Which women-only spaces do you use, and how would their removal affect you?

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I am new to this. I’m struggling to think of any, personally.

At the swimming pool, I use communal showers with my costume on, then change in a cubicle. At the gym, I tend to just walk home in my sweaty clothes rather than use the communal shower/changing area - I’d love for cubicles to be put in and change in the toilets if I have to. I used to change in changing rooms at an old gym but felt uncomfortable.

I don’t use the women-only slot at the doctors or the pool (though would if the timing suited me better). I have private healthcare so had a private room last time I had an operation; prior to that I’ve had an uneventful stay in a mixed ward (with the exception of a children’s ward with a violent eight year old boy). I’ve never been in prison. Some of my gym classes tend to be women only, but men can, and sometimes do join. I’ve been in a book club with mostly women and one man. My doctors are male, including a gynaecologist. Didn’t go to boarding school; did stay in an allocated all-girls room on school trips, but an allocated mixed room on uni trips.

I do use women’s toilets but have no issue with using gender neutral ones and prefer cubicles with their own mirror and sink. At hostels I’ve always paid for private rooms because I wouldn’t want to share with men or women (and if it came to it, would choose whichever was quietest/emptiest).

Am I missing anywhere?

Sorry, I meant clothes shops!

Yes Unimaginative I know there are some abusers who are HCPs. Another poster brought my rape into that part of the discussion and I was trying to explain that despite having bad experiences with men, I don't feel threatened by them in a professional medical setting. I appreciate that wouldn't be the case for everyone and I respect their right to choose. However it genuinely is a surprise to me that basically all the respondents on this thread would request a female to take their smear test.

I too do a contact sport, i have sparred with men, it is mindblowing just how MUCH stronger and faster the average man is than the average woman.

If my team allow TIMs on I will have to quit. I can’t risk the inevitable injuries.

I think it is also a lot to do with honest labelling. Unisex, to me, is completely different, and in some cases ok, to ‘labelling as for women but actually allowing men too’. Makes me feel definitely more vulnerable than knowing it is unisex in the first place.

It's not just the fear of being assaulted that makes me want a female for a smear test.

I don't know, there is something about smear tests that many women find uncomfortable and embarrassing. I kind of just want someone who has been there and knows how it feels to have one if you see what I mean? It's hard to explain because when I had my kids everyone looked up there! But a smear test feels a bit more intimate and personal I guess, I suppose because you are not focused on the giving birth bit.

Does anywhere in the UK have communal changing rooms (without cubicles) for women nowadays?

I have been a member of three different leisure centres and all of them had single sex communal changing rooms without cubicles.

There's a big difference between having a male HCP do intimate care when you know you have the option to refuse simply by asking for a female, but chose not to as the individual isn't making you uncomfortable/goading

And having an autogynephile do your care in a dynamic where you can't refuse/ask for a woman instead

The last 3 gyms I have been to have been single sex communal, with a couple of cubicles.

All of the swimming pools I have been to have had the unisex (or 'bisexual' as Mil called them 😂) 'changing villages'. I guess the reason for this is because families will go swimming, or dads with daughters or mums with sons, so it's easier to have everyone together. Whereas gyms tend to be adults only so can still be segregated.

I rented a room off a lady who only wanted female lodgers, y'think she would be immune to this in her own home these days??

OP, this is a wee bit “ I’m alright Jack, so why should I worry?”

I'm losing the will to live.

Book clubs? We are talking about the undeniable fact of the systematic oppression of females as a class by the male class. There will always be women who breeze through life and feel unaffected or oblivious. Just as NAMALT.

I've never had an abortion, been denied access to contraception or had my clitoris gouged out when I was a child. So what? The infinite subjective experiences of all women across space and time do not render our class oppression null and void. That's why there is Feminism. It encompasses empathy.

Pancake that's a really good point. I've seen ads for rooms for only gay men, only vegans etc though so I expect as it's in a person's private space it wouldn't be discriminatory?

Cool personally, I do oppose the gender recognition act and I think there should be some divisions in law based on sex, not gender, particularly for protection of the vulnerable people. As I said in the OP, I access very few women-only spaces so yes, their removal wouldn't impact me at the moment, but it's not all about me. I have a lot of friends who are clever, open-minded people who don't oppose the GRA and I think that is because they think it won't affect them and they don't want to be negatively labelled as not 'woke' enough. I started this thread hoping people would give reasoned arguments about why women-only spaces are essential that I could relay to said friends, and some posters have.

