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.)

They have confirmed anybody self identifying as a woman can use female changing rooms. Membership cancelled.

wow! it hadn't even occurred to me that girls were subject to the same age rules as boys so apparently VA are happy for an unaccompanied 9 year old girl to be in the same changing rooms as a self identified male-bodied person??

Have they stopped to think for one minute about the possibilities here?

And presumably the father/male carer would have no idea who is in the changing room with the girl.

This is one of the 'fears' now with my DDs. DH takes them away frequently, and now they go into female facilities alone. All DH can do is wait outside (but not too close, as a single bloke outside female facilities is seen as dodgy) and trust they are ok. They know if they have a problem to ask another woman (preferably with children) (the problems I've anticipated are things like doors getting stuck). But now it's also men abusing gender ID laws to get access to female facilities.

I am not a VA member anymore, but if I was and invited to a meeting about this, I would probably ask why they made separate changing rooms in the first place? Then point out that allowing self ID TW into the women's changing room makes them mixed sex. And if the women's changing rooms become mixed sex, then it is discriminatory (I think) to not make the men's mixed sex also. In which case, VA should be up front about and it make all the changing rooms mixed sex. Then members can properly vote with their feet.

We have separated single sex spaces based on our bodies, not our brains.

@Norma27

They have confirmed anybody self identifying as a woman can use female changing rooms. Membership cancelled.

Wow. Unbelievable.

These things tend to be played out on social media... twitter thatta way >>>>>

@ItsAllGoingToBeFine

The problem is that they have probably been told by someone who should know better that this is the law. One of the reasons why Ann Sinnotts case is so important.

Yep. The spreading of misinformation about the Eqaulity Act has done a lot of damage.

My dd was actually pretty useless on her own after swimming. Eventually DH worked out that another mum was helping her every single week. This was Lovely Other Mum. DD had received help from LOM for maybe two months before LOM introduced herself to DH. DD, aged 8, had failed to mention it.

All DH can do is wait outside (but not too close, as a single bloke outside female facilities is seen as dodgy) and trust they are ok.

maybe, as there appears to be no threshold and no need to justify the self-id, your DH could legitimately id temporarily as a woman for the purposes of keeping an eye on his DDs, (although if he was anything like my DH that idea would distress him greatly).

It would prompt an interesting conversation with the staff though - they would then need to make some sort of framework around the idea of 'identifying as a woman' in order to exclude him.

Another company following stonewall law rather than the actual equality act 🤦🏻‍♀️

Everyone on my fb has gone mad! Quite a few members I think may now cancel.
The Branch manager Who spoke to me was lovely, and actually phoned rather than emailed as requested as he thinks the same as us.
I’m gutted as I loved that gym, but my principles mean much more.

@Kit19

Another company following stonewall law rather than the actual equality act 🤦🏻‍♀️

This should be a massive scandal.

I did point out the EA is sex not gender etc.
He believed the same as us tho but had to follow company line.
My husband did laugh when there was obvious waffle to start so I said stop the waffle you are telling me penises are allowed in female changing rooms and he had to say yes.

It should Sunset and the fact that it isn’t just shows how deeply embedded stonewall are in the corporate world & national government bodies

In my VA they have a poster up in the changing room that boys can go in the girls changing room accompanied by their mums up to the age of 8 only.

But a 64 year old man can go as long as he is self identifying as a woman? Okay🤨

He believed the same as us tho but had to follow company line.

Surely what he should do is to forward the complaints and queries up the chain, and ask how he is supposed to resolve the apparent conflict between company policy and the law as given by the EA.

nicelegs I would say that my religion prevents me from sharing changing spaces with male bodied people and can they guarantee that you won't have to do that. If they can't you can point out that they are discriminating on the grounds of religion.

He did say he would do that and email me back with their response.
We will see though.
I am so gutted as I loved my club.

Richard Branson - wasnt it he who had a daughter who he and his wife allowed to ‘get on with it’ (dress ‘as a boy’ etc) and is now happily a woman with kids? Would he have been happy or send her off to the men’s room alone at the age of, what 9?

It’s not just boys that can’t share a changing room with their opposite sex parent. My dd, from aged 8, had to change away from the “protection” of her dad. Only under 8s can change in either changing room under adult supervision.
From 8, she was sent to the “designated areas in the changing room of her sex”. Her dad sent her in and met her at the steps to the pool believing she was in a female only space

This.

My DDs - a little older but still at school - change away from DH but are forced to change next to adult males with full genitalia at the say so of said adult males??!!

And they think this is good for business??!!!

One of my FB friends has just tried to say ' but what if that man feels they are a woman?. Women are just as much a danger in the shower'.
This lady is a midwife. I really do despair.

The ‘women are just as likely to sexually attack women’ line gives me the absolute rage

It’s such complete & utter nonsense. Men making up the vast vast vast majority of sexual predators & carrying out the vast vast vast majority attacks on women is such a basic fact that denying it is like denying the Sky is blue!!! And yet here we are....

I have replied saying ,99% of sexual attacks are committed by men, and anyone with a penis trying to gain access to female safe areas is a danger to women.
I am new to the feminism boards, and wouldnt have even said I was feminist recently. This has made me so mad.

Good woman Norma27, we have to refute this absolute tosh.

@MadamBatty definitely.
I am so upset about it but my morals are more important.
Hardly anyone knows this about me, but my stepdaughter was raped by many people a few years ago. That anyone thinks men should be allowed in safe spaces is just madness to me. As I say, I am new to the feminism boards but I feel so strongly about this.