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.)

I can confidently say that a very high % of women who have a close friend/relative who have been raped, or have been assaulted themselves.

🤚 🤚 🤚 (that I can think of off the top of my head)

@SerenityNowwwww definitely. Reading that back makes me realise it looks like I thought my experience was unusual. Unfortunately it isn't obviously.

They need alter the layout of the gym

1 male changing
1 female changing
and one for the odds and sods

I know lots of women who have been raped or sexually assaulted. None by another woman. Maybe I’m unusual?

Norma27 - oh no I didn’t think that you thought it unusual - quite the opposite. It’s pretty much a given, isn’t it?

Thank you @SerenityNowwwww
I think because I'm new to feminism boards I'm not sure how I sound.
Too many women have gone through too much shit.
I can't do much, but I can refuse to give my money to a company who throws women under the bus.
I was pleased my husband said he would not 'allow' our girls to be members of a club which allowed men to show them their penises and watch them get undressed.

Great work, Norma!

to your stepdaughter, Norma. And well done for standing up.

Thank you for the kind words. I feel great for standing up for what is right. I hope the other members who are friends question it too.
One friend is a partner at a huge global firm and was mad so hopefully can have some say in policy there..

Norma, you are just a normal, caring, thinking woman talking common sense, but in the climate we now live in you are a radical feminist and a terf. I'm the same too.

Definitely @RobertSmithsWig
I am happy to be a term and my teenage daughter is too.
It is so crazy that common sense has been given a derogotory name.

*terf not term!

A slightly different take on the changing room issue.

Regardless of a person's gender identity, they have a male or female body. TW are male (even if they have had surgery to create a body which satisfies their GD, are on hormones etc etc and of course with self ID none of that is needed)

I do NOT think that all TW are predators or voyeurs.
I do NOT think that all men are predators or voyeurs.

I don't think my FIL or BIL or nephews or male friends are predators, these are men that I know well and trust completely .but I would not want to be anywhere near them if I or they were naked!

I appreciate that there will be women and men who are completely fine with mixed sex changing facilities. Good for them. I am not.

We are back to the third space being the solution. Single sex male, single sex female and mixed sex for anyone who isn't bothered either way, or feels unable to use the facitlity that corresponds with their sex.

I don't think my FIL or BIL or nephews or male friends are predators, these are men that I know well and trust completely .but I would not want to be anywhere near them if I or they were naked!

Exactly so. This is a straightforward argument that I use a lot to avoid blinding folk with so much legislation/in depth analysis that it renders them unable to comprehend

We are back to the third space being the solution. Single sex male, single sex female and mixed sex for anyone who isn't bothered either way, or feels unable to use the facility that corresponds with their sex.

Precisely.

And at the point someone says nooooo because othering, they have begun to advocate for the compulsion upon female people to participate against their will to the benefit of someone male, or be punished by exclusion. Regardless of the female person's needs, because the male person should have higher value and access to better support, recognition and standards of service than she does by virtue of their birth sex. There is no way to get away from that this is wholly based on birth sex. And there is no way to make that sound progressive or appropriate.

I think places like this need to be honest so that people can choose to spend their money there or not. How can they afford to do something that will actually stop people taking out memberships?

Also the effect on women’s health - if they won’t go to the gym/pool then they will need to find alternative activities? Jogging or exercising outside in winter when it’s cold and dark - no thanks.

DS got mugged by 3 creatures in the middle of a large park at lunchtime - so there’s no way I’d be hauling my Lardy-arse around there by myself (and there are lots of paths and areas that are quite secluded).

I have emailed the CEO
[email protected] if anybody else wants to too.

Don’t forget- if your company or insurance companies etc offers gym memberships do let them know...

Thank you @Norma27.

What's interesting to me is that I'm struggling a bit with medical issues and some disability at the moment, and my DS(21) is home and helping out.

Everyone from the Council to my GP to nurses and physio completely accept that it is wildly inappropriate for anyone to expect my son, as a male, to help with anything that would involve any loss of privacy or dignity on my part. It's an absolute given.

So the same should be true for me and my privacy from males in other settings.

@Norma27

I have emailed the CEO [email protected] if anybody else wants to too.

Thanks, Norma. Will contact him.

I’m my local pool there are a fair few (children and women) who swim wearing full head to toe suits.

I knew a teacher who told me that she had a girl in tears because she couldn’t swim as she had forgotten to bring her head covering. These are primary school children.

Anyone give a flying monkeys about these girls?

There is a local members FB page which I have posted on today. Think the manager will be getting a few phonecalls/emails.
Most replies are mad about it.
One woman told us we should leave our kids at home if we don't want them to see men in female changing rooms. She said also there are private cubicles and separate showers. Yes there are 3 cubicles. How can everyone use those? And the showers are that daft opaque glass, no locks and gaps at top and bottom.

I don’t want to see male bods in the ladies room! Why should I?

She said also there are private cubicles and separate showers.

This varies from gym to gym. My VA doesn't have any individual cubicles. Why are people so wilfully blind about this?

New comments on there by 3 women saying they would welcome these men as it must be so difficult for them.
Also that a penis is fine and is not a threat in the female changing rooms.
Do I live on a different planet to some of these people?