Fitness as Queer Joy: moving our bodies outside of shame

For many of us in the queer and LGBTQ community, fitness hasn’t always felt joyful. It’s been tied to shame, to erasure, to trying to disappear or “fix” ourselves. But movement—when reclaimed—can become something so much deeper.

Fitness can be queer joy.

It can be playful, healing, wild, sexy, sacred.

It can be a space where we get to return to ourselves, not escape.

As a queer personal trainer, I’ve watched gay, trans, and nonbinary clients rewrite their relationships with their bodies—not by conforming, but by reclaiming. and in this blog, I’m going to talk about how. Let’s get rolling.

Moving In Queerness: for Pleasure, Not Punishment

Mainstream fitness often centers weight loss, rigid goals, or aesthetics. But queer movement says:

What if you moved because it felt good?

Pleasure isn’t indulgent—it’s resistance. Dancing in your kitchen counts. Stretching under soft light counts. and So does lifting heavy, hiking with friends, or just… breathing more deeply. It all counts.

Gay and trans clients are increasingly shifting away from punishment and toward joy—and it’s transforming what fitness even means.

Making Space for Messy, Honest Embodiment, Gay Style

Sometimes joy doesn’t look like a smile. It looks like showing up.

It looks like moving through dysphoria. It looks like honoring fatigue. It looks like being witnessed—fully.

Fitness culture often promotes perfection. Queer personaltraining can offer something better:

A space to be whole, not flawless. A space where your body doesn’t need to “behave” to be loved.

Restoring Play and Expression

One of my favorite things about training LGBTQ clients?

We bring the weird back. The camp. The playfulness. It can get very silly on an early morning with me. And honestly if it didn’t I couldn’t do what I do.

We lunge in heels. We squat to Britney. We stretch while talking about astrology and love.

And That joy is not a side effect—it’s the point.

Queer fitness is an expressive practice. It’s about reclaiming movement as something we get to invent. Right??

Honoring the Sacred in Our Bodies, from a 2SLGBTQIA+ Perspective

For many queer folks, our bodies have been sites of trauma, policing, or invisibility. But they’re also sites of power. Big. MAssive. Loud. Power.

Fitness then becomes a ritual of return.

A way to come back to the breath. The hips. The voice. The core.

A way to move from survival and feeling less-than into celebration and power stances.

We don’t just want our bodies to change. We want to feel at home in them. And that is sacred.

Building Joyful, Queer-Centered Fitness Culture

When LGBTQ clients train together—or with affirming queer coaches—something beautiful happens:

We start to see movement not as isolation, but as community care.

We hype each other. We witness each other. We build joy together.

As a Queer personal trainer, I don’t just program workouts—I co-create space. And in that space, shame doesn’t get the final word.

Rhianna does.

Fitness doesn’t have to be a site of shame.

It can be A site of queer joy.