UK gym to admit self ID'ing men into womens changing rooms

[Whatnextxx]

Here is the thing, went to renew my membership at the gym today but before I signed up asked about the policy of allowing self ID'ing men (i.e. men who decide to become "women" without surgery etc) access to womens changing rooms. The membership assistant didn't know and went to find out, she was gone quite a long time and came back ashen faced to tell me that if a man "presents" as a woman he would be allowed to use the womens changing room. I pointed to a little girl of about 5 or 6 and asked how she would explain a naked male in the changing room to her and did the same with an older women who looked to be around 70. She said she is shocked at the policy and wondered where the protection is for women and girls, she didn't have a clue about Justine Greenings proposals.

The thing is that the womens changing room has only 4 cubicles and they are at the far ends of the main open space so even if I or any woman was to use the cubicles we might emerge into an open space where naked men might be.

The assistant said she had spoken with the manager and asked what would happen if a sex offender pretended to be a woman. She told me that she didn't agree with the policy but that there was nothing she could do as the policy came from central office. What an awful position to put employees in.

She understood exactly why I didn't renew my membership.

I contacted the owner of the gym and to try to highlight the issue did it on Twitter. I was subjected to a barrage of horrible comments, one even accused me of being a jihadist!

So fed up with this, there seems to be nowhere for women to go without worrying that some male bodied person is going to come into spaces where women are changing.

Am I being unduly sensitive or am I realistically concerned about having my privacy and dignity taken away by men who think or want to behave "like a woman"?

Fear for me. I've been spied on more times than I can count as a teenager in changing room to the point I stopped going swimming (a sport I loved). Been raped. More than once. Been sexually assaulted. More than once.

And for everyone saying that we can't tar all men with the same brush. Of course, you're totally right. And i don't. But, I was sexually assaulted by a doctor when I was pretty ill - in hospital. I can tell you that I still go to the doctor's and if pushed go to hospitals, but I don't feel safe around someone because they're a doctor. I don't feel entirely sexually safe around someone because they're male either (unless I know they're gay) with good reason. And that's on dark streets, empty trains etc where I've got my clothes on!!

I don't want pervs of any gender in women's changing rooms. And to be fair, transwomen shouldn't want that either.

I don't want men or pervs in my changing room, whether trans or not.

The very small percentage of trans-women who are post-op, can still have an unhealthy obsession with womanhood.

The ones who don't have AGP, and are generally androphillic are probably the least worrying. But I see little difference in women being objectified on the street in a lecherous way and being objectified in an interested and observational way. I really don't want men in my changing room looking at me and wishing they were me.

I totally understand how difficult it must be, but I don't want to be included in it.

treacle
" If someone has been mauled by a dog and fears dogs as a result, we tend to say 'that's understandable'. "

The threads on here are brutal about dogs. If a dog even approaches another human or another dog for a sniff, there is a full on fizzing that the dog should be on the lead, badly trained, owner's a disgrace etc etc.

But women are supposed to get blithely naked in front of men, and 'deal with it' even if they have been sexually abused, assaulted, humiliated by males.

Well fuck off, I'm not going to. I'm going to find out what's happening at my gym and I'm going to start talking tot he older ladies about it. Because you can be damn sure that will come up in the coffee chat after class

And as for those 'who have sons', you can fuck off too and teach your sons that some men are predatory fucks and if they want to be decent men they should recognise that.

And I also have sons and they are growing up to be fine, respectful, intelligent young men

Congratulations ralph for demonstrating everything that is wrong with self-identification lunacy. I do hope it was a reversal.

Yes male-bodied people are people that women and girls fear. Yes that may well include your darling little Tarquin sons, especially if this is a sign of the entitlement you have endowed them with. Yes girls and women have the fucking right to fear males. Because males are dangerous at worst, or just downright unpleasant - they enjoy intimidating and harassing anyone they can - far too fucking often.

It doesn't even need to get as far as sex offences. Too many intimidating and unpleasant activites men subject girls too regularly are not in the least illegal. We are told to put up with men groping girls and women often enough already, after all boys will be boys and men will be men. And that is when contact is involved. Imagine sending your 13 yr old girl to swimming lessons, and there is a naked man there leering at every girl who walks in. Nothing you can do because he identifies as a woman today, and after all, he isn't hurting her is he? How long will you stand for that? How long will you put up with it yourself if you want to swim?

