AIBU in thinking British Gymnastics new guidelines are disadvantaging girls and putting them in danger?

[GColdtimer]

I have just seen the BG new guidelines on inclusion (here.

They go against all of their own safeguarding policies by saying that children should use the changing room of the gender in which they identify (so boys who identify as girls can use the girls changing room. Their own safeguarding guidelines state changing rooms should be single sex.

They then say if the girls don't like it they can go elsewhere. If an individual remains unhappy about a trans person using facilities appropriate to their gender identity, then they should make alternative arrangements

They also say the same for residential trips. And because privacy is of greatest important (although not for girls it would seem), a teenage girl (or her parents) may not be told she is sharing a room with a teenage boy (who identifies as a girl.)

This goes against all of their published safeguarding guidelines which says there should be single sex changing rooms, washing facilities and sleeping arrangements (for trips).

They also say children under 16 can compete in the gender they identify with. So boys can compete against the girls if they wish.

(Girls can also complete against boys but its highly unlikely they will).

Their guidelines on gender also, say Signs can appear at a very young age e.g. a child refusing to wear typical clothes of their gender or taking part in non- typical games. I'd better tell my short haired, trouser wearing, rugby playing niece that the leading governing body for one of the most popular sports for children believe she is actually a boy.

AIBU in thinking this is sexist and dangerous and BG should be held to account?

And I don’t understand why trans women aren’t supportive of women. Not just the TRAs but those who want ‘a quiet life’ who aren’t speaking out. I don’t understand why predatory men and the lengths they go to to access women and children isn’t more of a concern. After all, it is they that give trans women a bad name.

This. I don't understand why - given the torrent of media reports of child abuse, grooming, etc etc - especially in the last few years - there's not a fucking hint of understanding of women's concerns.

Over on AIBU right now on the gymnastics thread, there are people completely mocking the notion that biological males should be a concern to women and girls in changing rooms, etc.

Ooforfoxsake

TBF quite a few transsexuals are speakign out about this.

They get called "truscum" I believe by the genderists.

It seems gone are the days when safeguarding use to trump everything else.

If their safeguarding policy states single sex changing rooms then they should be responsible for providing single gendered/ opposite gendered chanting rooms for different sex but same gender. Not suggest the girls or boys (Male or female) must find somewhere else to change because they no longer follow their own safeguarding policy if single sex rooms.

It's just ludicrous

Sitting down to dinner just.

Yes I do have daughters.

Dignity - I don’t think bodies in any form are undignified, so for me personally it’s not a thing, and as I’m only speaking from my opinion I can only answer as such.

I will come back but I need to eat and get food thrown at me.

They were very brief days, weren't they? "Lessons have been learned". Right.

Wtf is going on?? What’s with the race to the finishing line with proving how woke you are ?

I can’t get my head around it.

Dignity - I don’t think bodies in any form are undignified, so for me personally it’s not a thing, and as I’m only speaking from my opinion I can only answer as such.

It's a thing for most women (and men). Why is it all about you? Don't you have any empathy for other women and girls, most of whom are likely to have experienced sexual assault or harassment to some extent? If you don't care about women, own it.

If anybody genuinely believed that there is no valid reason for people not to want to get undressed in front of other people, they should put their money where their mouth is and:

(1) Campaign openly and vigorously to abolish all changing rooms, doors on toilet cubicles, etc.

(2) Lead by example, stripping down to nudity on a busy high street on a Saturday afternoon.

What’s with the race to the finishing line with proving how woke you are ?

Virtue signalling. Shallow, craven and pathetic.

They were very brief days, weren't they? "Lessons have been learned". Right.

Oh yes. I spent lord knows how many days/weeks of my life attending compulsory training on safeguarding - which placed the child/young person at the centre of everything (and rightly fucking so) and required that people in all professions working with youngsters risk assess everything.

I recall the phrase that was used - and this was after Soham (when you will recall Huntley was able to access and groom girls via his job as a caretaker and relationship with a school TA) - "this must never happen again".

Yeah...

When I was 11 and transferred to secondary school they gave us a tour the first day that included the girls changing rooms and communal showers. I was absolutely beside myself with shock that I would be expected to get undressed and shower in front of a room full of people I didn't know. I had sleepless nights over it, turning over and over in my mind what I might be able to do to get out of doing it, how I could hide myself. I couldn't believe that this was a thing I needed to do. I was transferring from a girls boarding school and shared a room with 7 others but even there we had private bathrooms and cubicles where we could get changed in private. I cannot begin to fathom how I would have felt to be told I must change with teenage boys because they were now "girls". I can't be alone in having felt that way, in fact I know I am not from a lengthy thread that ran a few months ago describing the ritual humiliation of PE, changing and communal showers in our school days.

I also have a 12 year girl with high functioning autism who would be terrified of having to do this and as long as there's breath in my body she never will. I would withdraw her and home educate her before I allowed this to happen thus she would be unable to access mainstream education due to a handful of males pretending to be female.

