The Q Is on Purpose: How Crem Morris-Frazier Built Q Fitness and Wellness Into More Than a Gym

I wanted to revisist a conversation that I had a year ago on our Sweet Tea and the Economy podcast with Crem Morris-Frazier. Since then, she has not stopped growing and being awesome. In April of this year, she recieved our 2026 Catalyst Award at our annual THRIVE Gala, which goes to a true change maker in our business community.

She returned to Charlotte 5 years ago with more than 20 years of fitness and wellness experience, an emerging business, and a clear understanding of the people she wanted that business to serve. What she did not have was a physical location and in Jun 2022 she made a physical location happen.

Fast forward 4 years, Q Fitness and Wellness is Charlotte's only LGBTQ+-focused gym and wellness center. The business has 7 team members, nearly 200 regular clients, virtual clients across 3 continents, a growing collective of health and wellness practitioners, organizational programming, an annual 5K, a supplement line, merchandise, and plans to reach more people throughout the Carolinas.

Listed separately, those initiatives can sound like several different businesses. Crem sees them as parts of the same one.

"When I list it all out, it does seem like a lot," Crem said. "But to me, it is all about how we set ourselves up as the choice for fitness, wellness, and nutrition for the queer community in Charlotte, the surrounding areas, and the Triangle."

That is the business story behind Q Fitness and Wellness. Crem is not simply adding services. She is building an interconnected fitness and wellness ecosystem designed around the needs, experiences, and possibilities of the LGBTQ+ community.

The Q Is Not Accidental

Q Fitness and Wellness began in Minneapolis in 2019 before Crem relocated the business to Charlotte. Its physical Charlotte location opened in June 2022, creating what is now recognized as Charlotte's only LGBTQ+-focused gym and wellness center.

Its identity is not tucked into an "about us" statement or softened into generic language about inclusion.

That clarity matters because many LGBTQ+ people have had to assess whether a fitness facility, coach, class, or wellness provider will respect them before they can even begin thinking about their goals. At Q Fitness, the goal is to remove that question.

"We are an all-out queer gym, period."

Crem Morris-Frazier

The business provides customized and culturally responsive fitness, nutrition, and wellness services for LGBTQ+ people and allies. People of different body types, abilities, gender identities, fitness levels, and experiences are welcomed without being asked to conform to a narrow idea of what fitness should look like.

The Q is not a marketing accessory attached to an otherwise traditional gym. It determines how the business hires, develops programs, serves clients, chooses partners, and creates community. It is also part of what has allowed Q Fitness to grow.

Crem built the business by being specific about the people she wanted to serve rather than attempting to be everything to everyone. That focus has helped Q Fitness become a recognizable and trusted destination for people looking for an affirming fitness experience.

Nearly 200 Clients, With More Than One Way In

Q Fitness currently serves nearly 200 regular clients, but those clients do not all experience the business in the same way.

Some use the gym independently. Others participate in small-group classes, personal training, or buddy training. Virtual clients can livestream select classes or work directly with a coach. Other clients purchase customized programs and return every 4 to 6 weeks for assessments, check-ins, and updated plans.

The model gives people multiple ways to participate based on their location, schedule, comfort, goals, and desired level of support.

A person who wants the energy of a class can find it. Someone who needs individual coaching can receive it. A client who travels frequently can remain connected. Someone who does not live near an affirming fitness facility can work virtually with a Q Fitness coach. The company's virtual reach already extends far beyond Charlotte. Q Fitness serves virtual clients from nearby communities such as Gastonia and Steele Creek, as well as clients as far away as Australia and Denmark.

That reach began before virtual fitness became a long-term growth strategy. When the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the original in-person business, Crem shifted toward virtual training. Some of the clients who joined during that period continue working with Q Fitness today.

The result is a business that is rooted in a physical community but is not limited by its address.

The Wellness in Q Fitness and Wellness

Fitness is only part of Crem's vision.

Through the Q Fitness Wellness Collective, the business is developing a network of affirming practitioners who can support different aspects of a person's well-being. That includes relationships with professionals working in massage therapy, physical therapy, chiropractic care, mental health, nutrition, and other wellness disciplines.

Crem could have attempted to hire each type of provider and bring every service directly under the Q Fitness payroll. Instead, she saw an opportunity to support other wellness professionals whose values align with the business.

"I know such great people who are doing amazing things for our community," she said.

"Why not give them a space where they can grow their businesses?"

Crem Morris-Frazier

That model creates value on both sides. Q Fitness clients gain access to health and wellness practitioners who have already earned Crem's trust. They do not have to start from the beginning, searching for a provider and wondering whether they will be treated with the same care and respect they experience inside the gym.

The practitioners gain access to space, visibility, relationships, and a community that understands the importance of their work.

