Adult males can now shower with girls at swimming pools

[TheXXFactor]

Swim England has issued new guidance about trans swimmers - link here. Some of it is sensible- I'm sure trans people can feel self-conscious swimming, so trans-only sessions are a good idea (though of course trans people should be able to use the pool at other times too).

What's disturbing though is the section on Environment, which says that trans people should use whichever changing room they prefer. 85% of men who identify as trans have had no surgery, so this means adult men showering & changing with women and girls. How can this be allowed under child safeguarding rules? And what about all the women who will feel unable to swim if they have to change with men - or whose religion does not allow them to do so?

AIBU to think that everyone's needs & comfort should have been considered?

Actually thinking about it are you sure the government aren’t just protecting the NHS from a swarm of requests for expensive realignment surgery that would appear if the stipulation was that males had to fully transition for them to be called women. It makes sense to just say ‘yeah it’s fine, you have the lady feels? Oh no problem, here’s your paperwork’

^ It's not their hands they're usually rubbing

sunshineintheclouds. I’m guessing what generations of Dad’s have done. Take their Dd’s into the mens until they were old enough to go into the women’s on their own. Except there won’t be a safe women’s changing room for them to use anymore because any bloody pervert will be able to ‘self identify’ and sit in there ogling little girls. It’s a peadophiles wet dream.

I prefer the properly unisex changing rooms as its easier to go with ds, and even now (hes 12) I don't feel 100% OK with him going into a separate men's changing room alone.
However, where changing rooms are single sex, I have absolutely seen women getting naked pretty matter of factly. Its a place where you ought to be able to be naked, amongst other women.
I am completely unafraid of seeing cocks personally. That's not my issue. What riles me is that these men don't need to actually be transsexual at all. they can just say they "identify" with being a woman, and go into places that are private to women, just because they feel like it. They can then expose themselves, or peep at women (and female children)in a state of undress.
No one is saying that poor unassuming transsexuals are all perverts and will commit offences. They are saying that changing legislation like this opens the door to any old perv.

It says you have to allow a pre opp transwoman (a man with a penis) to use the communal female changing rooms and showers if they want.

However, if a pre-opp transman (woman with breasts) wants to swim without a top - that isn't allowed because "you wouldn’t allow a woman to swim topless in a public session, and you need to treat everyone the same."

So why arent these situations treated as the same? Woman not allowed to swim topless at the pool whether transitioning or not: fine, whatever your view its at least consistent (although it does show they really regard trans identified female s as women and their breasts as female organs) and that sometimes, policing socially accepted constructs of clothing/how much nakedness is appropriate is apparently accepted.

Male genital organ eg Penis not allowed in the female changing rooms at a public session whether it is male or claims another gender identity would be fair: as that is what would be expected in a room set aside for the use of females.
But oddly enough that clear and fair enforcement seems to be missing with the opposite situation. We have to somehow 'be educated' to go through a charade of belief that the trans identified male is a woman and therefore their genitalia, despite being indistinguishable from male genitalia prior to any process of reassignment are somehow totally different from a non trans identified male and should be allowed in female sex segregated spaces.
This suggests to me they still consider the trans identified males as men, because they facilitate them, and do not attempt to police restrict or constrain them in the same way that trans identified females are (no topless swimming, despite your identity)

I'm waiting for this to kick of at the gym. I'm sure we're only weeks / months away from a male insisting on using the female changing room.

For those people who think communal single sex changing rooms have been overtaken by changing villages: my local pool (built in last 10 years) has a small family shower section (5 cubicles), and then male/female changing rooms. The woman's changing room has two actual cubicles, and the rest is made up of three rooms' each the size of a bedroom I guess: interconnected, but relatively separate: quite easy to be hidden from view. If it's a quiet time, you might well be on your own or with one other person in one of the rooms: I would not want to be naked, in a smallish room with someone with a penis. I would REALLY not want dd (12) to be alone in there, so would have to stop her going swimming without me, I guess.

It's actually given me proper shivers thinking just what a horribly vulnerable space it is going to become.

On the plus side, incidences of flashing will go right down, because exhibitionists will just hang around naked in women's changing rooms instead which I imagine will be far more satisfying...

This particular crazy train won't slow down until something very fucking serious happens, too serious to be ignored. I'm sure we can guess what that might entail.

sleep I think your right, it could cost the NHS a fortune if they allow people to change their sex with surgery.

So parents are ok with their sons showering with other men? I personally wouldn’t let any stranger see my child or myself naked.

Showers should just be individual or family only.

