UK gym to admit self ID'ing men into womens changing rooms

I have just come back from Iceland where there is a culture of fully naked showers before getting in lagoons etc, the sign said (to us shyer foreigners) 'There's no shame, we're all the same' - I wonder how they are dealing with this current bit of cultural double-think.

If this idea of gender feelings over-riding biological sex does hang around for long then there will be no point in sex separated spaces at all, we will have to move to individual spaces for all.

After DD's swimming class there is a women's swim session. This is predominantly used by Muslim women, many in burkinis. Huge gaggle of Somali women paying their entrance fee as we left. I assume once this law comes in it will be very difficult for these women to use the leisure centre as there will be no way to stop any man from swimming during this session. Quite aside from anything else that makes me very angry indeed, it's like the fucking oppression Olympics top trumps. Somali women are hardly over-involved in public life, many will be refugees, poorly educated, but hey, let's make life just that bit more bloody difficult for them, to please a bunch of narc males.

Not forgetting the space Invaders who are always just to close.

I used to work with a manager who would come over to your desk and stand just to close, then get your attention so as you turned your head you were at eye level with his groin. It was obvious how much he enjoyed doing this IYKWIM. I heard him bragging to some other managers on a night out about how funny he thought it was. Apparently it was fine because he didn't say anything dodgy or touch anyone.

@Datun
Woman's radar about a 'look' is so finely tuned, it's not funny.

Smirking, ogling. There are a million ways a man can deliberately make a woman feel uncomfortable whilst doing absolutely nothing that she can legitimately object to.

I was on a busy train into London in broad daylight. I spent a good 15mins being unflinchingly stared at.

What could I possibly have said or done?!
"Don't stare at me" -> "Er, I'm not you mad woman".

Case closed, I look like a weirdo "feminazi" full of myself nutcase, guy gets off scott free, despite both of us knowing the reality.

powernapps I don't think that is what transactivists want. They specifically want to use women's changing rooms, not family or single cubicles.
Gyms and other businesses will have to adapt by installing single secure cubicles in the women's changing rooms, otherwise they will lose a significant number of female customers. Expensive, yes but that is probably the only option.
I use a swimming pool with a unisex changing room and this just isn't a problem, because everyone - men, women and children get changed in self contained cubicles.

I wonder how this will effect women who for religious reasons could not change in a room with men ?

Presumably these women would just stop going too.

Our gym has male and female and then two self contained family changing rooms. I don't know if they have a policy for men as women without surgery but it would make sense for them to be directed to the family changing rooms as no risk of upsetting anyone

Am I missing something or has the OP named the Gym yet?

The part of this that infuriates me wrappedupinmyselflikeaspool is that many men, regular, decent men, don't get it. Because they have never had to.

If I suggested they go into an enclosure with say 100 gorillas, a certain percentage of whom might attack them, but they can't tell which ones, then they might.

Datun exactly. And this is how so many sex offenders love to operate, where people feel they can't say anything. It's the lack of consent that gives them the kick.

wrappedupinmyselflikeaspool

Quite apart from the voyeuristic aspect, any woman who has had the experience of one child complaining that the other child is 'looking at them funny', knows exactly what you mean.

Woman's radar about a 'look' is so finely tuned, it's not funny.

Smirking, ogling. There are a million ways a man can deliberately make a woman feel uncomfortable whilst doing absolutely nothing that she can legitimately object to.

I doubt there's a woman on the planet who doesn't know this. Or a man who congratulates himself that he's got away with it.

Josuk YES sex offenders wandering in to offend in plain sight. Do you know nothing about sex offenders? Lucky you! I know rather a lot about them unfortunately, quite a lot of it from personal experience and I can tell you this is not hypothetical. Get a grip of yourself and try staring reality in the face every once in a while.

Looking back, I now think she had simply been quietly getting on with sorting herself out in a way that was comfortable for her, comfortable for us and caused no issues to anyone. But then where would the TRAs get material from if everyone was as reasonable and grown-up about it as she was...

That nicely illustrates it is not really about transsexuals, is it?

It is not about male people who really feel they are women (and behave like women). They might want some more private changing rooms, problem solved.

This whole transmovement we have at the moment is about men who are perfectly happy with their penis and their masculine socialisation and who just don't want to accept that women have male-free spaces.
It is a backlash against feminism, plain and simple.

Nothing to do with the 0,1 percent or so of people who actually are unhappy with their biological sex as adults.

Why wouldn't women "get worked up" about having to use a communal changing room with male bodied people against their will?

Exactly what @Josuk said. Seems like a very odd thing to get worked up about to me

A while ago, I was at a mixed sex hobby event. There was a woman there (who I now realise was trans, but at the time, didn't really enter my head). She had arrived in her hobby clothes and we all did the event without issue.

I very vaguely noticed she took herself off to a private changing room afterwards, but I simply assumed she preferred a non-open plan women's changing room (and slightly envious of her forward thinking as I am no fan of showering with virtual strangers either!)

Looking back, I now think she had simply been quietly getting on with sorting herself out in a way that was comfortable for her, comfortable for us and caused no issues to anyone. But then where would the TRAs get material from if everyone was as reasonable and grown-up about it as she was...

It should be this simple: penis= men's changing room. vagina= woman's changing room. By allowing a male identifying as female into a female only space, they are prioritising the wishes of a small minority and disregarding half the population ( female). This needs to be nipped in the bud before we end up with a potentially dangerous society.

What PPs said about not needing violence to make women uncomfortable is very true. Where I lived in France had predominantly unisex toilets. On at least a weekly basis, if not more frequently, I'd have guys intentionally making it difficult for me to leave by "accidentally" blocking the exit, or just spending too long washing their hands at the only sink, smirking, whilst I waited for them to finish, or as blatantly watching me as I walked into the toilets.

It was intimidating and they clearly got their kicks from knowing they'd stopped just short of anything I could report them for.

I was going to start a thread but I'll just tag it in here as it's a similar situation, there was a meeting at my work this morning about the youngest member of staff, a young lad of 19, we were told he now identifies as female and had a new name ( a really silly /girly name , think K-tee ) .
There are 8 women in a building with 30 men, we have our own locker room and toilets - our manager explained they had asked K-tee which they would like to use and they said they would use the mens' facilities until they had properly transitioned.

I did ask privately what would have happened if he had said he wanted to use the womens' rooms and was told it would be the decision of the business, I then asked if the female staff would have any say but was fobbed off .
He is customer facing and unfortunately will never 'pass' as female.

I have a son.

I'm also a feminist.

The two are not incompatible.

It's because they can't acknowledge that some men are predators. Because this somehow implicates their 'sons'. Well fuck that. I have sons and I am not implicating them but they do know that men who attack women are the scum of the earth. Why would I not teach them that? Why wouldn't my husband teach them that, as he does?

You abuse apologisers need to get over your issues and raise decent men

No one has yet given me an adequate explanation about why exactly I should be expected to "get over my issues" (ralph's phrase) or "get over myself" or "over it" or "address my problems", whatever other phrase people care to use; when my issues/ problems/ etc are the direct result of real, lived, physical experience of physical violence from men, an experience shared by far too many girls and women, a reality backed up by national statistics; just to avoid causing tiny emotional issues to a small group who cannot similarly and must not even be asked to similarly "get over themselves".

Why the disconnect? Why the inconsistency? Ralph, can you explain it? The only reason I can see is that old problem of women and girls just not really being very important. And that is not good enough.

You want this in the woman's changing room?

twitter.com/exposingtrans/status/894873783122526209