Virgin active have complied with the Supreme Court ruling.

But lots of gyms (often those attached to pools) do have changing villages with individual cubicles. There are 8 gyms run by my council, 5 of them (the new and refurbished ones) have changing villages with individual cubicles, 1 has both that and separate male/female, only 2 have just male/female. I know people dislike them but they're becoming more and more common and tbh there are advantages for other groups as well -parents taking opposite sex children, etc.

All also have disabled facilities although I don't think that should automatically be the first alternative and sometimes the disabled changing room is inside the male/female.

Only specifying to clarify that even if every single gym follows what it seems the new echr guidance it's not as though that means that every trans person in the UK won't be able to visit a gym ever again, as OJ is catastrophising.

They can join a gym that has alternative/unisex facilities

They can campaign for all new gyms built to have unisex facilities (like women had to when there weren't any loos for them, like disabled people had to, etc.)

They can just change before going to the gym -I literally never see anyone use the showers etc in my gym (pure gym) anyway.

Oh ffs just have a trans of a NB changing room then people can just pick whichever. It’s not hard!

The gym I went to quite recently when I was trying to recover a bit of fitness after an injury, which didn't seem to be more expensive than any other gyms in the area, had three advantages.

One, it was close to where I live
Two, it was open twenty-four hours a day
Three, it had only individual changing rooms, each with a shower in it. You changed, you put your clothes into a locker before going into the gym proper, and you pinned the locker-key to your tracksuit or whatever you chose to wear to work out in.

I never had to queue to use a changing room, though I did sometimes have to go and use one of the three at the top of the stairs near the rowing machines, static bicycles and treadmills instead of the ones near the lockers downstairs and all the fancier equipment. Admittedly I tended to use it after nine at night, because that was more convenient for me, and it may have been more crowded during the day. But it can be done: that gym is still there, still operating the same model, so they must find it profitable enough to be worth doing.

Yep.

But joking aside - the reason places like gyms have communal changing rooms is because individual single-use changing rooms and showers for everyone take up too much space and aren't economically viable. I think a lot of people would be a bit miffed if trans people get the luxury of an individual changing cubicle to save them from the indignity of sharing a changing space with members of their own sex, while us boring old ordinary folk have to cope with communal rooms, exposing our rolls of fat and surgery scars and other things we'd rather keep private. Presumably though the individual change spaces will be open to anyone who says they need them. I wonder what demand will be like?

🤣

I love this response - "Bit miffed though to discover trans people get driven from the gym though when I have to make my own way home."

Aah, took legal advice and were told they were going to lose BIG and so they caved. Amazing how they didn't check out the Law beforehand.

I guess future EHRC guidance may make particular recommendations or requirements about the WAY provision is to be made for trans people (eg if you are over a particular size of business you must provide two types of unisex toilet or changing room or whatever - just making stuff up) while still remaining single sex. They may just be willing to do more in future if it is required but they are satisfied at the moment they are complying with the law. And hurrah for complying with the law.

I fully expect trans women to be totally happy with private unisex cubicles. There to be no tantrums at all, and respect for the privacy and dignity of women.

In a big name private leisure centre gym + facilities near me the changing area has a bunch of open space lockers and benches wich could be made into private cubicles. However there's a shower area which is semi cubicled off. Panels from around knee height to about neck height. I see this as being a bit of a problem. Moving showers into private changing cubicles would be very expensive with all the pipe and drainage work. I guess the showers could be made more private by changing how they are partitioned. There's also safety issues when cublicles are super private. I don't see this as being a good option.

I think the third spaces unisex way is the best, as opposed to modifying the existing changing facilities. You either use the changing room of your biological sex or the third space.

Agreed, it's very telling. Anyone getting angry when alternative spaces are available shows that it was always about access to women and girls. Unbelievable that they would advertise that so publicly. I hope receipts are being kept.

And the reason Virgin is following the law is because Michelle Dewberry & Sex Matters forced them to, today was the legal deadline.
https://x.com/GBNEWS/status/1956367894301806855

Presumably that's because it's access to women's and girls' undressed bodies that's required - rather than opportunities for privacy?

So many predators and creeps involved in all this.

On the day of the SC ruling I rang my father in jubilation to tell him that FWS had won, that the definition of woman had been clarified in law.

He was politely baffled as to why this had ever been in doubt.

Virgin specifically say they have unisex and single occupancy changing rooms available, something Owen failed to mention in his toy throwing post.

As ever, Talcum X has not one shit to give about women* who were driven away from using gyms and changing rooms.

(* the real kind, not the special penisy ones)

There aren't going to be any gyms to switch to that offer transwomen the opportunity to access female changing areas, because that's illegal. So the suggestion that trans people are being driven from these gyms is absurd. Trans people who want to use gyms for exercise will find a way to do so. Getting changed is a minor aspect of the activity. The only people getting "driven away" will be anyone whose primary purpose in going to the gym was the gratification kick they get from using the wrong-sex changing room.

Some gyms will move over to providing single-user private unisex cubicles rather than single,sex communal rooms in order to be more trans-friendly. Those gyms will have to be more expensive because that's a more inefficient use of space, but market forces will decide whether there's enough demand to sustain and justify that costly use of space. I'm sure there's lots of people who would value that extra privacy and would be happy for reasons that have nothing to do with gender.

This was the segment from Michelle Dewberry

I love it when Talcum X is pissed off.

Clearly absurd! Why ever would you categorise people by body type rather than whether or not they like nail varnish?

I liked the one that said, “At least you’re not talking about Gaza for a change” 🤣

I'm enjoying the sane comments on his post.

To comply with the law, changing rooms are designated by biological sex.

How would you explain to someone from, say, 1996 why this was worthy of comment?