Natalee Barnett, 21, a fitness YouTuber from South East London, started her journey by uploading workout routines and selling workout guides. She has 212K YouTube subscribers. Today in She Her Them, she unveils her plans on opening a women’s only gym by 2022.
Natalee Barnett has been a fitness influencer for three years. Her goal is to get womxn into fitness.
You are launching your own womxn’s gym only in London. Congrats on that. How did the idea come about?
I always thought about womxn’s only gym before I even joined the gym, and then when I started YouTube and all my content and the merchandise that I sell, everything is for womxn so I was like: ‘’Oh I would love to build a womxn’s only gym.’’ Only recently I realised the demand and the need for it. Honestly, it’s been about two years, three years since I wanted to go to a womxn’s only gym. It’s nothing new or out of the blue.
How did that idea come about? What sort of interests sparked you to come up with this idea?
As a fitness influencer, I receive so many direct messages (DM’s) about horrific stories that girls go through at the gym. The influx of DMs that I received daily has motivated me to build a womxn’s only gym.
Is that something that you have kind of gone through as well like ever feeling intimidated or any harassment or something in a mix gender gym?
No. Funny enough because it is me building a gym for womxn only. Men don’t intimidate me at the gym at all. There have been so many occasions where I have been the only womxn in the whole of the gym. It doesn’t bother me but is just one, the influx of DMs from other girls and two I have experienced some other kind of harassment and stuff but nothing major. It's just the mansplaining, unsolicited advice like they coming over to talk to you.
What is the kind of reception being and like the response to your announcing this? I know you had a lot of womxn and girls thinking that this is amazing, but I’m sure you probably had another kind of response as well.
I would honestly say it’s been 80% positive and 20% negative. And the only negativity came from men, and again it doesn’t concern them so I’m not so fussed about that coming from men, because they would never be at my gym. The only real argument men had was if I was to build a man’s only gym, womxn would be furious about it and honestly hand on heart I don’t believe that would be the case. If it came from womxn, I would be more concerned and probably take it on board as criticising or something to think about.
Have you got a venue already?
My initial plan was to build in London, but my business consultant got back to me the other day and he said that any warehouse that I would like to go for, needs to be unoccupied for about two years before I can lease them so he is finding it hard to find an empty warehouse that’s been empty for two years. So, I think the plan may have to be to sift it to Birmingham for the first year and then run into London.
How do you want it to look? Do you want it to look girly or the same as other gyms but just for womxn?
I am very much an aesthetic person, I love stuff to look aesthetically pleasing. So many of the gyms that I have attended and even women's only gyms are so dull, not good lighting, not good music. Therefore, for my gym, I want it to be bright with skylight windows. I would also want mirrors everywhere because I know women like to take pictures, and that’s another thing, in so many gyms when you want to take a cute booty picture or something you get stares at but if I was in a gym with womxn everyone would understand.
Are you worried at all about opening a gym we are in a pandemic gym that has been closing, some of them have been closing down? Is that a worry for you at all?
I see it entirely as a blessing in disguise because If the gyms were open, I would feel rushed. I just think the gyms being closed is a blessing because a lot of the prices or warehouses are a lot lower because of the pandemic. It is working in my favour and anyone that knows me in terms of merchandise I release and the workout guides I sell knows that I hate rushing stuff so this is like I can take my time. I can find a building that matches I don’t have to go for the first building I see. There is such a need for a womxn-only gym, in every city and country because there are womxn’s everywhere.
Is your gym is going to be inclusive of all different kind of womxn like different ethnicities, transgender women, gender non conforming womxn?
I think that is been the number one question on both TikTok and Twitter, and I am like ‘’why on earth would transgender womxn not be welcomed? In my eyes there are womxn. Every womxn would be welcomed. There is so much research to seeing transgender womxn being turned away from womxn-only spaces, and I just think ‘’we are really in 2021 I don’t know why transgender womxn are being turned away‘’ and It saddest me because I would never turn away transgender womxn. Absolutely anyone from every walk of life, ethnicity is welcomed to my gym.
What did you study at uni? Was it business or was it a completely different avenue?
I studied Psychology. But I kind of dropped out because I can't do things that I don’t enjoy. I know I want to do fitness, and it took me to come to university and study psychology to realise fitness is my calling. That's what I kind of signed up for. I'm so grateful that I signed up for university because if I hadn't I would’ve always wanted to be a phycologist and had my practice and it’s only because I studied it I realised that fitness is what I wanted to do. Sometimes you end up in positions where you really hate what you are doing but then it is a blessing in disguise because you end up doing what you wanted to do.
So when can we kind of expect this sort of open up and start there?
I would say 2022, mid-2022 if I can find the right warehouse. It seems so far away but again I need to get this vision correctly. I know is going to be life-changing for so many women, I don’t want to rush it and get it wrong.
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