A man allegedly threatened to kill a transgender woman who used the women’s locker room at a Planet Fitness in Nashua, New Hampshire, leading to an order that bars the man from the Planet Fitness location and from contact with the woman for one year, according to a Nov. 1 statement from the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office.
The Hillsborough County Superior Court – Southern District, which is a trial court, found that on March 17, 2019, Marc Bernier repeatedly threatened to kill a transgender woman who was a member of the Planet Fitness after he learned she was transgender and had used the women’s locker room.
The complaint noted that Bernier asked the woman her gender as she was working out, according to an article in the New Hampshire Union Leader, citing the complaint. The woman told Bernier it wasn’t his business to which Bernier replied that it was his business because his wife changes in the women’s locker room. He then allegedly threatened to kill the woman if she went into the women’s locker room again, according to the complaint.
The woman made a Planet Fitness employee aware of the situation, and the employee explained that Planet Fitness allows people to use the locker room of the gender they self-identify with and offered to let Bernier and his wife use a private changing room, but Bernier allegedly again threatened to kill the transgender woman. Police were called, and Bernier again threatened the woman’s life in front of the police, according to the complaint. Bernier was arrested on a charge of criminal threatening. The criminal case is still pending.
The ruling by the court on Nov. 1 was for a civil rights case that the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Civil Rights Unit filed against Bernier in July alleging he violated the state’s Civil Rights Act during the March incident.
The court agreed that Bernier had violated the Civil Right Act and ordered a one-year injunction against him that bars him from knowingly coming within 250 feet of the woman and from entering the Planet Fitness location, according to the statement.
Bernier also must pay a $3,000 civil penalty with all but $500 suspended for one year with the condition that he comply with the terms of the injunction, the statement noted.
Planet Fitness declined to comment for the story, so no further details on the man’s status as a Planet Fitness member or his ability to exercise at other Planet Fitness locations is known.