I really worry that this is the start of women losing everything - in the example above you won't even be able to say 'a man is in the changing rooms intimidating people', because that is 'bigoted' and 'transphobic'. It would legally be a woman causing the trouble and you can't bar women from women's spaces can you?

As ralph shows we won't even be able to identify that men are dangerous any more without being called names and told how irrational we are. I worry about long will even real sex offences actually be considered offences for?

What do people think women's spaces were created for in the first place? I really wish this scenario was in chat or aibu, might have made 1 or 2 people think.

I read somewhere that girls are transing more than before. Perhaps that's the only way out of this lunacy - when no one wants to be female anymore except a few made-up-to-the-nines fools perhaps we'll be able to look at just why that could possibly be happening.

Here ralph

www.reddit.com/r/GenderCritical/comments/67h6j1/still_getting_over_the_lies/?st=j63eskd3&sh=88c75579

It's both frightening, and a relief when I read links like that.

Because to me, it was obvious from the beginning that this was not progressive.

The complacency and sense of untouchability that transactivists have is becoming more recognised. As they push their agenda, people are pushing back. But it's taking such a bloody long time.

Ralph

Here's my issue. .....I have two sons...why is it ok for you to insinuate that being male is something to be feared or be intimidated?

Here is my issue, I have one son and have not insinuated that being male is something to be feared or to be intimidated. I have expressed concerns about naked men who may or may not have nefarious intent in a womans changing room and that women are expected to be comfortable with this.

Why do you believe being female gives you the right to judge and put other groups and genders down ?

I have not judged others or put other groups down, how many of the, is it, currently 71 genders have I put down? And in what way?

You feel uncomfortable?

Yes I feel uncomfortable, why? Because as with many other women on this thread I have been subjected to male sexual violence and use this particular gym for the very reason that there is/was sex segregated facilities. The local authority pool does not have sex segregated facilities which is why I tried to find one that did.

Great lovely......please consider it ok to implicate demonising of my son's gender because you have issues you can't deal with like a grown up?

I have not demonised your son, in doing so I would also be demonising my own child which is patently ridiculous. Please do not patronise me by suggesting I am not “grown up”, at almost 60 I am very much “grown up” and as such I ask that you retract that statement. I am perfectly capable of dealing with “issues” but take exception to having men in an open changing room that is designated for use by women.

I'm extremely feminist bordered with meritocracy....I wholeheartedly believe in safe places for all genders

If you are extremely feminist then you will defend the rights of women and girls to have privacy in what is described as a womans changing room, if not then perhaps reading more widely may help to refine your ideas on feminism. I am not a feminist, basically I do not like labels, I am a human being who happens to be female and I agree that there should be safe spaces for all PEOPLE. If that means gender neutral facilities with floor to ceiling lockable individual changing rooms that would work but how many gym owners are going to spend the type of money on providing such facilities. It is far easier and cheaper to stick “gender neutral” stickers on the womens changing room and hope women don’t complain too much

But hey......as long as you made a tokenistic statement during your terribly middle class gym renewal

The gym I use is definitely not “middle class” in fact having done the research prior to joining it costs significantly less per annum to go there than to the local public baths i.e. it cost me less than £1 per day to join - £230 (off peak) for the year as compared to £5 - £6 for a single session at the local authority pool. So again please retract your class war statement as it is inappropriate and deliberately divisive and provocative. As for your viewing my action as being a “tokenistic statement”, if by not renewing I am saying that I do not support a policy that puts women and girls at potential risk of harm then that is a powerful message to send and speaks louder than writing on a forum. Why should I pay good money to line the pockets of a multi-millionaire who evidently has no clue or concerns as to the implications of the policy his company has introduced?

I don't go to gyms, and this angers me.

The situation described in the OP can be about fear, or discomfort or a desire for privacy, but for me it is overwhelmingly about misrepresentation - men are not women, males are not female.

I should be able to expect not to find men in the women's changing rooms, but that is increasingly not the case. Women who phone helplines for support having been raped might find themselves talking to a man, women who flee male violence to a women's refuge might find themselves sharing that space with a man, women who have have trained in a particular sport might find themselves competing against men, women who wish to access statistics or objective information about any issue relating to women might find that men are included in these statistics ...

And this is happening, not because these facilities, services, sports, stats, are now inclusive of both men and women. No, it is happening because any man who declared himself a woman is being allowed into women's spaces as a woman!

