This email landed in my inbox last June. I take yoga classes regularly as part of my fitness routine, and I have taken a few classes at this studio when stitches prevented me from taking my normal hot yoga. I remain on the mailing list.
As you can see, the tone of the email is evangelical, hyperbolic and obsessed. The author also conflates the rights of same-sex attracted people and the suffering during the AIDS crisis with gender ideology so completely that, in her mind, they cannot be decoupled. The alarming fixation on children that is central to gender ideology is also fully on display.
The studio is a small operation in the Mt. Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia and during one of my visits, the teacher/owner/email-author started a meditation to save “Black trans bodies.”
Mt. Airy is a lovely, diverse and left-leaning community, but the studio’s clientele appeared to be entirely white and middle aged. The teacher then started shilling her pro-trans merch, which was for sale by the register. The less said about her reduction of the Black experience to “bodies” the better.
It was, to say the least, a lot for a person who just wanted to get some down dogs in before moving on with her day. I did not return, but the email nevertheless arrived.