I live in a small town, don't know that many people but I do have the misfortune of having known two men with autogynephilia, which makes me think it must be pretty prolific.
One of them told me he masturbated in the women's toilet at the train station. I was only a teenager when he told me, I should have told the police but I didn't. I have been scared using women's toilets when it's quiet and there aren't any people around ever since. Their fucking sordid fantasies about going out in mini skirts without underwear and hoping women catch a glimpse of their erections, etc. There is not enough brain bleach.

My local leisure centre has a mixed changing village, recently a man was arrested for filming women and children changing by putting his phone in his shoe and sliding it under the gap at the bottom of the cubicle.

Smear tests, always.
Mammograms (when the time comes), always.
Cycling club rides: I was a ride leader in both a road and mountain biking club and women-only rides really brought women on board. Without them many women would come along, get left behind, and often pack it in. There are some great women-only initiatives (BC's Breeze, for example) that are doing a lot to boost female participation. What would happen to those? We did have a TIF turn up on one of the women-only MTB rides one time and it was embarrassing how much stronger/faster he was than the strongest/fastest women in the club. There'd be no point to women-only rides if there was more than one TIF there because it would just be like a regular mixed ride.
Our local swimming pool has mixed changing area (separate locked cubicles) but segregated showers and toilets. At the velodrome it's very small open area with showers and toilets in cubicles, same at the pool my mum goes to. I wouldn't be comfortable changing in an open changing room like that with someone who was obviously male.

Childbirth. I asked for & received a women-only experience for my last one. It was poles apart from my other experiences.

I have used my local Women's Centre and the Women Centres in other cities when invited by those who live there. I've had great experiences in them and in some of my darkest times they saved me.

I have used peer group therapies on and off since I was 11. I strongly prefer and get more out of peer therpaies with the knowledge of comfort of people who've experienced similar than one on one with a professional. Mixed-sex groups, particularly those led my men, are entirely different to female-only groups and while I benefited from women-led mixed sex groups when I was younger, I and I know many others who would not do so now. I particularly wouldn't do as my life experience, biologically and as a detransitioned person, is too often deemed hostile and transphobic and I won't go into a space to heal that expects me to erase or hide that.

Smear tests have always been done by a woman nurse and all of the tests and most of the care for my ovaries which started failing when I was 27 resulting in quite a few health issues.

I go to women's discos and hobby groups. My daughters regularly attend girl-only activities.

On the flip side, I was once the only female on an otherwise all male wrestling team. I was young, foolish, out to prove something. The harassment, the injuries, no amount of training or desire or identity or my personal strength was going to alter that situation.

Part of me used to agree with CrazyExIngenue, that shit happens everywhere so what's the point, particularly as a lot of violence I've survived has been at the hands of other women like when I was held down by two women while sexually assaulted until bloody by a third while in a room on a women's OB/GYN ward when I was 18 on one many times I've been attacked to "teach me a lesson". It's hard not to get pulled in that sometimes, but it's rather defeatist and ignores a lot of the data. We can't make it 100% safe, nothing in life will ever be, but we have plenty of data on how to make it better and safer. Many international charities and organizations openly discuss how important sex-segregated facilities are to keeping women in public spaces, in keeping women healthy and accessing medical facilities, in preventing harm, in keeping girls in school and women in careers. I don't think it declaring weakness to use the data we have to make our environment better for ourselves and really, I don't want my strength measured against a man or how much I can take without complaint anymore. I've been in single-sex and single-gender spaces and socially I can see room for both, but in our current environment with the information we know, single-sex spaces need better legal protection and resources. For some of us, it's saved our lives.

I've a penis ... so I'm a man ... so I don't use any women-only spaces.

Their removal would reduce the safety of half the population.
Including some I hold dear, some who happen to be in my society, and others in the generations to come.

For the vast majority of those, the effects might not be large. For others, the effects will be tragic.

OP, your question suggests that what's at stake is trivial. Yet the sheer number of people disadvantaged and endangered is huge.

If I took down my smoke alarms, the effect would probably be negligible. A bit more anxiety when I went to bed or turned the oven on, but no biggy. Some small increase in the risk of life and limb, but only small. Yet if it's all the same with you, I'd rather you didn't argue away my right to put one up in the first place.