That was addressed primarily to Ralph's comments about.

forget the 'about'.

Hi, hope you don't mind me being in this section as a man but I saw this thread trending. I think this is ridiculous. Why should a man be allowed to enter a woman's changing room simply by saying "I think I'm a woman". Sorry, but no. There's being PC and then there's being OTT and this case is the latter. I say this as someone who would also argue the case if the shoe was on the other foot and have actually done so when it came to groups of women being allowed admittance in gay (men's) bars.

I cannot understand why it is not patently obvious that many (I will hazard a guess at most) women neither want to nor expect to get undressed in front of male bodied people who are not their husband/partner.

This is not demonising men. For example, I am confident that my husband's best friend, my father-in-law and my next door neighbour (to name just a few) are not rapists or perverts. However, I still wouldn't want to get undressed in front of any of them - and nor would they ever expect me to.

Mission, as the OP I welcome your views, indeed would like to see more men talking about this issue as it does not only impact upon women and girls but also on men, and especially fathers wanting to protect their sons and daughters

You want this in the woman's changing room?

twitter.com/exposingtrans/status/894873783122526209

No one has yet given me an adequate explanation about why exactly I should be expected to "get over my issues" (ralph's phrase) or "get over myself" or "over it" or "address my problems", whatever other phrase people care to use; when my issues/ problems/ etc are the direct result of real, lived, physical experience of physical violence from men, an experience shared by far too many girls and women, a reality backed up by national statistics; just to avoid causing tiny emotional issues to a small group who cannot similarly and must not even be asked to similarly "get over themselves".

Why the disconnect? Why the inconsistency? Ralph, can you explain it? The only reason I can see is that old problem of women and girls just not really being very important. And that is not good enough.

It's because they can't acknowledge that some men are predators. Because this somehow implicates their 'sons'. Well fuck that. I have sons and I am not implicating them but they do know that men who attack women are the scum of the earth. Why would I not teach them that? Why wouldn't my husband teach them that, as he does?

You abuse apologisers need to get over your issues and raise decent men

I have a son.

I'm also a feminist.

The two are not incompatible.

I was going to start a thread but I'll just tag it in here as it's a similar situation, there was a meeting at my work this morning about the youngest member of staff, a young lad of 19, we were told he now identifies as female and had a new name ( a really silly /girly name , think K-tee ) .
There are 8 women in a building with 30 men, we have our own locker room and toilets - our manager explained they had asked K-tee which they would like to use and they said they would use the mens' facilities until they had properly transitioned.

I did ask privately what would have happened if he had said he wanted to use the womens' rooms and was told it would be the decision of the business, I then asked if the female staff would have any say but was fobbed off .
He is customer facing and unfortunately will never 'pass' as female.

What PPs said about not needing violence to make women uncomfortable is very true. Where I lived in France had predominantly unisex toilets. On at least a weekly basis, if not more frequently, I'd have guys intentionally making it difficult for me to leave by "accidentally" blocking the exit, or just spending too long washing their hands at the only sink, smirking, whilst I waited for them to finish, or as blatantly watching me as I walked into the toilets.

It was intimidating and they clearly got their kicks from knowing they'd stopped just short of anything I could report them for.

It should be this simple: penis= men's changing room. vagina= woman's changing room. By allowing a male identifying as female into a female only space, they are prioritising the wishes of a small minority and disregarding half the population ( female). This needs to be nipped in the bud before we end up with a potentially dangerous society.

A while ago, I was at a mixed sex hobby event. There was a woman there (who I now realise was trans, but at the time, didn't really enter my head). She had arrived in her hobby clothes and we all did the event without issue.

I very vaguely noticed she took herself off to a private changing room afterwards, but I simply assumed she preferred a non-open plan women's changing room (and slightly envious of her forward thinking as I am no fan of showering with virtual strangers either!)

Looking back, I now think she had simply been quietly getting on with sorting herself out in a way that was comfortable for her, comfortable for us and caused no issues to anyone. But then where would the TRAs get material from if everyone was as reasonable and grown-up about it as she was...

Exactly what @Josuk said. Seems like a very odd thing to get worked up about to me

@MurrayMoo, please explain why you think it "seems like a very odd thing to get worked up about"?

Why wouldn't women "get worked up" about having to use a communal changing room with male bodied people against their will?