Changing gender without any medical care/advice/opinion - just saying 'I'm a woman' and it being so

FWIW I've completed the survey and identified as a lesbian. I really let rip on the comments section, for all the good it'll do...

I've also written to my MP today.

I am as livid as the rest of you.

I feel really let down by Ruth Hunt (of Stonewall) by this - I knew her a bit years ago, and I can't believe this is the same person who has caved into the transagenda.

I don't like it either. Find showering weird.

Not everywhere has cubicles.
Gyms and hotels especially don't, in my recent experience.

Yes sorry. Not communal. Cubicles.

Our local pool has a changing village and I hate it. You still have to be fully decent to get stuff in or out of your locker, not to mention having teenage boys goofing off loudly in the next cubicle. Personally I find them horrible but I guess I'm an old git.

The 38 degrees petition has been taken down, I never got to see it. "We reserve the right to remove any petition which we judge to promote illegal acts, hatred, violence, discrimination or stereotypes based on race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, disability, nationality or religion

38 Degrees is independent of all political parties, and upholds values of freedom, democracy, peace, human rights, community, equality, fairness and sustainability. We reserve the right to remove any campaigns or comments that do not share these principles".

Our swimming pool has a communal changing village with lockable doors, suits families and friend groups mainly. Then there's a separate adult men and adult women changing area, with lockable doors.

'communal changing rooms at swimming has been the norm for some time I thought?'

What do you mean by communal? At the lovely new pool near my parents there is a gender neutral 'changing village', all cubicles with walls going right to the floor, so no problems there.
But my local pool has single sex changing rooms which are mostly open areas with only a handful of cubicles and even those have rather skimpy partitions (a head appeared under mine while I was changing recently! As it was a toddler I wasn't too bothered but it does mean you wouldn't feel comfortable there if it was mixed.)

communal changing rooms at swimming has been the norm for some time I thought? Is that unusual? Ditto toilets, not completely unusual.

I wasn't aware of this. I know about toilets in some venues and universities but I've never been anywhere they're not segregated by sex nor would I want this to be normal.

I'm aware of the issues but really poorly informed. I'm going to have a read of the previous government papers.

Just wondering a couple of things posters here might know. What input has there been from others such as WA or the government's Violence Against Women and Girls group?

Out of interest, in terms of the general public reaction... communal changing rooms at swimming has been the norm for some time I thought? Is that unusual? Ditto toilets, not completely unusual. And my local rape support organisation already supports and employs self-identified women.

Re prisons - where like many I see a huge issue - well, sadly prisoner welfare has never troubled the public.
I think Howard's League has probably spoken about concerns for transgender people where they have been vulnerable. Have they spoken about the flip side of women's vulnerability?

I think I'm going to have to walk away from these threads as my boiling blood is going to spurt through the top of my head.

There'll be plenty of opportunities for capitalism. We'll all be buying big towels to get changed under at the no-longer-single-sex swimming pool changing rooms for instance.

WeyHay, yes, and something that has only been granted very recently is always vulnerable to being taken away.

I said a similar thing Magical (can't find who said bold bit originally sorry) but I hope the social and economic impact of women hiding away will make everyone realise how bad this is. It's just a worry of how long it'll take before the tide turns.

. We can hope that there will be a huge backlash once the implications for women and children become clear, but it's more likely that there will simply be a slow shift of social mores, to a society where women and children are more unsafe and less involved in public life, and this becomes the new normal.

I've only got this far with the thread so apologies if someone's already said this but I think you're right and attitudes to women doing things like going to the gym at quiet times or using public toilets when it's not busy may start to be seen as on a par with walking home alone after dark. In that if we get attacked in that situation, we're often held responsible for being reckless about our safety.

What I mean is, the medical profession & medical research has always worked from the unstated, unarticulated assumption that the male body and male physiology is the norm, and that female bodies were "Other."

I thought this had shifted, just a wee bit.

But no, it seems not ...

Oh dear Sylvia - it took long enough for research funding & NHS practical money to be dedicated to "women's" diseases, such as breast cancer (although we're very behind on ovarian cancer), or to recognise that women's bodies & female biology weren't just slightly defective versions of male biology , and that we suffer serious/major diseases or conditions differently eg heart attacks, autism.

Is this whole thing not a stepping stone to getting rid of single sex services altogether. That would save the government a lot of money, especially in the NHS.

In fact at least some of us should fill it in as TW and be very specific about how we are so oppressed because lesbians won't sleep with us no matter how much we demand it etc

So you trust those who make the survey are not in fact in favour of lesbians being raped?

I have lost all trust in the common sense of politicians by now.

In fact at least some of us should fill it in as TW and be very specific about how we are so oppressed because lesbians won't sleep with us no matter how much we demand it etc

Fill in the survey. Get others to fill in the survey. Identify however the shit you like to get our point across.

My theory about the government's support for this measure comes from the language used by Maria Miller and Justine Greening. One phrase I hear from them again and again is that things need to change because the current views are "out of date". I think that they've decided they don't want to be caught on the wrong side of the trans issue, ie not on the same side as young people. I think it's about positioning with an eye to the demographics.

I wonder what they are going to do if all women in the UK identify as male in the census. Perhaps they'd realize that they have been very, very, very stupid.

Or they'd just not connect it to genderism and investigate the disappearance of millions of women.

The silencing of women is absolutely sinister.

The 38degrees petition has been disabled!!