Women only spaces/services I've used - toilets, changing rooms, hot springs, spas, gym sessions, sports, networking events, social events. I would not give up any of those things willingly. In some cases I've also used unisex facilities (not sports facility changing/shower rooms, and it will be a cold day in hell before I ever do), and still been happy that a women only option exists for those who want it. If I need medical care that's in any way related to the breasts or vagina I want a female practitioner. This is not unreasonable even if it's not something you, OP, care about. In the event that I needed psychiatric care, if there was any chance that I'd end up in a mixed ward I'd avoid seeking help rather than put myself at risk of that.

Even if you personally/some other women don't understand why many women want women only spaces why would that mean that the women who do want them shouldn't have them? This is not a situation where 100% of women have to require a thing in order for the thing to be available. If what you want is the percentages then a survey would be a better way to get that information.

The one time I’ve been made to feel uncomfortable in a communal changing room was at my last gym which had a couple of (it seemed) lesbians who would vigorously towel themselves, wander around naked and quite openly looking at people changing. I changed gyms

I find this statement a little bit questionable. What made you think they were lesbians OP?

What we call “women’s space” didn’t just grow from the earth. Every inch of women’s space women marched and fought for,including toilets. There used to be very little sport for girls, and women fought to change that. Since there was so little sport for girls, they didn’t grow up to be athletic women, and so there were very few gyms that even accomodated women, much less had changing spaces. There were NO refuges or rape crisis services until women conceived of them, raised money for them, and built them themselves.

And

Frankly, it would have been even worse if the tech had been a TIM, because of the rape threats the activists have directed at women. I have very little trust in a male who insists on the right to penetrate female space and insists females should surrender their right to object.

And finally

End male violence, and then we can negotiate.

Men (and their allies) who insist on breaching women's privacy are exactly the kind of self entitled aggressor, steeped in male socialisation, who should be automatically excluded.

Materialist

Excellent post. Heartfelt, genuine and, sadly, far from rare.

The majority of these posts demonstrate rational reasons why most women and girls want to continue with the right to request a female for health reasons/some areas to remain female only. So why every time we try and raise this we are being viewed as hysterical, terfy, transphobic. I feel that this is part of the lived experience of being a woman and i have to say i think to avoid self if becoming a reality we need more male voices to join ours (sorry if this is an unfeministic thing to say), the kind that dont want their daughters perved over in dressing rooms by men who are mentally unstable and / or sexually disturbed and no longer have access to the appropriate medical support, the ones who enjoy seeing their girls play football/rugby/martial but dont want to see them hurt because they have a man tackling / striking them, the men who also dont want to be accused of transphobia if they dont return the unwanted advances of another man who is claiming he is a woman. I am disgusted at the guidance that has come out of the uk swimming association that girls and women are expected to tolerate male bodies in the changing room (high risk) but a ftm cannot bare her breasts in a public area (low risk). If we are not going to seperate on sex based reasons why the hypocrisy once you are in the pool area that we need to cover up?

Broken record time again - sex segregation in certain spaces is the standard in our society. If certain people would like that standard to change the burden of proof is on them in terms of justifying why it should be changed. "I, personally, don't care" is not sufficient justification for imposing that change on everyone.

Speaking personally, for me when I was younger the big one would have been women's sport. I'd never have got to play football if I'd been up against TIMs competing for the same space on the team. They'd have been bigger, stronger, faster and have had all the benefits of the thousands of hours of practice a male childhood affords. I only started playing as an adult.

Most recently, in the communal changing room of my local pool, I had the delightful treat of a mother deciding to bring her son's (round about 12 - my DS is 10 so I can judge pretty accurately). I was pretty pissed off at the experience of having a couple of lads walk in on me then laugh at the naked middle aged lady (it wasn't sexual, it wasn't threatening, but it was unpleasant, and should not have been something I was subjected to).

Facing old age in a couple of decades I can't say I relish the thought of having my incontinence pads changed by a TIM if I'm unlucky enough to need residential care in old age - again, I wouldn't feel threatened but I would feel humiliated and demeaned by the experience - and respecting my feelings about my privacy and bodily autonomy should count for as much as respecting a TIM's lady-feels.