Transwoman in the changing room at school pool

[PoolFloat]

My mum goes to aqua aerobics classes at a sports club in a private school. Recently, a transwoman has joined the class. My mum was told that they use a different changing room to the one next to the pool but today they came out of the pool and put their swimming hat into a locker before returning to the pool to join the class (there is adult free swim beforehand).

The club has a safeguarding policy which states they will: prioritise the safety and well-being of children and adults at risk

I'm not sure if my mum is considered at risk? She is 88 and nearly all the women in the class are in their 70s and 80s.

The changing room has a communal area with only four cubicles so most women get changed in the communal area. Now they are reluctant to do so.

My mum has asked me to help her draft a letter from the women in the class saying how uncomfortable they are that this person is in their changing room but doesn't know how to word it.

Can anyone help please?

Some women don’t want to change alongside men, nor stared in the eye and told that ‘it’s all women here - there are no men’ when they can clearly see that this is a blatant lie.

Bully for those ‘not minding’ mixed sex areas. Well done you. Aren’t you great. 🙄

I know people who run swimming clubs and they find the village style changing very hard to manage. Particularly with their learning disabled students.

Safeguarding nightmare.

I hate them for the feeling of exposure you get in them. Men have a space dominating tendency. Just knowing blokes can be around is unsettling.

We're not going to improve the health of the nation by scaring women out of the changing rooms, and there are a hell of a lot of women needing more exercise opportunities.

You get into a private cubicle to change of course, but but there are no separate changing rooms for men and women, anyone can wander around and pick whatever locker they wish to use.

As I said, I wouldn't use mixed facilities. I would only use a space where men were not going to come wandering through at any time. There are only four cubicles in this establishment and a whole ladies' class changing so it's not relevant to your example.

This male person entered a female only space when women were undressed and they found it distressing.

And I might have felt sorry for a transwoman who 'just wants somewhere to change'- but wait, they were offered a space to change. They chose to push into the space where elderly women were changing because-

oh yes, they didn't care about their feelings.

How weird that this thread is so much more popular than the other thread about the 80 year old women who was in the shower, covered by a gappy, see through curtain in Washington State who was shocked to come out and find a transitioned male in the supposedly single sex changing room. The user had used the pool for 35 years and was not advised of the change in policy.

And the male was supervising a group of 5 year old girls getting changed.

Very weird that it doesn’t have the same attention that this one does. Maybe some posters like to think this is theoretical only and not see what actually happens.

I use a swimming pool that has a changing village which is mixed sex.

The big difference between what you and I are describing and what the OP is describing is that a mixed sex changing village has no communal dressing area. Everyone uses a cubicle, the showers have doors and walls, anyone being naked outside the cubicles would be in the wrong and would be addressed by staff.

In a communal changing room you are naked with strangers. It is 100% reasonable to expect that if you are in a communal womens changing area that only female people will be present.

These women have not consented to males seeing them naked.

Why would a male in the male changing rooms be in danger? Please say exactly how many cases of violence to Tw have occurred in male changing rooms? No it is entirely about violation of womens privacy and dignity, where womens wishes are not given any weight. Enough.

I live in Australia and I have to say that rooms full of nakedness shocked me when I lived in Europe and took my kids to swimming lessons. Every change room that I know of here has cubicles with lockable doors. They’re not compulsory, but people do choose to use them. The changing areas are designed so that there are between 3 and 10 cubicles depending on the size of the pool and there is a larger area with benches for stripping off while wearing swimmers underneath your clothes.

I had B/G twins having lessons in Europe and didn’t know which bloody change room I could take them both into!

FFS could you please do me the courtesy of reading my posts?

There are only 4 cubicles.

And why are people banging on about changing villages and what it's like where they swim? It's irrelevant!

This is a school. There are separate changing rooms for men and women. There is no family changing, villages, mixed showers or anything else.

They pose the same risk as any other men.

It's why there are seperate male and female changing areas.

It saddens me why some women are putting others at risk because they don't understand risk management.

No idea why you are so ashamed of women not wanting males predating on other women and girls.

I also think you may have completely misunderstood the concept of feminism so perhaps pop by a library on your way to your next session?

He's a man.