In no remote way is this anything like not wanting to change with a gay person or a black person. Stop talking such utter reductive shit!

So if your daughters decided they weren’t comfortable with a black/disabled/gay child sharing a room with them, that’d be fine?

Yes, if that black/disabled/gay child had a male body.

Glad you're so blasé about your body. Some of us are all too aware of the damage male bodied people are capable of inflicting and wish to mitigate that danger. I get that that's not an issue for you, so I'm sure you'll be changing in the men's from now on.

It can't just be framed as a disability issue that people just need to accept as they would someone severely burned or with a missing limb, it is a totally different and much bigger issue.

Penises are not neutral and harmless. The experience of sexual harassment, assault and rape is not an uncommon one at all among women and girls, and 97% of sexual assaults are committed by people with penises. There are over 1000 category A male prisoners in the UK and something like 7 women. Inappropriate sexual contact and behaviour is not harmless. Under the Stonewall umbrella 'trans' does not just mean 'with gender dysphoria' but cross dressers and others with a sexual fetish around wearing women's clothing, being in women's spaces and invading women's boundaries and privacy.

And self ID is about any man being able to self ID at any time and not being asked for identification, so basically the right of any male with any motive to have access to biological females in all spaces no matter the vulnerability of those females at the time.

There is no way to make this ok. Making this about just the one facet of some poor trans child with severe dysphoria sentimentalises and disguises the big picture and the massive implications in values and law and the rights of females. There are other ways to protect and help that child.

Why don’t transmen want to get changed in the male changing room though?

What is it about doing so that they find uncomfortable? Why do they think they shouldn’t have to do it?

Why does everyone on Mumsnet seem to assume that all transgirls are sex attackers?

The only person on this thread who has claimed transgirls are all sex attackers is you @eniledam.

I just cannot understand anyone being so obtuse about the privacy and dignity of children especially girls as they have a lot more to deal with during puberty.

I have both a daughter and sons and all of them somewhere around age 8-10 became very self conscious about who they allowed to see them naked.

This is for obvious reasons a bigger safeguarding concern for girls but I think many boys would also feel uncomfortable in what is essentially a mixed sex environment if a trans boy were to start changing and showering with them.

It also puts male children in an increased position where they could face accusations of impropriety (whether real or imagined) this includes those boys that identify as girls.

We have developed strict safeguarding rules for a reason and the separation of the sexes especially in organisations that act in loco parentis are there to protect not just potential victims of assault but everybody else too.

I was that 8 year old girl, and I'm pretty sure I would have quit the sport that I loved much earlier if I felt uncomfortable before the session even started! I was also the pre-teen uncomfortable about her changing body, and the young teenager trying to deal with periods and gymnastics at the same time. I am now an adult and still don't want to be in a state of undress around any male other than my husband (including doctors, although appreciate this isn't always practical).

And for anyone suggesting young female gymnasts are not vulnerable from biological males, look up Larry Nassar in the States and what he did to many female gymnasts including members of the 2012 Olympic team!

*Pinky you are shaming and ridiculing women for wanting bodily privacy, consent and personal boundaries, and trying social pressure to force women to give them up. And you seem ok with that.

Frankly that tells me everything I need to know about your agenda.*

This.

Sorry I meant I was an 8 year old gymnast, not that there was a male in my changing room. I was just thinking about how the changing rooms could be quiet if you needed the loo in the middle of a session, or how I found it awkward changing at all, and then imagining what I would have felt like at 8 if a male had been in the changing room at the same time!

Massively missing the point pinky take off your right-on PC bandwagon blinkers and look at wehat is being written abd then actually think about it ... for yourself.

Our feelings and thoughts are being thrown into the gutter. How about all of these fucking organisations putting their hand in their pocket and creating a third space and YOU can get changef in that along with all these other woke people who aren't bothered about privacy or safeguarding. But NO fuck that let's make the women put up with all the crap.

And self ID is about any man being able to self ID at any time and not being asked for identification, so basically the right of any male with any motive to have access to biological females in all spaces no matter the vulnerability of those females at the time.

Thanks for posting this - we need to remind everyone that this is a massive Trojan horse (and think about which people might be right behind the creation of the horse).

There are going to be women and girls who, for religious reasons, will quite literally have to stop taking part in sports if they are forced to share intimate spaces with males. That can't be ok, surely.

There are going to be women and girls who, for religious reasons, will quite literally have to stop taking part in sports if they are forced to share intimate spaces with males. That can't be ok, surely.

Add them to the ones (and there are quite a few of us) whose experiences of assault at the hands of men make it impossible for us to risk this.

A slight aside, but I really hate the term 'transgirls'. Its grim in any context.

Girl Guides said >> about the fact that certain cunty girls would not be able to go to GG if it was single sex any more >> tough shit basically. Something like, someone always ends up being disciminated against in this situation, and we've chosen that it's various types of cunty girl who have to leave, not the people with dicks.

So progressive.