GLP are suing Virgin Active

Has anyone else read the letter before action? It’s here: https://goodlawproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/REDACTED-Draft-PAP-15-Jan-2026-CLEAN-COPY.pdf

its a real doozy, with lots of (to my mind) specious claims to rights that don’t exist in law and claims of things being unlawful that obviously aren’t.

I don’t think Virgin has much to fear.

Although one interest and somewhat predictable point is the Virgin appear to concede in a communication with one of the claimants that the disabled facilities don’t have the same amenities as the men’s and women’s, like hairdryers. The obvious discrimination against disabled gym users goes whooshing by both parties, apparently.

Someone who doesn’t realise the op posts are a different colour.

Does sound like it doesn’t it! Smacks of trying to find a back door they can exploit.

Great. So once again disabled people are penalised to accommodate someone's feelz.

But trans people can use the spaces provided. They just have to use the space provided for their sex. The problem is purely caused by people (men usually) refusing to comply with the law and demanding that everyone else defers to them. Virgin is being perfectly reasonable and is obeying the law.

Simply saying you’re a male it’ll be fine isn’t going to cut it.

I can't decode this. Who's saying who is a male? Are you talking about trans men going into male toilets? What is undignified about e.g. a group of transwomen, men, agender and non-binary people changing in a male space if they're all male?

Fearing rape because there's someone with a penis in the room goes a bit further than "feeling uncomfortable".

And let's not forget that this "logic" has led to a rape trial of two male psych patients who are alleged to have raped a female psych patient who identified as a man and was put in the men's secure ward.

Maybe there are many men who may feel uncomfortable in communal changing rooms. Even if it only amongst their own sex. Why would you indulge the unreasonable wishes/demands of any group of men to gain access to the female changing room?

However many women felt uncomfortable in a communal changing room with other women present, would be joined by many more women who would be utterly creeped out by males wandering around in the women’s changing room. Even if he thinks he is extra special, and that trumps the rights of any women who object.

The solution is not to make many women uncomfortable in the women’s changing room (deliberately) because some bloke says he is uncomfortable in the male changing room.

As long as they stay out of the women’s, they can crack on with sorting themselves out. Not women’s problem to solve, or to be negatively impacted by any man who wants to do so.

Yes, trans identifying men and women are expected to comply with the law, just like everybody else. There is adequate provision, male and female facilities, and increasingly gender neutral.

So telling a male he’s a male isn’t ‘going to cut it’. In what way? What’s he going to do about the reality of his biologically male body? Stamp his feet until he gets his self declared identity validated by others?

I think telling men to use men’s facilities is great for the dignity and respect that should be shown towards women and their single sex spaces.

We are not asking for compliance, the law requires it. The law applies to all, even those who imagine themselves too special to abide by it, as news reports from the courts daily confirm. Men who persist in invading female spaces such as gym changing rooms are committing the offences of sexual harrassment &/or voyeurism & should be reported & charged accordingly.

There is adequate provision, male and female.
Their dignity is not affected by being told to use the correct sexed spaces.
Nobody has the right to respect.
These people need to understand that they will not be tolerated in the wrong sexed spaces anymore and if they enter them they will be confronted, shamed and reported.
Oh respect is an earned privilege which is a two way street not something that can be demanded by someone who doesn't show respect to others.

Good spot.

What do you mean by ‘adequate provision’?

Do you think trans identifying people will use gender neutral facilities if provided? Or will they still want to use the opposite sex facilities because they feel othered by gender neutral facilities?

This is an interesting point and worth addressing.

You might be uncomfortable when you see a trans women in your toilet, but you can’t expect to never feel uncomfortable.

If the law says that trans women should not be in the women's toilets (it does) then being uncomfortable with a trans woman in the women's toilet is reasonable, because it's a situation the law says you shouldn't be in.

By contrast, trans women may well be uncomfortable in the men's, but so I imagine are a lot of other men getting undressed in male company. Nevertheless those are the changing arrangements sanctioned by the law, so people who are uncomfortable with those arrangements have to suck it up.

