Bethany C. Meyers On The Evolution Of Words In The Wellness World

My goal has been to take a different approach to fitness. The wellness space I think has really started to transition into more inclusive conversations, less diet culture, really evaluating how you feel, and what I've found is that conversation hasn't really hit actual workouts. It seems like always the goal of working out is to change something about yourself or to look a certain way or oftentimes a punishment for things you've eaten or things you've done, and what I'm really working to do with the be.come project is simply to shift the focus and make working out a time for yourself and something you can give yourself as a form of self-care. I love the idea of movement as medicine. And so what we're really relating back to is how do we feel, and how does movement improve our feelings?

Before and after every single workout on the be.come project, so as you're filling it out online, in order to unlock and lock your routine, you have to answer the questions, "How am I feeling?" We offer a list of words and also a place to type in your own word. I just went through all of the data since we've launched, and the most commonly used word before the workout was "tired" and the most commonly used word after the work was "strong."

I think when we say something is just for women, it becomes exclusive, and we're missing out on trans people, we're missing out on people who've been socialized as female, we're missing out on this nonbinary take. And what I found out is that nonbinary people and trans people are often the people who are the most discriminated against in a workout context. They go to a studio, and it's men's locker rooms and women's locker rooms. They need a safe space more than anyone.

Totally. Society is just so obsessed with gender. If you go back like pre-1950s, babies' clothes were not gendered at all. Little boys and little girls wore the exact same thing, and then at some point, we created this blue and pink phenomenon, and it's translated into every area. It's like barre workouts are a women's workout, and weightlifting and boot-camp workouts, that's a men's workout. That has started to get better [and change].

I definitely do. I talk a lot about language that instructors use in their classes and how we refer to people. Like, "Come on, ladies!" is often used in "female" classes, and you don't really think about it. But you don't know who is in the class, and you don't know how that person is feeling. Sometimes people get up in arms about "well, it's not that big a deal if you say 'hey, ladies.' Everyone knows what I mean." But you can switch your language ever so slightly to really make it more inclusive and still get the same point across. "Come on, everybody!" That still accomplishes the same goal and yet makes people feel really included.

At the end of the day, it just made more sense to me. I've always carried a lot of masculine traits, and I've always sort of felt that I rode a line that wasn't quite female and wasn't quite male. I think what nonbinary has done is it's just given more language to people who feel similarly to me, and so when we create more language and have ways to describe ourselves, it's exciting to get to use that new language because it makes more sense. I guess I felt like a nonbinary identity gave me more permission to dress how I want to dress, to present the way that I want to present, to not shave my legs or underneath my armpits. It's almost a little bit of a "fuck you" to gender and society in general. It's kind of like I can say these things and do these things because at the end of the day it doesn't matter.

Definitely being as open as we are about our relationship in a public sense has been one of the more scary things for me. It's been a bit harder to speak about it, but I have something that's wired in me where if I believe something or it's true to me, I really can't shut up about it. I just have to speak on it because I think at the end of the day, what helps people is communication and honesty and vulnerability and being authentic.

I've always wanted to have children. I'm very excited about the idea of being pregnant because I think the ability to produce life within your body is quite fascinating for those who can. And then also to raise children is just a beautiful thing. It's literally life. And for Nico and myself, we've always known that we would have children together whether or not we ended up with one another.

It definitely can be a very gendered experience, and I think that we are excited to figure out what it looks like to do that in the most nongendered way that we can. Our nicknames for each other for years and years and years have been "Mom" and "Dad." So Nico calls me "Mom." I call them "Dad." To me, the words mom and dad and the way that we use them in our relationship doesn't feel gendered, so I don't really have an issue with those words themselves. And I think that we're also very aware that we don't have all the answers, and just like the rest of our lives have been, we're going to be figuring it out day by day.

I think Pride is trendy right now, and really what this month is about is furthering the community and giving the community the support that it needs. The people who need the most support in our community are trans and gender nonconforming people, specifically those of color. They're the most discriminated against, they're the ones who are in the most danger. The number of trans women who have died this year—I think the count is at 10 right now this year, and those are only those that we know about, and it's such a small community of people. This isn't about a parade. It's a march.

Any corporation who is using a rainbow logo or any corporation who is doing any type of Pride stuff or if you're a coffee shop and you're making a rainbow latte and you're selling it, you're essentially making money off this community, and therefore money should be given back to the community. So I feel really, really passionate about reminding everyone that this is still a fight, and there are still people who cannot walk out of their door safely. I'm not one of those people. I live a very safe life. I definitely enjoy a lot of things. I'm privileged in that way, and so it's definitely my responsibility to make sure that I take care of my family and that they're receiving the same type of equality that I am. That's definitely what Pride is about this year.