No gym for me

No, people are not interested in the OP's body in the changing rooms."

You know what, we keep getting told they’re not interested in looking at us and our awful old naked bodies, but we know because of the relentless pushing to get into the spaces where we undress that actually, they’re desperate to see us naked. If they weren’t, they’d accept a third option. They don’t. Women’s bodies are both desired and resented in equal measure by men and some men want access to them for many reasons, including to make us fearful and to humiliate. We see you.

StopThePlanet I’m so sorry that happened to you. How awful.

"No, people are not interested in the OP's body in the changing rooms."

That's not necessarily completely true is it. I went swimming when heavily pregnant and had a lot of stares when getting changed, and I mean people openly staring. If there's anything different about you, you could well attract interest.

And there was no point going in a cubicle. There were two, they were tiny and had semi-transparent curtains that weren't wide enough to give any privacy.

NottonightJosepheen

You're right they did fail me abysmally and now they're telling me that because I want to cancel my membership because of a widely published change in policy I'm responsible for the fees. By the way they don't send you a copy of change in policies or updates to the contract when they renew you they just charge your debit card.

GaraMedouar

StopthePlanet - so sorry, that is awful. Terrifying. Are you in the UK? That's no different to a flasher.

Thanks so much it was weirdly terrifying and confusing at the same time. I'm in the US (Florida) - the kids working at the gym are super woke and looked at me with disgust when I tearfully explained the situation. Even though I am protected as a sex class and gender identity is not all the big corporations here are jumping on the TWAW bandwagon thus rendering me a bigot for desiring safety.

Because the incident occurred in a locker room that's now "inclusive" it's not considered flashing. The gym certainly did not notify me (a paying customer of 10yrs) in advance (or at all) that I would now have to share a locker room with whomever claims to be a woman when the policy changed. Canceling the gym contract comes with a bunch of early cancellation fees as my membership renewed one month before this incident.

Btw, re reading what I said above: Karen White is as much a TW as anyone else.

I actually don't care if a TW is the loveliest person on the planet with DBS clearance to the highest level, and a nomination for sainthood. We're not talking about who I'd like to work with, or go out to lunch with or be friends with, we're talking about who I feel safe getting naked in front of. TWs are males. I do not get naked in front of strange males, no normal female does.

No one is suggesting that all sex segregation should be abandoned and everyone should share facilities, it's normal to segregate sexes for privacy, dignity and safety. So we're talking about women being asked to make an exemption for some males.

This is sold on the 'TWAW' pitch, that a male who identifies as a woman is just a woman with a different kind of body, which should be accepted by women.

Well you're free to believe that if you want to. I am a genderism atheist. I do not believe people change sex, I accept that some men are TW and identify as women, living femininity - crack on. But they're men, I perceive them as men, and my experience of them is exactly the same as with any other man. So undressing/toileting/sleeping on wards alongside them, no, no more than I would with any other stranger who was male. So no, I won't be accepting it.

And that's with genuine TW. The stealth creep of self ID now means any man with any agenda can be in women's facilities with women at their most vulnerable. It has already been abused, there are already women and girl victims as a direct result of this policy, and sticking your head in the sand and pretending it isn't real isn't going to help. When you push the TRA arguments to the wall on this, you actually find the attitude that yes, for sure women and girls will suffer rape/assault/ voyeurism/ sexual offending/ quite possibly murders as a result of this, but women must suck up this cost for the greater good of men having their sexual and self expressive freedoms. This is the duty of their 'privilege' of being born with female anatomy. (How many times in history has being born with female anatomy been used as a reason why women deserve lesser treatment and punishment...? Plus ca change.)

I won't be accepting that either. If you're a woman, I frankly think you're insane if you do.

@Feministcat.

By all accounts that's only determinable by smell and mouth feel . I dont intend to get that close 🤢

StopthePlanet - so sorry, that is awful. Terrifying. Are you in the UK? That's no different to a flasher.

