Times article - Men ‘should accept trans women in changing rooms’

[EweSurname]

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/men-should-accept-trans-women-in-changing-rooms-mg2b8vnd3

All German women strip completely naked in the showers, young and old, and they shower thoroughly and wash their hair, then put their swimsuits back on

I would hate that.

larrygrylls

Oh, sure, unisex change rooms totally solve the issue. Except if you are female.

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/women/sexual-assault-unisex-changing-rooms-sunday-times-women-risk-a8519086.html

The vast majority of reported sexual assaults at public swimming pools in the UK take place in unisex changing rooms, new statistics reveal.

The data, obtained through a Freedom of Information request by the Sunday Times, suggests that unisex changing rooms are more dangerous for women and girls than single-sex facilities.

Just under 90 per cent of complaints regarding changing room sexual assaults, voyeurism and harassment are about incidents in unisex facilities.

What’s more, two thirds of all sexual attacks at leisure centres and public swimming pools take place in unisex changing rooms.

Of 134 complaints over 2017-2018, 120 reported incidents took place in gender-neutral changing rooms and just 14 were in single-sex changing areas.

You “as a man” should accept trans women into your spaces as they are men. Does not mean we have to accept men in our spaces.

FeministCat

Would it not bother you have a post op trans man in the ladies changing room?

I think this is where I'm coming unstuck. If people go into changing rooms according to their sex then trans men will be changing in the female changing rooms and I would find that just as difficult as a man changing in there.

Only a man would think that:

1. Ogling diminishes just because you expose female bodies more to men (look at how much porn has done to reduce objectification! /s);

1. Ogling is our primary threat from men as female-bodied people (hint for *larrygylls” it’s not, it’s actually sexual assault, rape, and murder).

“As a man”, you can’t ever speak for our actual lives experience as women. Period.

Would it not bother you have a post op trans man in the ladies changing room?

It would bother me less than it would bother me to have a transwoman in the changing rooms. But ideally I'd like a third space instead.

• All German women strip completely naked in the showers, young and old, and they shower thoroughly and wash their hair, then put their swimsuits back on

I bet a lot of German women and girls self-exclude from that - and incomers from other cultures.

There needs to be provision for both sex segregation and privacy within that. (And unisex provision for parents and children, and for people with carers).

It's possible to achieve this even in quite small places.

I can understand why people might think that more open nudity might lead to less sexualisation. I think it comes from looking at some cultures where that seems to be the pattern. In places where people actually just don't wear clothing, there is a different attitude to nudity. And it's also true that cultural norms change - there was a time when showing ankles would be risqué in our culture, and now it really isn't.

I don't think that can just be applied in other contexts in a simple way though. At a basic level, men and women are interested in each other sexually, so to create a scenario where that doesn't apply, you have to really desexualise the context. In places where people wear a lot of clothing most of the time, in part because of the climate, you won't have that in the same way as you would see if you lived in the middle of the rainforest. That's not in itself bad or good, it's just a reflection of the environment. It's not something that needs to change for some abstract reason.
Another element in our culture is the consumerist drive to sexualise pretty much everything, and women's bodies in particular. I think as long as that is the case, it will be difficult to desexualise the body at the same time.
I do think there is something to be said for people having fewer hand-ups about their bodies, and I think unisex spaces make that worse. The move to complete privacy in cubicles, which has happened over my lifetime, has meant that women and girls are less often in situations where they see other normal women's bodies. (I am not sure if this is true for men.) So almost all the bodies they are exposed to are models, actresses, and so on.

Trans men are women. They are born in female bodies. They have lived as girls and women. I mostly feel sympathetic for them as I think many of them should have been treated for other things before transitioning.

Post-op meaning what? Post-op is now used to reference everything from laser hair removal to hysterectomy to facial surgery to bottom surgery. Few people - trans men included - get “bottom surgery”. Even if they have had a phalloplasty it is not a penis. I mean if they were walking around with it out it would be rather clear it isn’t.

I won’t force trans men to change with women but I also won’t force men to accept trans men into their spaces. Just as I don’t want men to force trans women in mine. That is why third spaces can be helpful, but third spaces should not at the expense of sex-segregated spaces.

I'm afraid that's wishful thinking, Larry. I spent the best part of my childhood and teenage years in a country where attitudes to nudity are more open, and I encountered ogling and lewd comments as soon I developed breasts.

Yep. See account below.

@Larry: The most progressive societies with regard to sexual integration are probably The Netherlands and Scandinavia. They (again probably) have the least leering, ogling etc. On the other hand, sexually segregated societies (think Saudi Arabia, Pakistan etc) have horribly misogynistic cultures.

Let's talk about Germany again, which I often hear praised for its "progressive" stance on nudty. Yes, you have lots of nude beaches in germany, nude lakes, nude areas of beaches and lakes. I've been to a few but I wasn't nude. You've got his whole FKK culture, with lots of people being naturists. Heck, my next door neighbour were FKK, a lovely middle aged couple who had very high hedges around their garden but whom I have never in all the years seen naked. They know it's a private matter.
Anyway, Germans are said to be so "open" and *progressive" about nudity, right?
Once my daughter, early 20's and quite pretty in an exotic, dark skinned way, went with her then boyfriend to a mixed sauna in a very lovely and rather posh leisure centre (I'm saying this to show that it the clientele was presumably well situated, not uneducated thugs).
They were both naked. She said that the other men were ogling her quite openly and in such a way that she felt awful, and they left early.

She will never again go to a mixed sauna. We sometimes went to a female-only sauna.

FeministCat

I understand that they were born female.

But outwardly, if they have a beard and/or have had phalloplasty they would look male in many ways.

That would make me uncomfortable I think. I wouldn't look at them and think oh it's ok they were born female.

