUT Foundation events?

Anyone and everyone. I say, “We are nothing without our allies,” and I stand by that. Our events are amazing. They’re great. They’re good gay fun. You’re going to have the best playlist. It’s going to be dancing.

It’s just going to be a great workout, very supportive. It’s CrossFit at its heart. Everyone is so supportive. They cheer you on. If you’ve been to a shitty CrossFit gym or if you’ve been to a really great CrossFit gym, you can tell the difference. It’s always going to be that great, fun experience where everyone’s on your side.

You’re leaning into some positive stereotypes here really hard.

Because that’s what we do. It’s not going to be a bad thing. We had an event in San Francisco, and this guy saw that it was happening, this father. He has a non-binary child. He emailed us. He was like, “Can I bring my kid here to show them that it’s cool?”

He does CrossFit. He did get it somewhere else. He’s a straight dude, but he wanted to show his kid that they can do the things that he does in a very supportive way. I think they were 10 or 12, like, young. If he hadn’t seen that, if he hadn’t felt that he could come as a dad to bring his…It’s anyone and everyone. They’re just so fun. I can’t wait for gyms to be open, so we can do…

I can see a video of Will right now. The listeners can’t see it, but I can see his face. He can’t wait for the pandemic to die down because that energy, you have to put back into the events. I feel like you have all this pent up energy…

I do, so much.

We have 100 events a year. We already have 110 on the books in 2020. We had to cancel all but 10 of them. I’m on the road every weekend for these things. It’s just so fun to see all the people. You’re right. I haven’t seen them. I have energy coming on my fingertips.

You’re like the Emperor Palpatine of gay hosting energy right now.

Exactly. That’s me.

Rainbow lightning coming out of your face. Maybe we can make that work in the thumbnail for this podcast. I do want to talk a little bit about the OUT in the OPEN, the OUT leaderboard. Actually, full editorial disclosure BarBend worked with The OUT Foundation. They were kind enough to grant us the exclusive on reporting on some aspects of that.

The OUT in the OPEN is not a brand-new thing. It’s something you all do, have done every year for the past few years. For the CrossFit Open, this podcast will come out during the CrossFit Open. Tell us about OUT in the OPEN as a leaderboard and a place for The OUT community during what is basically the largest virtual fitness event in the world every year.

We started this before trans athletes could compete in the OPEN. I mean, compete as their gender. They were allowed to compete, just not in the category that they should. We created this leaderboard. The first year, we pulled data directly from CrossFit’s API, through this magic back-end thing that someone did for us.

We tell people to register, but when they registered, if you were a trans man, you had to register as female. We were like, “Don’t do that. Do that on CrossFit so you’re not breaking the rules. On our side, we will categorize you right.”

Now that the ban is no longer a thing, we pull directly from the CrossFit Games website. What people do is they sign up on crossfit.com. They come to our site. They register for our leaderboard. It’s a way for us so the overall leaderboard still removes gender completely. Where we give our prizes out, the gender has been removed.

I say this as a warning or a trigger warning for anyone who is non-binary. You still have to register on CrossFit’s website. There’s still non-binary registration. You have to pick a division.

We put a disclaimer. For anybody listening, if you’re non-binary and you still want to do it, just know that you will have to pick a binary competition spot and just pick to your ability. On our leaderboard, all gender is removed.

I had a wonderful conversation with a woman out of the Bay Area last weekend, discussing the removal of gender as a trans woman. She hated to see that because she’s worked so hard to be recognized as her true gender. If we say gender doesn’t matter, to her it matters and to many people…

It impacts someone in your community basically.

Correct. If you’re a trans and you’re upset that we pull gender out, we also have leaderboards that are gendered. You can see where you line up gender, age. We allow you to pull out gender and only do age. We allow you to put gender and no age and gender with your age. It’s infinitely scalable as CrossFit is.

The leaderboards are for everyone. The reason we did it was to make sure that there was a place for everyone. Even when they felt like perhaps they didn’t have a place in CrossFit, they had a place with us.

You have some big, big names on this leaderboard. One we reported on was a perennial crushes the OPEN in Sam Briggs. I will say that if I were betting on this, I would just bet on Sam to win all the prizes because it’s Open Workout of Sam Briggs.

