This story is part of Trans in Fitness—a series of profiles that highlights the fitness changemakers who are making the world easier and healthier for their community. Read the rest of the inspiring stories here.
A PERSON WITH their hair up in a bun approaches the front desk through the open overhead garage doors. They’re wearing a sweatshirt with a pink triangle, a reclaimed symbol of queerness. By the uncertainty in their step and the questioning look on their face, it’s clear that this is their first time at this gym. At the front desk, owner Max Adler welcomes them to OutBox. He asks about their experience level with boxing.
“Er, some?” they respond, with a laugh and a raised eyebrow.
“That’s perfect! You don’t need any.”
Adler points them to the two gender-neutral locker rooms in the back of the gym and tells them to come back after so that he can help them put on their protective wraps. With the wraps on, the person dons Outbox’s signature pink and blue gloves—the same colors as the transgender pride flag. There’s no shortage of boxing gyms in New York City, but OutBox stands out for details like these.
Centered around boxing with additional strength training offerings, OutBox is one of a few but growing number of gyms in the country that focus on queer and trans individuals (other examples include EVERYBODY in LA, Queer Gym in Oakland, and the bi-monthly Queer Gym Pop-up in Brookline.) It is open to all people, though it focuses specifically on serving trans and gender nonconforming people looking to improve their fitness. Amid vitriolic rhetoric about trans participation in sports and the progression of transphobic laws across the United States, OutBox offers refuge—for its clientele and its owner.
Adler saw the need for trans-specific fitness spaces from his own experience as an amateur boxer and coach before his transition. At his former place of employment, he had to walk through a locker room to get to the gym. Each day, this meant choosing how he wanted to define his gender just to go to work. He remembers how the first time he entered the men’s locker room after his own transition, a fellow boxer and coach made a comment: “Oh, you’re in here now.”
Adler didn’t feel judged or scrutinized by that person, but he certainly felt watched. He had heard of similar experiences from several of his trans and gender nonconforming clients before, but now he was dealing with it firsthand. That experience helped shape how Adler makes decisions for his gym now: “My first priority was to get rid of all the gendered crap,” he says. The gender-neutral changing rooms eliminate the need for people to have to “choose” how they want to present themselves every time they walk into the space.
The OutBox space is decorated with Pride flags. Adler says he always wants his clients to “feel comfortable and joyful.”
“Every day we get someone who comes in here who says this experience has changed their lives or made them feel comfortable at a gym like they never have before,” says Colline Laninga, one of OutBox’s coaches. “So many people come in with horror stories from traditional gyms where they received comments about their bodies, their ability, or their gender. As a femme-presenting person, I myself get put in a box—but not here. I’m the one who lifts and sets up the heavy bags.”
Adler, 34, knew he was trans since his early 20s, but used boxing competitions as an excuse to not transition, as the recovery process would keep him out of the ring for months.
“I think I was hiding behind that,” Adler says. “But then I started training trans folks and I realized this was something I needed to do. In 2019, I competed in my last fight, and then I got top surgery shortly after. I started taking testosterone during the pandemic.”
Through the preparation for and experience of surgery, Adler realized he wanted to create his own gym where people like him could feel welcome and confident in their bodies.
“I realized, as a trainer, I could only keep trans people safe in our little bubble,” he says. “I didn’t feel comfortable going into any gym or any locker room after I transitioned, and then the pandemic happened, and everything shut down. I thought, maybe I should open my own place.”
Adler opened Outbox in late 2021 and immediately got to work on building an inclusive gym.
“I want our trans clients to have a gym experience that is at the same caliber of any other gym they can go to, but in a space where they feel comfortable and joyful,” he says.
OutBox’s trainers—many of them trans, gender non conforming, or otherwise queer themselves—will never say “Keep it up, ladies!” Guidelines around which weights to use are personalized instead of the all-too-common norm of telling men to get higher weights and women to get lower weights. Sparring partners are paired based on ability, not along the lines of gender or weight. Classes are generally somewhere between 10 to 20 boxers, which in OutBox’s large space never feels too crowded. More importantly, it allows the coaches to tailor the experience to each person—to make clients “feel welcome to our community, seen, and cared for,” Laninga says.