A man alone with a daughter can usually send her into the women's alone from age 5 or so and ask one of the women going in to keep an eye on her. I have done this for men.

So, I cannot take my 7-year-old son into the women's changing rooms with me due to rules at the gym (fair point) but a pre-op trans man can be in there in front of my 4-year-old daughter, with no issues?
Righto

Actually it makes little difference to me.

The womens changing at our pool has more pre and post pubescent males up to the age of 16 than it does girls. Apparently the male changing rooms aren’t “safe”, even for males over the age of 12.

A few adult males won’t make much difference. In fact i’d probably welcome them over the teenage lads sitting fully clothed gawping and commenting because their mum is getting their little sister changed after her swim lesson and they can’t be left outside.

I have been swimming for many, many years. In the last 15-20 womens changing rooms have become “women and children under 18”.

Our spaces have been slowly eroded for many years.

IfNot except as a PP has just explained, those women’s changing rooms will no longer be a safe space for that 5 year old child as it might have a penis in it.

Have I really missed something here - fair, I've skipped the whole thread, but for at least 15 years my local swimming pool has had mixed showers and non gender changing rooms.

I have never seen a teenage boy in the women's changing room to be fair.
I did used to send my son into the men's, but it's actually perfectly reasonable to think that they aren't completely safe for boys.
Its a risk parents of young boys take because we have to, but when you have a small for their age, vulnerable looking lad of 8 or 9, for example, it's a worry.

HollyBay this is merely an example of the guidelines changing. It doesn’t matter that your swimming pool already has mixed facilities. I can tell you that the pool my child swims at doesn’t. It only has male and female changing rooms. I can tell you that my local leisure centre doesn’t. It too only has male and female changing rooms. So I am very much affected by this even if you personally aren’t.

IfNot except as a PP has just explained, those women’s changing rooms will no longer be a safe space for that 5 year old child as it might have a penis in it.

Yes, I know. That's partly why I'm against men being allowed in the women's.

It's the fucking double standards of it.

Trans identified man is a woman if they say they are. They must be treated as such, offered smear tests, allowed to take positions in political parties for women, beat women in women's races and sporting competitions. We must ignore the fact that 85% retain full male anatomy and that, post transition, they continue to commit crimes at the same rate as men.

Trans identified woman? God, no, they're not real men - they mustn't be allowed to join men's clubs, they can't inherit ahead of a younger natal male heir and they need to cover up their breasts! Jesus Christ are you crazy - they're just playing at being men.

I am not trans-exclusionary. I am happy to have transmen (with XX chromosomes, wombs etc) in women-only sex segregated spaces. Their sex remains female. They cannot identify out of oppression which is caused due to our shared biology.

Transwomen are male.

At my private gym (which has a pool) the changing rooms are open plan with lockers and 2 cubicles. At the other nearest gym with a pool, same thing - open plan changing rooms. At my local council run pool, there's open plan women and men's changing with a couple of family cubicles (three iirc). All of them do children's swimming lessons.

And can we stop calling them pre-op? Most TIMs do not have a 'sex change' operation - 80% of them in fact. So let's not entertain the fallacy that they're just waiting to have their penises lopped off. They're not.

The womens changing at our pool has more pre and post pubescent males up to the age of 16 than it does girls. Apparently the male changing rooms aren’t “safe”, even for males over the age of 12.

DS2 is 8 and wouldn’t be seen dead in the female changing room. I couldn’t drag him in there.

If the male changing rooms (or even the lobby, if it’s just their sister changing) were too unsafe for a 15 year old, is just use a different pool. Because that one clearly has serious problems.

All the pools round here are either unisex changing or children are allowed in the opposite sex changing rooms until 6 or 7.

And can we stop calling them pre-op? Most TIMs do not have a 'sex change' operation - 80% of them in fact. So let's not entertain the fallacy that they're just waiting to have their penises lopped off. They're not.

YY no-op is more accurate.

How can this be allowed under child safeguarding rules?

What are they?

I am feeling lost in this world. How do we challenge this?

Oh- and my 9 yo dd opened a shower curtain in the womens changing rooms once to find a fully naked teenage boy taking a shower. His mum wasn’t even in the area- she was poolside watching her other child’s swim session.

This is women saying it is appropriate for boys to use womens spaces. We are weakening our own argument- it can’t be “no penises except my son”.

So the argument for me, comes back to at what age do we exclude boys from womens spaces. 8? 15? Not at all?

This is regularly discussed here, and many posters support their older boys using the womens.