A Trans Woman Was Asked To Leave The Women's Changing Room At A PureGym

[OnTheDarkSideOfTheSpoon]

A Trans Woman Was Asked To Leave The Women's Changing Room At A PureGym

Exclusive: The woman was told that "no men are allowed" in the women's changing room after gym staff received a complaint from another member.

www.buzzfeed.com/laurasilver/puregym-trans-woman-changing-room

How long until the backlash forces a change in policy do you think?

when these laws were written (under the radar as helpfully pointed out by Stephen Whittle) were most / all TS aware, or consulted?

From what I can recall there wasn't a particularly widespread consultation on the subject. Agree or not but many women were happy to turn a blind eye as it were to the tiny numbers of medicalised TS people who on the whole are highly respectful of womens rights,

if aware did you applaud them?

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. How things were viewed then and how they are viewed now are very different. We are hearing a lot of people claim these things were a deliberate long term plan etc.. but of course there are always people who claim all sorts of things as deliberate plots.

did anyone stop and think to ask women what they thought about loosing sex based segregation and rights and the knock on affects?

There is a massive difference between a transitioned medicalised dysphoric group and Mr X getting his kicks from exposing himself. Historically women have been accepting despite the fact many are choosing now to rewrite history and claim that was never the case.

Personally I think the issue comes down to one line in the EA and that is the statement that to acquire the protected characteristic of gender reassignment one need not have received any treatment. Personally I think the loophole would not exist had the EA required a process to be underway.

As is continually pointed out "woman are being asked to give up sex based segregation". The perhaps naive intention I think was simply that both men and women were being asked to share a space with tiny numbers of dysphoric people. Men are asked to share their space with biological women too. I accept though that on reflection that has a very different meaning.

The common response to see on this thread is "no to male bodied persons". But can you really say all TS people are obviously male bodied ? The substitution of testosterone for Oestrogen causes very significant changes including breast growth, fat redistribution from stomach to hips and rear bumper, muscle loss, changes in skin texture and consistency, changes of smell and many many more. Historically many many women have shared spaces with TS people and simply never realised. TS people dont want to stand out.

We are clearly not a threat, but we are here and available for a really good, spirited, kicking.

How are males clearly not a threat when so many that come on here to point us in the right direction, always seem to point us in the direction that reduces females boundaries and their ability to access safe spaces? Clearly they [as a class] are a threat.

Visual imagery may be useful for those who find it difficult to understand or accept words spoken by women.

Third spaces would eliminate the standing out though, as well as preserving sex segregated spaces.

It’s a big fat no from me.

And because of the antics of TRAs my views over the past couple of years have hardened considerably.

I'm not arguing the definition of male bodied again.

No, nein, non, laa, nahin. STOP.

You see, what it comes down to is male people discussing which rights females may have and which rights females must relinquish, so that a group of males will feel comfortable.

This goes both ways. Biological women have the right to use a male only space in the same situation.

I do accept that the implications and practicalities are very very different in practice; I have yet to hear of a biological female choosing to expose themselves in an open plan male changing area.

That said I do feel to some extent that too much emphasis is placed on gender stereotypes that assume all men are dominating, all men have male privilege, all men seek to overthrow womens rights....Of course stating that fact gets me accused of exhibiting male pattern red flag behaviour NAMALT yet were I to say "women are x" as a generalisation I'd be sexist/chauvinist.

We are all conditioned from a very early age with negative concepts based on gender. Girls are told not to play with the boys because they might get hurt. Boys are conditioned to view women as submissive. It doesn't take much looking on the internet to see the epidemic of pornography that sees women treated like meat (and the same by the way applies to TS people).

Interestingly there was a piece on R4 this morning with someone saying (I’m not sure if she worked for the fire service or was reviewing them) that it was a disgrace that some fire stations still didn’t have showering facilities specifically for women (where they really need to have access to washing facilities after Attending incidents, eapecially if they may have been exposed to toxic materials). She said women!