Our gym locker room does not have cubicles it's completely open plan. I always turn to acknowledge people when I feel their presence behind me to let them know I know they're there and for my own comfort to get a visual on whoever is close to my person.

Standing at the sink in my underwear rinsing blood out of my workout pants I felt a presence behind me. I turned to acknowledge the person behind me and was very surprised to see a 6'4"+ 240lbs+ TW completely naked with a giant uncircumcised penis.

I squealed like a child, giggled oddly, and immediately apologized to the TW. For a split second I felt so guilty as if my natural reaction was cruel and not attached to some level of visceral fear.

I felt panicked, my heart began to race, I was feeling vulnerable, weak, and in a lot of pain for my period started while working out. I put my very wet workout pants back on and began to gather my things - and the TW was still standing there completely naked except now staring at me.

Since they were staring at me I felt it necessary to tell them "when in Rome do as the Romans" and "in the ladies rocker locker room that means avoiding full nudity as much as possible". This individual began screaming at me while naked calling me a Terf with penis swinging and I started crying like a little fuckwad. I left the locker room as fast as I could - the individual followed me out in a towel into the main gym area still screaming Terf and bigot at me.

The general manager treated me very poorly and told me that since I am a transphobe I should either use my home bathroom facilities or do a check of the locker room before using it to ensure that I wouldn't offend anyone with my presence.

Nothing crazy happened the TW didn't touch me or do anything to me beyond yell but they did chase me out of a space that was supposed to be meant for me - a biological woman.

I'm now fighting with the gym to get my annual membership canceled - my DH and mother have barked at me so much about not going back there as they are afraid that I will get to attacked in the parking lot. Their feelings may be a little extreme but as a woman and sexual assualt survivor I have learned to function on the side of caution.

This isn't about being a transphobe this is about sex-segregated spaces staying segregated for girls/women's safety -psychological, emotional, and physical. Because I'm nice I still wonder if my reaction to the TW was cruel and feel bad about the possibility of hurting their feelings... but my logical rational mind says I was the one made to feel uncomfortable and I was the one who became invisible as a class and visible as a bigot in the light of a man's desire to take over a space meant for me.

I expect some women possibly with larger stature than I or without a history of physical violence perpetrated upon them may feel differently but that doesn't invalidate my voice. Just because some are comfortable being in isolated spaces with someone twice their size wielding a penis doesn't mean that those of us that aren't should have to "suck it up".

SarahTancredi

The trans woman will have a feminine penis, obviously.

It would be super helpful if one of these posters could tell us how we can tell who’s safe and who isn’t.

Make everyone’s life easier an’ all that.

Anyone? Anyone?

I still don't know how I'm supposed to tell the difference between harmless male bodied people and the ones who are faking

Or how we tell the difference between a naked man and a naked trans woman in a changing room.

Is there a sign? Like glittery chest hair or something.

"The vast majority of reported sexual assaults at public swimming pools in the UK take place in unisex changing rooms, new statistics reveal.

The data, obtained through a Freedom of Information request by the Sunday Timess^, suggests that unisex changing rooms are more dangerous for women and girls than single-sex facilities.

Just under 90 per cent of complaints regarding changing room sexual assaults, voyeurism and harassment are about incidents in unisex facilities

Of 134 complaints over 2017-2018, 120 reported incidents took place in gender-neutral changing rooms and just 14 were in single-sex changing areas."

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/women/sexual-assault-unisex-changing-rooms-sunday-times-women-risk-a8519086.html

I still don't know how I'm supposed to tell the difference between harmless male bodied people and the ones who are faking, or what I'm supposed to do about it when I'm in what used to be a womens changing room.

As a PP, why when presented with cases of when this DOES happen we get the 'this trans person I know is lovely'. Jimmy Saville was lovely to some. That actress (forget her name, friends with Ben Stiller) her husband was lovely until the police found thousands of images of child abuse on his laptop.

