Is This Outfit Too Inappropriate for the Gym?

Imagine a world where Lululemon was banned from the gym. Travesty! At Washington and Lee University, it seems that might just be the case, as a student who wore a strappy tank top and leggings from the Canadian brand got booted from the fitness center for her “inappropriate” outfit.

Danielle doesn’t make it to her University’s fitness center often, but she needed a break following a long day of studying. Then, approximately one minute into her elliptical session, an employee interrupted her to ask her to leave because her shirt was “cut too low in the back.“

While a female student did the dirty work of actually booting Danielle from the facility, she said in a Facebook post that some investigating on her part revealed that the decision to kick her out came from the fitness director, a man. “That guy is just all around thoughtful, isn’t he? He sent a girl to kick me out of the gym, so that I would feel more comfortable with the situation,” Danielle wrote. “But, more importantly, he ensured that the whopping four boys in the fitness center could safely enjoy their workouts without stumbling upon the erotica that was displayed in the form of a keyhole on my top.”

Her Facebook post may have exuded confidence, but behind the self-deprecating humor, she admitted that as she walked out of the gym, she had to fight back tears. On her way out, she also bumped into a man on his way in who’s known for his revealing tank tops. “I wondered if he would be kicked out like I had been,” she told Total Sorority Move.

Danielle isn’t the only one to have been booted based on an outfit at the Washington and Lee fitness center. An article posted in January in the school’s student newspaper cited a slew of female students being asked to leave, marking a “troublesome trend.”

This issue isn’t just segregated to this small Virginia college. A student at Santa Clara University, a Jesuit school, was asked to leave the school’s gym because her shirt fell about an inch above her shorts. Outside of the school system, a 17-year-old was working out in an orange tank top at Planet Fitness when a female employee told her that her outfit was making others uncomfortable. Similarly, Tiffany Austin was exercising in a hot-pink crop top and matching pants when a Planet Fitness manager asked her to put on a shirt because she’s “intimidating people with your toned body.” Additionally, a pregnant mother, whose “belly was hanging out” of a purple tank top, was told by a staff member at her local gym that she was in violation of the gym’s dress code.