It's not gender stereotypes, it's class analysis. It's why my husband isn't allowed in the female changing room despite not being a rapist, or any type of threat.
I am sure someone has already mentioned this but pure gym are getting all sorts of crap on twitter we need to keep showing them our support.

I do sympathise with genuinely dysphoric people but I think having any loopholes now would be exploited so going back to 2004 wouldn’t solve anything. The confusion between what constitutes as sex has caused a lot of this and I think sticking to biological, material reality is the only way to overcome it.

Third spaces on the other hand would address everyone’s needs (with respect to loos/changing rooms etc), as far as I can see.

Brave thing to say nowadays, Fekko. All of those who've made it a brave and unusual thing to say should be ashamed of themselves.

I think focusing on giving our support to Pure Gym rather than debunking the same old talking points over and over again here would be a more productive use of everyone's time.

Third spaces would eliminate the standing out though, as well as preserving sex segregated spaces.

I'm not sure I agree.

The concern is that there are men who choose to use womens spaces as an act of sexual dominance and as an opportunity to "perv" as someone called it. If you say that these people must use the third space then they will simply return to male spaces since their desires are not being accommodated.

Secondly having a third space will still not prevent determined Male bodied pervs from trying to disguise themselves as passable women for their own ends. Making something illegal doesn't stop something but simply means the perpetrator takes extra steps to not get caught.

Thirdly you are asking TS people to advertise their dysphoria. By walking into a third space I am making a public display of stating I am TS.

I'm not saying the alternative is an answer either but third spaces can't work.

The current "solution" is part of UK law enshrined in the EA. I cannot see how this could ever be repealed. What can be done is to tighten it up with further clarification and work to address gender stereotyping to deal with future generations. TS people have been around for thousands of years.

She said women

I know its a good thing but its incredibly sad that we now get excited because a member of some organisation uses the word woman

This was not happing a year or two ago

Instead of women only spaces they will have to be defined as ‘vagina only spaces’ - that seems to be the only way to keep out transwomen.

Vagina only gyms/prisons/changing rooms.

Either that or everywhere will have to provide gender neutral spaces with individual cubicles like many swimming pools do.

I’d still prefer a vagina only space though.

Oh and well done PureGym. I am impressed they were brave enough to do it and defend the women who didn’t want someone with a penis in their changing room.

A third space would absolutely work

Id be in the fucking thing if the queue was shorter!

It would just be a neutral area not just for TS or TG

And it would be handy for mothers of small and mid size children

My boys were very unhappy about having to use the ladies

The 19 year is especially pissed off

JOKE!!!!!

With a cute little cartoon uterus on the sign, Dream.

AAK

We are going to have to up our biology teaching in school if there's pictures!!

Or words in dds case

She got confused between the words fetus and femur

Which led to a very interesting conversation between her and her father

If you say that these people must use the third space then they will simply return to male spaces since their desires are not being accommodated.

I don’t know if I’m reading this incorrectly but how is this a bad thing? It’s the point surely?

Making something illegal doesn't stop something but simply means the perpetrator takes extra steps to not get caught

Yes, reducing the risk is better than getting rid of all precautions. Just because there are break ins, doesn’t mean we stop locking doors out of defeatism.

By walking into a third space I am making a public display of stating I am TS.

We are told over and over again that people (including a lot of women) don’t mind sharing loos and changing rooms. Presumably they’d be happy to use third spaces, which wouldn’t be advertised as for trans people but mixed sex. Therefore you wouldn’t be outed, you’d just be another person who was happy with mixed sex spaces.

Kay Don’t talk rot, it is nothing like that situation with Big and Little L. No one is hunting you out on threads to give you abuse, you seem perfectly capable of turning up on threads yourself. And when you don’t get an answer you like, you change the topic and come up with some obfuscated, wordy wall of text which is generally meaningless and yet again irrelevant. You don’t seem to be capable of constructing logical, well reasoned responses to any arguments on here.

And stop with the poor me, no one likes us. It doesn’t work here. And saying “we’re clearly not a threat” just yet again serves to illustrate how much you and your ilk are not listening to women, or simply don’t care about anything other than your own validation.