Just because your friend, trans or otherwise, is lovely to you it doesn't mean they aren't horrible in other ways and frankly it hasn't got anything to do with your lovely trans friend, but everything to do with all women and girls and the boundaries they should not have to negotiate so one or two people have their fantasy indulged.

Thats a good question. The law is being ignored or misinterpreted, and its left to women who are brave enough to risk their jobs and friendships to do something about that.

Trans people should take note; this is how easily your rights will be disposed of when you have stopped being useful.

I don't understand.
I thought it was established by a court case some time ago (mentioned on mumsnet) that the comparator for discrimination for transgender status was the group you were transitioning from. Hence a trans woman should no be treated worse than another Male. The focus therefore should be keeping them safe in Male spaces.
If this is true then how is such a misinterpretation being allowed to spread with no legal challenge?

@VeronicaDinner

If you believe that "no one is interested in perching" in changing rooms, as yourself why have we historically had sex segregated spaces.

What you arguing for is the complete destruction for women only spaces. Not just gym changing rooms, but hospital wards, prison cells, women's shelters. This means that women and girls can be accessed by abusive and predatory men when they are most vulnerable and incapacitated.

Self id means that any male can access women's spaces with NO gender recognition certificate, no surgery, not even a lick of lippy is required.

Do you believe that a male teacher in a girls school should be able to strip naked in front of pupils? Then what is the difference between this and what is happening in gyms, and swimming pools throughout the country.

Do you honestly believe that we should get rid of all sex segregated spaces and allow men completely free access to all women and children.

"But a man insists that he needs to enter women's spaces to earn validation, we all know that something is seriously wrong. By this very insistence he is instantly proving the necessity for segregation.

He lacks the very sensitivity, the third sense as to what it appropriate and what not. It is nothing more than male bullying. A power game."

Exactly. And while we're being forced (often aggressively) to accept erosion of boundaries that we feel are important, we're also being told that those who aggressively try to force us to submit to erosion of those boundaries are apparently no threat to us at all. Everything about this activism stinks of threat and females have a lifetime of experience in recognising and risk assessing threats. We do it every single fucking day.

We are entitled to feel safe from time to time (because we know that time to time is the best we can unfortunately hope for), especially when we're in vulnerable positions, and those spaces provide it.

I don't want to share intimate spaces with male bodied people because I value my own privacy and dignity. I don't want my child sharing these spaces with male bodied people because every safeguarding policy ever (and a whole load of common sense) suggests that's a terrible idea for a whole load of reasons. Predominantly safety for the child but also safety for adults too. There are also many women who for personal, cultural and religious reasons cannot share these spaces with male bodied people and their exclusion quite simply is not an acceptable consequence of broadening definitions of the word 'woman'.

I'm tired of defending this most basic right. We have single sex spaces for very good reason.

As for the idea that most transwomen pass as female, that's utter nonsense. Sorry. You're kidding yourself on if you believe otherwise. Cosmetic surgery doesn't remove the basic cues that we're hard-wired to recognise.

My brother isn’t a rapist either but we don’t change in front of each other. Ditto my male friends. It’s not just about safety, it’s about privacy, dignity and comfort. Which women are entitled to.

Exactly. Any decent man, including my many lovely male friends, would be highly embarrassed at sharing a changing room with me or other women. That's what decency is.

Let's go a bit deeper into this. WHY are women put into this position, that they are forced into the defensive, that they have to fight to retain their spaces?
Why do transwomen even want to enter those spaces? Why aren't they happy with the offer of third spaces, open to all?

Answer:
Because it's not validating them as women. And that's what they crave. Validation, by us. And we're not giving it. Because we know they aren't women.

But a man insists that he needs to enter women's spaces to earn validation, we all know that something is seriously wrong. By this very insistence he is instantly proving the necessity for segregation.

He lacks the very sensitivity, the third sense as to what it appropriate and what not. It is nothing more than male bullying. A power game.

no one is interested in perving on you in the changing rooms