I am about to ID as a man

[YesItsADebate]

In 1.5 hours, I will be identifying as a gay man who does not conform with male gender stereotypes. I expect my local leisure facility to comply with the Swim England guidelines and agree that I am entitled to access the men-only swimming sessions, the male showers and toilets and to wear swimming trunks. I also expect them to re-educate any other man who objects to any of the above.

In other words, I have a meeting with the local swimming pool at 10 to see whether or not I’ll be resorting to topless swimming and public nudity tonight in an effort to prove my point that the Swim England guidelines are ridiculous

Wish me luck!

MrPan

”All you'd be doing is embarrassing the pool staff who ahve nothing to do with these guidlines formulation”

You obviously haven’t bottheed to read all of the OP’s posts?

You’re very brave op. I’m interested in finding out how it goes.

*bothered

Good luck, OP.

It's not childish. It's in the fine British tradition of humorous minor acts of civil disobedience to draw attention to an important political issue.

I can think of at least 3 swimming pools near where I live which are very old and only have communal changing rooms - i.e. places where you get naked in full view of other people of the same sex as you in order to get into your swimming costume - and I do not want to have to do this in front of a person with a penis, whatever delusions said person with penis may be harbouring inside their heads.

Actually, I don't think most men DO want bare breasted vulva flashing women in Their changing rooms. I would never deny that a not insignificant number of males really do not have a lot to offer humanity, but I believe that most men over the age of 25, once they realise the full implications, wouldn't want this.
I work with car mechanics. Here's two little gems from their tea break convo recently.
"I don't want some woman waving her tits about when I'm getting fitted for a funeral suit"
"I'd start getting a stiffy and make the rest of you ashamed of yours"
They have very different reasons to us, although most of them acknowledge and validate our reasons, but they don't want trans-identifying-females in their spaces either.
Somehow, we have to get more male-identifying-males onboard with us. We need to get them out of the closet.

Oh here we go. Women doing anything but writing very polite letters in protest is 'childish'. Go for it OP, and I'll be glad to join any campaigns.

Yes a mass event would definitely lead to men behaving inappropriately and there we have got them. The whole reason for sex segregation is that you can rely on a percentage of men behaving inappropriately around female biology as much as you can rely on there being a Tuesday in the week.

I think this is brilliant, and can't believe how brave you are OP! I could never do such a thing on my own. I would love to get a group together and do it though! Power in numbers!

Interesting OP.

Surely the simple answer to all of this is that you use the facilities based on what sex you are, not on gender or sexual orientation. There is a tiny proportion of people with chromosome issues for whom their sex is not clear and they therefore would choose where they felt most aligned to and people who have physically transitioned again go with what their body represents.

It’s about time the tables were turned. I think you’re doing something very brave and very important OP.

Brilliant! Watching with interest!!!

I think you are missing the point Myunicorn

I spend a fair amout of time in the company of young men (at work) and teenage boys (DD's friends). It is unrealistic to expect these young men to not view women's breasts as anything other than in a titillating way. That's just how they are wired.

Well done OP, good luck.

Maybe (lighthearted!) all women could self ID as men and we can all share men’s spaces and then self IDing trans women can have the prior spaces changed to trans women only - or wait - it would be no fun if women didn’t want them presumably?

I love you op.

ThePan I agree with you. It’s an attention-seeking, childish (selfish) thing to do that puts an unfair burden on staff in public-facing roles. The whole point of self-ID is that the sole criterion for being a man or a woman is saying that you are one or the other. Swim England have chosen to embrace this and so I am challenging it precisely because of the above. I’ve chosen this particular pool because it’s part of a large organisation that has access to legal advice. They have been forewarned and I hope that their senior management will use this meeting to choose to protect their staff and service users rather than pander to badly thought-out guidelines.

Oh I really hope it's part of the Everyone Active brand of leisure centres! Would be great for them to get with the picture

OP you are my hero.

Hope you have a tight pair of Speedo’s

"suck my fanny lips"

😂😂😂😂

"It's not childish. It's in the fine British tradition of humorous minor acts of civil disobedience to draw attention to an important political issue."

This

Good luck. I’m quite tempted to do this at the men’s outdoor pool at Hampstead.

TBH, you really need a gang of self identifying men to make this work.

I agree Paprika. I don’t think many men would like it. Especially not when it comes to an empowered woman exposing her body in a non sexualised way. I think they are more likely to feel encroached upon and very uncomfortable. They are also likely to be unhappy if they specifically choose the ‘men only’ session.

Good luck!

view women's breasts as anything other than in a titillating way :o