Virgin Active changing rooms segregated by gender identity

[EdgeOfACoin]

Okay, I know this has been mentioned on passing on another thread, but I think it needs its own discussion.

Virgin Active have said that their changing rooms are segregated by gender identity and not by biological sex:

mobile.twitter.com/VirginActiveUK/status/1303378847711272961

I'm a VA member. This is something I would be prepared to cancel my membership over. Are they seriously saying that any male may access women-only communal changing rooms, where there are no individual cubicles, where women routinely queue for showers, provided he says he identifies as a woman?

This isn't about toilets. This isn't about who is 'peeing next to you' in the next cubicle. This is about women having to agree to undress in the presence of male-bodied strangers if they wish to use the facilities.

How is this even remotely defensible?

(I like the Twitter replies though.)

@MrsJamin

I don't think I've ever seen someone naked in the changing room at my gym. There is a male cleaner from time to time though that isn't the best at announcing his presence

Does your gym have an entirely communal changing area, though? There haven't been any individual cubicles at any of the gyms I've used.

I've tended to use city gyms before work. In my experience women usually show up in their gym clothes, work out, go to the changing rooms to use the showers and then get ready to go to work. At that time of day there is often a queue for the showers. The showers at my current gym have individual cubicles but there are gaps beneath the doors and the doors don't lock.
In other gyms I have used, the shower cubicles are opaque so you can see the outline of the person inside. After showering, a lot of women spend a not-insignificant amount of time doing their hair and make-up. Some women prefer to dress before doing hair and make-up. Others prefer to do their hair and make-up in their underwear first so that their clothes don't get damp from their hair (or possibly because it's quite hot in the part of the changing room with all the hair dryers). The cleaners are all female and I always thought it would be entirely inappropriate to have a male cleaner.

The majority of women in this scenario are in their 20s and 30s and in pretty good shape (hence being at the gym at 7am on a Monday morning).

I go into this level of detail for the benefit of people who are not familiar with this sort of gym setup.

There are many, many male-bodied people who would be very pleased to have access to such an area. It is the height of naïveté to think that some of them wouldn't try to gain access.

I've not been into my VA since covid but before that they were definitely signed male and female.

And the above comment reminded me that the showers have gaps above and below and do not lock.

The showers usually have frosty glass - but you can still see enough!

My local swimming pool has mixed sex showers and changing rooms already. They are lockable cubicles but I still hate it. I don’t like showering next to men or getting my clothes out of the locker and my underwear dripping g on the floor in front of a man. I also avoid drying my hair or doing make up for the same reason. In fact I now don’t go because I hate it so much.

My local swimming pool has mixed sex showers and changing rooms already. They are lockable cubicles but I still hate it. I don’t like showering next to men or getting my clothes out of the locker and my underwear dripping g on the floor in front of a man. I also avoid drying my hair or doing make up for the same reason. In fact I now don’t go because I hate it so much

See, all of our local authority pools and leisure centres are a changing 'village' with open shared showers and lockable cubicles for either sex and I love them. We usually go as a family so it means we can be near one another and I don't feel at all unsafe even when I've been by myself.

Well obviously it's lovely if you feel totally safe and happy in a mixed sex changing area, but what are we going to do with the women who aren't? That's kind of the issue here.

Since any options for them other than 'stop using those facilities' is being removed, for the better happiness of males.

If you can explain to me how that's just and right and fair, I'd love it. Please. Because to me it seems like the world has gone insane and excluding females/gross misogyny and sex discrimination has become the In Thing.

And I'd love an explanation too of why:

Female people need to accept male people into their spaces because male feelings, needs, individual identity, wellbeing, access, safety.... is supposedly good,

but:

female people who need a separate space because feelings, needs, individual identity, wellbeing, access, safety (often due to protected characteristics) is supposedly bad.

Why can male people wishing to use women's facilities not have any kindness or compassion or acceptance that some females continue to need male free spaces and allow them to have this?

My gym has lots of older ladies
the mastectomy group all tend to change in the same area
it would be ENTIRELY inappropriate for men to enter that space

There’s a market for female only gyms and swimming pools. Someone ought to be capitalising on that.

There’s a market for female only gyms and swimming pools. Someone ought to be capitalising on that.
No thank you.
I like to go swimming with my husband and family.
I like mixed classes.
I like to meet with friends and families in the cafe.