Absolutely.

What are those conversations like? You all have reached out and worked with. I’m curious. Do you reach out to athletes about participating in this, or do they reach out to you?

Sam Briggs, obviously very high profile. Alec Smith, a multi-time CrossFit Games athlete, is also participating. There are some big names, very accomplished athletes that are working with all this.

As you know, I have no shame. [laughs] I use my pseudo-CrossFit prowess to get these people to talk to me. As the self-proclaimed gay mayor of CrossFit, I asked them like, “Hey, do you want to be a part of this?”

We were out to Sam a while back to be on our podcast right before her book came out, but then that was right before COVID. Shit hit the fan, and we weren’t able to do it. I stayed in contact with her because we wanted her to be a part of this. She’s a huge role model for people.

When Alec came out, we supported him 100 percent. We chat pretty often. He’s always been super supportive. He’s also a role model to young queer kids. We just reach out to them.

As a gay person and for them — I’ll speak for them. I feel like they wouldn’t hate me for saying this — you want to be that person that you needed when you were younger. They are more than happy to be that person.

Surprise, there are a lot of fit queer people. [laughs] I bet there’s way more on the leaderboards at crossfit.com than you think that aren’t part of our group just yet.

But soon.

But soon. If you build it, they will come. [laughs]

In their own time.

Everyone’s got their journey. It’s good for visibility. The visibility of the sport is so key. When you watch the Olympics and you see queer Olympians, people look up to them. We’re in CrossFit. There’s thousands of affiliates around the world, millions of people who do CrossFit.

You want to highlight these heroes. That’s what they really are, using their platform for good. We want to be able to elevate them, and we do.

This is where I get to ask. This is where we get to plug everything. This is where I ask where folks can follow along with you, the self-proclaimed gay mayor of CrossFit.

Where folks can follow The OUT Foundation and ask things, hopefully open back up a little later this year, where people can find out information about what events you’re holding, how they can get involved, how they can work with you, all things like that.

All the things. I will say that I didn’t term myself the gay mayor. It was Joy and Claire from Girls Gone WOD or previously Girls Gone WOD.

These are such good names.

God, these are such good names.

Now, this is “Joy & Claire.” If you don’t listen to that podcast, it’s really great. They’re incredible CrossFitters out of Colorado. For us, if you want to find anything out about OUTAthletics, it’s @out.athletics. We do have another channel that’s our Instagram for the foundation. It’s @BOUTFDN.

Spoiler alert, we will be converging all of our channels into one conglomerate later this year. The name is still being workshopped, but it will be a place for all of your OUT things. If you want me, I’m @truebluewill. I’m private because I’m in law school, but request. It’s great.

The content is good. You just got to request. As long as you’re not a recruiter for a law firm, you’ll get approved.

For the OPEN, if you go to iamout.org/open, that is for the OPEN. If you go to iamout.org/outathletics, that’s all of OUTAthletics events, or just go to iamout.org. Everything’s on that splash page.

I designed the website. If you have any problems, if there’s a spelling mistake, let me know. It’s all there. It’s great. I love this thing. I love what we do. I’m so proud to be able to do it.

I can’t wait to go to the first event. Let’s call it driving your train distance once things open back up.

We have one in Long Island in June already, I think.

 Long Island is big. It’s very long.

It’s drivable though.

I committed to that. I committed to drivable or trainable.

It’s somewhere that I would take the train to. We’re not going to Montauk. [laughs]

Fair enough.

We will, but that’s not where the event is. There’s already some on the books. People are anticipating opening. We’re really excited. If anybody wants to host to the workout, if you’re a gym owner like, “I want to do something,” iamout.org/host. Anything you want to do, we are here for it. I cannot wait. It’s going to be fun. You’re going to be there wherever we are.

Don’t tell everyone I’ll be there. That might actually dissuade listeners from showing up. Hide that fact. Will, thanks so much for joining us. Really appreciate getting to catch up with you, talk about the 10 years of OUT.

10 years. It’s absolutely crazy. Congratulations on an amazing milestone and all of the work that you and so many others have put into continuing to grow this part of the community. Thank you very much.

Thanks for having me, man.