All German women strip completely naked in the showers, young and old, and they shower thoroughly and wash their hair, then put their swimsuits back on

It's also a requirement in all the Swedish pools I've been to, but we do have single sex communal changing rooms at least. (I use the female disabled as I'm far too British to strip off in front of anyone.)

I would hate that.

I bet a lot of German women and girls self-exclude from that - and incomers from other cultures.

I should have mentioned that the communal shower rooms also have shower cubicles which people who don't want to get naked. And you are not obliged to strip naked. I never do: I keep my swimsuit on in those shower rooms. I don't think there is any stigma for not stripping, and if there is, I don't care.

I don't think German women self exclude. They are used to it from a very young age. You see women, old young, small kids, even (very) young boys in there. They grow up with it. The

It's also a requirement in all the Swedish pools I've been to, but we do have single sex communal changing rooms at least. (I use the female disabled as I'm far too British to strip off in front of anyone.)

it's not a requirement to strip naked in Germany; it's a requirement to shower, and you have to walk through the shower rooms to get to the pool.

beard and/or have had phalloplasty

Wait, so a woman with lots of facial hair would be the same as a man to you?

I disagree that changing one’s body makes one not their sex. I have had mastectomies. I am sterile. I am still female.

I see trans men as still female but with manipulated bodies from hormones or surgery. I don’t think they should be in the male spaces. Just as trans women - even post op ones - should not be in the female spaces.

Again, perhaps third spaces are suitable but that is not my fight - my fight is to keep trans women and men out of female spaces - to keep them sex-segregated.

But outwardly, if they have a beard and/or have had phalloplasty they would look male in many ways.

That would make me uncomfortable I think. I wouldn't look at them and think oh it's ok they were born female.

That means you are being influenced by superficial stereotypes.

I've no doubt that a transman who passes, with a beard and tattoos, might make you look twice and provoke an initial feeling of discomfort. But the rationalisation is that you know they are female and therefore do not present a threat. Their appearance of being male, does not correlate to the statistic of male violence.

Likewise with the few transwomen who might pass. They present exactly the same threat as any man, and any transwomen who don't pass.

Otherwise you're buying into the illogical premise that changing your appearance changes your sex.

@larrygrylls - I have played mixed-sex team sports in many countries around Europe (France/Germany/Sweden/Holland/Czech Republic/Spain/Luxembourg) and there are ALWAYS separate changing rooms for the two sexes. I don't believe for one minute unisex changing rooms are commonplace on the continent....

Meghan Murphy quoted in the article hits the nail dead on the head:

“The problem is men. If trans women are afraid of being assaulted by men, and women are afraid of being assaulted by men, then education needs to happen around men.”

Sing it, sister!

“The problem is men. If trans women are afraid of being assaulted by men, and women are afraid of being assaulted by men, then education needs to happen around men.”

Exactly, exactly, exactly.

And if transwomen suddenly think men aren't a threat, let's hear on what urgent basis they have to dismantle sex segregation.

Different cultures have different priorities. Modesty is clearly a UK requirement. The reason Germans strip naked and shower properly before entering an indoor swimming pool is hygiene. It is considered extremely discourteous, selfish and disgusting not to do so. If I'm perfectly honest, even after all this time, I still feel a little grossed out that UK swimming pools do not have this requirement and that everyone just goes in the water dirty.

As cleanliness is considered paramount, all showers are strictly single-sex and also typically have shower cubicles for those who do not wish to shower naked with strangers. It's considered preferable for someone to go into a cubicle to shower properly than for them to keep their swimming costume on and just wash their arms and legs. And I witnessed quite a few people complaining to those/about those who don't wash properly and of course adults typically tell off kids who don't. There are signs up everywhere stating this as a requirement.

As this is a part of my upbringing, I had a few embarrassing incidents when I first came to Scotland and used the swimming pool. I didn't use to wear my glasses in the pool and simply assumed the signs on the walls at the Commonwealth Pool in Edinburgh were asking patrons to shower properly. So I walked in there stark naked with my costume in one hand and shower gel in the other many, many times. Lots of stares and mutterings but everyone far too polite (or shocked or grossed out) to complain. Went back after my swim fully dressed wearing my glasses one day and saw the signs on the walls actually said NO NUDE SHOWERING.

And yes, Germany has a strong naturist movement, but it is strictly limited in space and entirely voluntary. My parents dragged us to naturist beaches, I went to mixed-sex saunas and naked indoor swimming sessions in my late teens/early twenties but I would not have tolerated a mixed-sex changing room, not even back then. And society as a whole would react with loud protests if single-sex spaces like that became mixed-sex. That's because naturists are a minority and all Germans expect their privacy to be respected and insist on sex segregation.

One advantage of living in a Muslim country is that I KNOW that my gym changing is single sex. I can also attend mixed or women's only classes, and use machines in the mixed or women only area.
Yes, work to be done in other areas but it is refreshing not to have to deal with pomo/ queer theory bullshit. (Trans is not a thing here- homosexuality is illegal BUT widely accepted and tolerated if not deliberatively provocative (jail only for 'public scandal') - we all know where the gay bars are)

Me too EnormousDormouse!

It's odd that I feel my rights as a woman are actually better protected living in a ME country (& of course there is a huge amount of work to be done), but, well, this is where we are now.

I've no doubt that a transman who passes, with a beard and tattoos, might make you look twice and provoke an initial feeling of discomfort. But the rationalisation is that you know they are female and therefore do not present a threat.

It isn't only about threat though is it? I've heard lots of people on here say that their father/brother/friend isn't a threat but they still don't want to get changed in front of them.

I would still view a person who looked male as a man. I wouldn't look at them or react to them as a woman. I guess if it happens then I will have to consider not going to the gym or swimming.

Not much else I can do is there?