Advice wanted regarding right to single sex changing facilities

You could ask the owner if she is happy setting a precedent that any man can use the women's changing room if he says he's a transwoman. If she lets in some men and not others is that because of their name, how they dress or other ID. She's putting herself in a very difficult situation around gatekeeping.

Should anything untoward happen from allowing all men to access that space, would her insurer be happy? She's happy to take the risk that say a camera could be hidden in the changing rooms with images put online. Could you show her some photos of how small hidden cameras can be. Again, I'm not suggesting risk is from transwomen but from predatory men.

As I understand it, David Lloyd Leisure clubs separate by sex. (They also have a general family change area). If it is OK for them, it should be OK for your gym.

This is the whole 'alternative facts' thing. Political groups are actively misrepresenting the law and facts about inclusion to places such as this. The EHCR are on the back foot and so is everyone else who has played fair.

It just needs to be asked of the owner: what plans are you making for females who cannot share mixed sex spaces, as TW have three options but females who can't do what....? And if they're from protected groups, have you thought about discrimination claims and oooh look at what Maya Forstater heard from court yetserday, and the several other court cases in progress at the moment that is kind of pulling holes in the whole 'alternative facts and discriminating against females is a positive thing in the name of TQ+ politics and doesn't end in large compensation claims' thing.

There is Sex Matters and EHRC guidance on this - send it to the gym owner.

sex-matters.org/where-sex-matters/single-sex-services/
www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/advice-and-guidance/separate-and-single-sex-service-providers-guide-equality-act-sex-and-gender

Either way 'female' changing rooms should mean female - not mixed sex.

Are your changing rooms communal? Ironically I find the 90%+ communal changing rooms at my gym (there are only 3 cubicles in a very big space) very effective at making clear this is a female only facility. Luckily the gym manager confirms they are split by sex not gender.

Yes, the law on single sex spaces starts from the assumption that this the norm/wanted and therefore permits you to have them if criteria are met (against the central principle of the Equality Act which is not to discriminate on grounds of sex). In the new climate we need the law to default to requiring single sex spaces, with permission not to have them if criteria are met.

EHRC single sex spaces guidance. It’s perfectly legal, if they want to, to have a policy that says the female changing rooms are for people female at birth.

Artichokeleaves well said 👏🏼

If the owner wishes to be fair and accepting of everyone they need to consider the females being excluded from all three areas to permit a male person the freedom of all three to take their preferred choice of.

This drives me nuts. The male person involved has a perfectly available option as an alternative for their personal access and inclusion needs. Their needs are met. They are fine. But they want to be in the female space and so feel entitled to ignore everyone else's inclusion and access needs and the feelings of female people who have chosen a female only space for their own agenda. It's selfish. It's uncaring. It's uninclusive. And they have put the onus on females to either quietly give up and go away and let them have it all, which lets be frank is plain male entitlement and dominance. Or the females have to argue back that can the very special males please spare a few crumbs for the lesser beings on the planet if they'd be so very kind.

This is the point I lose all patience or sympathy. If you care about your own inclusion and access then you have a responsibility not to snatch it off other people, and to manage to spare the occasional fuck for someone else other than yourself.

fairplayforwomen.com/male-free-toilets-and-changing-rooms/

In short: the gym owner can lawfully exclude a trans woman from the women’s changing rooms but as the law stands there is no clear/absolute right to demand a women-only space.