The Changing rooms are men / women / accessible
the gym should not be

I think my point is being lost a little bit. Yes, a service provider can use the Equality Act to provide a single sex facility if that falls within the exemption, but that is at their discretion. They don’t have to and in practice why would they bother when 1) they are likely to be pilloried for doing so and subject to legal challenge 2) generally women don’t complain about things like this because a) they don’t know about it b) they don’t have time c) there is a disbelief barrier - most people cannot believe that the law could be so very stupid / it seems so profoundly unlikely to them that the law could facilitate the presence of males in spaces where females are in a state of undress, so they consider any incident is a once off or
4) they believe that a natal male becomes a women if they say they are and from that point should have unrestricted access to all female spaces. They don’t believe, or if they do don’t think it matters, that predators who are not genuinely trans may take advantage of this. They believe that the transgender individual’s right to be treated as female for all purposes outweighs any discomfort, risk or unfairness any women who does not share that belief may have or experience - and more - as will be the case in Scotland if the Hate Crimes Bill passes as drafted - any expression of that discomfort, any letter to management of a service provider, any complaint to police , etc are all potentially criminal acts if likely to stir up hatred on the basis of transgender identity - and under that proposed law transgender identity includes (merely) cross- dressing.
Unless Westminster can be persuaded to enshrine the right to (as opposed to the discretionary ability to provide) single sex services then only civil action/ financial clout of those who favour single sex spaces will work and this would have to be on a very organised mass scale. I don’t think this will happen any time soon.

I'm glad now I changed gyms!

I don't mind loos as they're individual cubicles. I wouldn't mind changing rooms if they were cubicles. I wouldn't even mind if they weren't cubicles, and trans women who'd transitioned were allowed in. But no cubicles and people who identify as the opposite sex, but haven't transitioned in? No thanks. If they want that, there should be a third space. I don't even particularly like getting changed in front of other women, let alone men!

@EvelynBeatrice

I think my point is being lost a little bit. Yes, a service provider can use the Equality Act to provide a single sex facility if that falls within the exemption, but that is at their discretion. They don’t have to and in practice why would they bother when 1) they are likely to be pilloried for doing so and subject to legal challenge 2) generally women don’t complain about things like this because a) they don’t know about it b) they don’t have time c) there is a disbelief barrier - most people cannot believe that the law could be so very stupid / it seems so profoundly unlikely to them that the law could facilitate the presence of males in spaces where females are in a state of undress, so they consider any incident is a once off or 4) they believe that a natal male becomes a women if they say they are and from that point should have unrestricted access to all female spaces. They don’t believe, or if they do don’t think it matters, that predators who are not genuinely trans may take advantage of this. They believe that the transgender individual’s right to be treated as female for all purposes outweighs any discomfort, risk or unfairness any women who does not share that belief may have or experience - and more - as will be the case in Scotland if the Hate Crimes Bill passes as drafted - any expression of that discomfort, any letter to management of a service provider, any complaint to police , etc are all potentially criminal acts if likely to stir up hatred on the basis of transgender identity - and under that proposed law transgender identity includes (merely) cross- dressing. Unless Westminster can be persuaded to enshrine the right to (as opposed to the discretionary ability to provide) single sex services then only civil action/ financial clout of those who favour single sex spaces will work and this would have to be on a very organised mass scale. I don’t think this will happen any time soon.

But if they choose not to use the single sex exemption then the only alternative is mixed sex facilities; there is no legal basis for discriminating on the basis of gender.

I do agree we're probably going to have to see a significant percentage of female people being excluded from public provisions and evidence racked up enough on this. And this is the problem. Women will have to suffer significant harm for long enough that it's not possible to brush aside.

This is the tipping point, where either women start making enough fuss and resistance in individual cases that the management realise it won't work, or enough women customers withdraw their custom that the management can't deal with the financial hit. This will however require women to think of the good of and equality of all women and not just themselves, and be willing to stop using a facility that other women would be excluded from.

Our gym has a gender neutral changing room/loo plus male and female. In the swimming area, it has a family room and also gender neutral. The rest is men or women.

What the hell is so difficult about that

@InsaneInTheViralMembrane

One of the reasons I use Bannatyne’s. Duncan has shown his hand. They also have a very strict “no cameras” policy of which I approve as I have no desire to go vital because some 25 year old thinks I’m hideous/hilarious.

Sorry, a bit off-topic, but does this mean no smart phones on the premises?

The manager at my club has offered me a personal meeting to discuss, which is good. It'll be next week so I'll feedback as soon as I have something to report.

Keep up the fight

@NiceLegsShameAboutTheFace

The manager at my club has offered me a personal meeting to discuss, which is good. It'll be next week so I'll feedback as soon as I have something to report.

Keep up the fight

Good stuff. I will be writing to the manager of my club over the weekend.

There is a vast difference between mixed-sex lockable individual cubicles in a changing village, and allowing self-IDing transwomen into female-only changing rooms.

The first is not 'allowing men into female spaces.' The second is.

@DontBelongHere

There is a vast difference between mixed-sex lockable individual cubicles in a changing village, and allowing self-IDing transwomen into female-only changing rooms.

The first is not 'allowing men into female spaces.' The second is.

But mixed-sex changing villages raise the risk of assault by 18 times that of single sex facilities so should not be seen as the way forward either.

I was talking to an acquaintance about swimming with school (not about gender ideology) and she said only went once with school as boys were peering over/under lockers embarrassing the girls so after the first week she refused to go again.

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/section/67

Voyeurism in the UK.

A criminal act.

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/section/66

Indecent exposure in the UK.

A criminal act.