Let’s not forget that legal situation was different when most people transitioned

No, it wasn't. The law hasn't changed since 2010.

I think the irony here is the trans people in the best place to speak out against the activists were the least likely to do it because they were quietly living their lives and didn’t make it their whole identity.

Is this someone trying to pretend to be the OP?
What's with the similar-but-not-quite username?

If you expect trans people to comply there needs to be adequate provision. Simply saying you’re a male it’ll be fine isn’t going to cut it. Do you think it provides dignity and respect?

I agree. I don't get the impression many people actually know what they mean by the word "trans".
It's actually the distortion and pretence that 'woman is a feeling' etc that I think is most harmful. It's eroded all meaning and you (general you) can't even talk about women's rights, protections etc without someone getting in a muddle.

It's all disingenuousness and has reinforced horribly sexist thinking, as well as opened up many vulnerable people to serious harm.

Without this push I'm fairly sure I'd still be happily saying that there are a small number of severely gender-dysphoric people we should help in any way possible, but it's made me consider where my boundaries are in "being kind".

'If trans people are not allowed to use the spaces of their acquired sex' they can use the spaces of their biological sex - that's the most obvious solution.

The configuration of separate women's, men's and accessible toilets works for 99.something% of the population.

I don't think 'feeling uncomfortable' can be used to justify the expense and disruption of adding a fourth space everywhere to facilitate a tiny, but noisy and occasionally violent, number of people - approx 250,000 out of a population of 69.5 million.

Third spaces in the form of accessible toilets for disabled people - over 16 million in the UK - are not provided because disabled people feel 'uncomfortable' using standard toilets, they are provided for people who actually need adapted toilets.

Agreed but it was stonewall who opened up the category of trans to everyone from part time cross dressers and those with fetishes to gender dysphoric people. They also insisted on both "no debate" and "acceptance without question". Then went on to demand full self-id and the removal of all sex based rights (yes they actually campaigned to remove the single sex exemptions).
The most damming thing is not 1 single trans group organisation spoke out against the excesses of the TRAs or stonewall. Where were the transpeople saying not in my name? Where were the grassroots trans groups saying we wont partake in stealing womens sex based rights?
We both know where the "real" transpeople were, happily enjoying those stolen rights, and as many of us warned at the time the push back would hurt them the most. I used to feel sorry for them but as time went on and their silence became deafening I lost all sympathy and now all I can say is tough shit we're taking all our stuff back

Someone in another thread likened the GLP's cases to the scam in 'The Producers'.

It's very Steve Bannon, the constant parade of loudly-trumpeted hopeless cases is no more than the Bannonite tactic, "fill the zone with shit". If GLP keep announcing new cases that prompts donations (that are not, let's remember, ring-fenced for individual causes but all slop into Maugham's warchest to be used as he sees fit) & distracts people from keeping up with existing cases to the extent that whenever he announces a "deeply technical" loss, his supporters have been dragged so much further into the morass of cases & attempts to bring cases, that the failure is not noticed or at best feels like old news.

A trans-identifying woman was allegedly§ raped in a secure men's psych ward. There is a Mumsnet thread about it.

SLaM NHS Trust's trans-inclusion policies put this woman in a men's psych ward where two male patients were able to allegedly rape her within an hour of her arrival on the ward. This is in addition to the much older case of a trans-identifying man raping a woman in a women's psych ward.

Cases like that are inevitable when people are told to use the facilities for their "gender identity" instead of the facilities for their sex.

Facilities must be segregated by sex, for safety. If that makes some men feel sad, too bad.

§: The trial of the suspects is ongoing.

‘So they do have a duty to give trans people facilities where they would expect to feel comfortable…’

Really? Do they? A legal requirement to provide facilities someone feels comfortable using? Could to point me to the legislation that says they legally have to provide facilities that the user feels most comfortable with?

This discussion relates to gym changing rooms which are routinely communal, your comment re gender neutral provision derives from Workplace Regulations (1992) S:20, on the design of lavatories.