As boxers paired up to spar with partners—including the newbie with the pink triangle on their sweatshirt—the Outbox vision came to life. They start out a bit tepidly, unsure of how the class is going to go. But Coach Laninga helps motivate them to start throwing punches a bit more freely. Laninga notes how she can tell they have experience boxing, and they are noticeably more confident than when they approached the desk. Laninga advises them on form and functional strength, never mentioning how many calories they are burning. By the end of the class, they start bouncing on their toes and swinging with a smile on their face, the pink triangle sweatshirt now taken off as they work up a sweat. The workouts are serious—but the coaches and the members never take themselves too seriously. Strangers like the person in the pink sweatshirt end up laughing and cheering each other on.
“It’s important to me that we are changing the narrative of having to hide our trans identities and instead be proud of that,” Adler says. “I want people who come in and see people that look like them and talk to each other for resources. I love when people here are shirtless and show off the scars from their surgeries.”
Adler practices what he preaches; his own photo on Outbox’s website proudly displays his scars from top surgery.
Adler’s photo on the outbox website.
Building a meaningful community at OutBox was only the first round in the fight. The toughest matchup pits Adler’s vision to create an inclusive, affordable fitness experience against the realities of competing and surviving as a gym in NYC. Classes at OutBox are $30, $8 cheaper than the boxing gym chain Rumble. Every Wednesday, OutBox offers a free strength training class that books out weeks in advance. Trainers, including Adler, offer sliding-scale pricing for personal training as much as financially feasible.
“There are already so many barriers to trans people in fitness,” Adler says. “I want to avoid cost being another one.”
Soaring operating costs and new competitors make this balancing act more challenging every day. But ever the fighter, Adler remains optimistic. From putting on ticketed boxing matches to hosting community events and parties, OutBox diversifies its revenue streams to continue to serve its members, many of whom are keen to help themselves. After class one day, I chat with Adler and one of his clients, Remi. Remi, who works at a local club, suggests bringing in performers and nightlife acts to bring in new people to the OutBox space.
“What about a drag boxing event?” I propose.
“I love that,” Remi says. “I know a ton of drag artists.”
Adler and Remi share updates about their weekends, and about which classes Remi signed up for. We banter about reality TV, including 90 Day Fiancé and the Real Housewives franchise. These small moments of community help prove that Adler’s mission for OutBox is working.
Adler is considering ways to make the space more inclusive, besides financial elements. He hopes to leverage Laninga’s expertise in nutrition to help guide choices for individuals who might feel sluggish from the side effects of hormones, or otherwise want to make healthy choices for themselves.
“We are very anti-diet culture; we just want to help people make choices that are both healthy and help them manage their side effects,” Adler says.
Other efforts are in flight, including a regular butch boxing event, and plans for a series of classes specifically geared toward older trans individuals. OutBox has members who are in their sixties or older, some of whom feel uncomfortable working out next to mostly 20-somethings.
“They don’t want to box near a 22-year-old while Rihanna is blasting,” Adler says. “Plus, they have unique health considerations and want to build strength as they age, and that’s a goal we want to help them on.”
A crew of boxers at OutBox.
Most importantly for Adler, the onslaught of anti-trans legislation is both devastating and a reason to keep fighting for his fitness community. The ban on gender-affirming care for minors in Iowa hit him deeply in March, while he was recovering from another surgery he’d undergone to be more comfortable in his identity. But rather than get bogged down by the news, Adler uses it as a rationale to create an even more trans-specific space.
For Adler, this means supporting not only his clients’ training goals, but the broader relationships trans people have with their bodies. For his gender-affirming surgeries, Adler had to comb through online forums or Reddit threads to find information about his doctors or learn more about his surgeries. He envisions a future where OutBox members ask him and others for insight into their care journey. He’s already seen some of these conversations occurring naturally when a few members discussed their experience taking hormones. Rechanneling the despair of the legislative environment into a motivating factor allows OutBox to focus on trans joy.
“A lot of people from outside the gym ask, ‘Oh are you going to offer self-defense?’ in response to anti-trans bills or the environment,” Adler says. “But I don’t want to do that. Boxing is not about self-defense, and I don’t want people to come in here and worry about what’s going on outside. I avoid posting about all the horrible news on our Instagram because I want this to be a space where trans people can just be.”
Adler remains energized about the future with a mindset developed during his days as a competitor: practice makes perfect. Outbox will continuously strive to reimagine gym standards, creating an even more inclusive environment, one increasingly focused on serving the trans community. Adler and the OutBox team know that trans and gender nonconforming people are still fighting for space everywhere. But they remain hopeful that this gym has many more rounds in its future.
Contributor
Jack Lancaster is a writer of essays on queer topics based in Brooklyn whose work can be found at www.jack-lancaster.com.
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