For Crem, this is also an extension of her leadership philosophy. "I feel like it is my job to serve people," she said. "Not just our clients, but people who I feel do great things in the community too."

The collective allows Q Fitness to become a more complete wellness destination without losing the specialized knowledge and independence each practitioner brings. It also helps build a stronger network of affirming businesses that can grow alongside one another.

One Business, Several Ways to Connect

The growth of Q Fitness and Wellness is also visible through a family of connected initiatives that extend the company beyond coaching and classes.

QFIT Connect is Crem's evolving vision for queer-centered wellness media and community information. Inside the gym, clients encounter fitness and nutrition tips, community updates, positive news, wellness resources, trivia, and introductions to trusted practitioners and affirming businesses. Crem describes it as a version of wellness television created through a queer lens. The longer-term opportunity is to make that content available to clients who are not physically inside the gym, connecting them to the information, personality, and community surrounding Q Fitness.

Q Fuel expands the nutrition side of the business. The growing line includes protein products, creatine, BCAAs, greens, hydration products, energy bites, and smoothies, and products can be shipped directly to clients outside Charlotte. Crem spent months testing the products before attaching the Q Fitness name to them. Clients were already asking the team for recommendations about supplements and nutrition products, so Q Fuel gives the business a way to recommend products it has tested and trusts while serving both physical and virtual clients. Crem eventually imagines Q Fuel growing into a cafe-style space where people can spend time together, whether they are coming in for a workout or simply looking for community.

QFIT Collective is the merchandise and apparel side of the brand. The products reflect expressions used by Q Fitness coaches and clients, with an emphasis on personality, quality, inclusive sizing, and reasonable pricing. "It has attitude," Crem said. "It has magic."

The annual QFW 5K has developed into a recognizable community event of its own. Crem sees the 5K as the beginning of something larger, with the potential to anchor a full weekend of fitness and wellness activities.

Each initiative creates another entry point into the same community. Someone may first encounter Q Fitness through a class, an organizational program, a product, an event, a practitioner, or a piece of content. Each can lead back to the broader business Crem is building.

Building Programs Outside the Gym

Q Fitness is also expanding through programming created for organizations, businesses, community groups, and events. Crem and her team have developed or delivered self-defense workshops, functional fitness programming, strength training, dance, yoga, martial arts, field-day activities, and wellness experiences for different audiences.

Programs can be designed for young people, older adults, athletes, people managing injuries, people experiencing mental health concerns, employees, nonprofit participants, or members of a particular community. "If it is movement related, functional, strength related, dance related, yoga, martial arts, or self-defense related, we can probably do it," Crem said.

Q Fitness has supported organizations and events including Time Out Youth, Charlotte Trans Health, Charlotte FC, Charlotte Roller Derby, the Carolinas LGBT+ Chamber of Commerce, and others. Crem has also developed fitness programming for travel experiences and larger community gatherings.

Some of those partnerships are offered as community support. Others are compensated business engagements. The distinction depends on the organization, the program, and the opportunity, but Crem begins with the same question each time: Are the organization's values aligned with those of Q Fitness?

"If it does not align with my values, we are not touching it."

Crem Morris-Frazier

"It does not matter if they are going to compensate us or not," she said.

Organizations also need to approach the work with enough time to plan it well. Q Fitness does not simply arrive with a generic workout and repeat it for every group. Crem wants to understand the audience, the objective, the location, the available equipment, and the experience the organization hopes to create. Most customized engagements require at least 2 to 3 months between the initial conversation and execution.

That planning is part of what makes the programming valuable. The organization is not merely booking an instructor. It is working with Q Fitness to develop an experience around the needs of the people being served.

Looking to the Future: Taking the Magic Beyond Charlotte

After 4 years in its Charlotte location, Q Fitness has reached a point where Crem no longer has to spend as much time explaining that a queer gym exists here. People know the business. They recommend it. Travelers search for a queer gym while visiting Charlotte and find Q Fitness. Community organizations approach Crem with ideas instead of waiting for her to introduce herself.

The next question is how to make the experience available to more people. Crem sees immediate opportunities in the communities surrounding Charlotte and throughout the Carolinas, particularly through virtual fitness and wellness services. The Triangle is another area of interest, with early community-building efforts creating a path toward a possible future physical location.

The challenge is not merely streaming more classes.

"The magic of Q Fitness is the people in the space. It is the energy that is here."

Crem Morris-Frazier

On a busy morning or evening, clients talk, laugh, encourage one another, interact with coaches, and participate in the personality of the gym. Virtual clients already catch glimpses of that environment when someone walks past a camera or joins a conversation during a class.

Crem believes that experience can become more intentional. A virtual client should be able to receive coaching while also feeling connected to the people, information, humor, and relationships that make the physical gym distinctive. That is the next evolution of Q Fitness: not recreating a Charlotte building on a screen, but carrying its culture beyond the building.