@Whitehorsegirl

i think I understand now. Of course people here are mean to the poor transwoman, I am with you!

just of course,
a) there were no cubicles (school changing rooms) so the elderly women were naked and
b) the poor transwoman had been allocated their own private changing room to avoid this situation.

but I completely understand that this would be less validating and those old women should understand that this is a female penis person 👍

Sorry HRTWT but why does a swim hat need to go into a locker? Surely you're either wearing it whilst you swim, or can leave it on the side with the towels, flip flops, floaties etc.

In a busy London pool, we'll passed lockdown you were still expected to arrive in your costume, leave your bag and valuables by the pool side and were only allowed in the changing room after swimming. (I had to go and get me and my young kids changed in a macdonalds loo, as no exceptions.)

The stowing of a swim hat is a massive red flag for me.

I am in favour of unisex changing cubicles though. Father's often need to take their daughter's swimming and mother's their sons.

And yes @hearmywomanlyroar nailed it.

Out of curiosity, how do you know she is trans?

I think his penis might be a giveaway

As the OP has restated this is not a mixed sex changing area but a single sex changing room with an open area and a few cubicles .
This male person is not being forced to use the male changing room but has their own individual area assigned to them. Despite this they choose to infringe the privacy of the women using the female changing room.

@Whitehorsegirl our local pool has the same set up. And I have no issue with that. It’s openly mixed sex. Proper floor to ceiling cubicles. Though I can see the opportunity for attacks is greater.

but this isn’t what the op is describing. She’s talking about a mixed communal changing room. Are you happy to get naked infront of strange men?

Is this the thread where we are discussing which kind of exposed erections that are ok?

I believe a PP said that transwomen in biological women’s changing rooms sometimes get “innocent erections” which needs to be ignored or you are a bigot, but there might be some erections which are bad?

It’s been clearly explained earlier in the thread. Why not have a read?

@Beebeebaby

it does not make her a paedophile or sex offender so why is it a safeguarding issue ?

Having a male body doesn't make anyone a paedophile or sex offender, but we still don't allow any men in single sex female spaces.

Single sex female spaces don't exist because all men are rapists or sex offenders, they exist because some are and we don't know which.

By your argument, we shouldn't have single sex female only spaces at all.

In fact, by your argument men, women and children should all share all spaces as, after all, having a penis doesn't make a man a paedophile or sex offender so it isn't fair to segregate people at all. That would mean all changing rooms and toilets should be unisex and shared.

Is that really what you think?

Yes. Its quite a thing here at the moment where women's behaviour (ie "noticing", "speaking about", "having a problem with", "being fearful of", "raising a complaint") is scolded as bad etiquette.

But being male in spaces for females where females are especially vulnerable is totally fine.

Funny how the ones crying "prude" when we point out a desire to not be made vulnerable to sexual assault are also the ones so keen to police our behaviour and mannerisms as not being sufficiently ladylike.

@LibbyL92

are the changing rooms individual little cubicals? If so I don’t see the issue.

OP says the following.

My mum has been told that this person has been offered another changing room. It's a women's changing room. It's a little bit further away from the pool but it is for women and it's not used at this time of day. They had been using that since the original 'coming out of a cubicle in a towel' incident

Despite being offered a perfectly good changing room which is WOMEN ONLY, they have now decided to come back to the women only changing room which has other women in it.

Why do you think it's ok that despite there having been made a provision for this trans woman to use a private women only bathroom, they insist on using the shared one?

Why is their individual preference more important than that of the natal women at the pool?

Why would someone want to do something that is likely to make other people uncomfortable, when a perfectly reasonable and thoughtful compromise has been offered.

Is it perhaps because you can't opt out of male entitlement once you've had it before?

Really? Then so much has changed in the past 5 years. Every swimming pool I took my child to was a free for all with females changing fully naked altogether in a big room. Some had showers but were open.

these were pools though that were very well used for children’s swimming lessons.

But also, I used female only gyms in Sydney and they all had communal changing areas with showers that had doors with gaps at top and bottom. Still, there were women getting fully naked and changed there too.

Could be where you are in Australia.

Yet more misogynists who think women and girls whatever their age are not worth the merest consideration of privacy, dignity, comfort and safety, happily dancing to the but trans tune. Hoping the men will pat you on the head and call you a good girl, are you?

She can tell because you can always tell. It's instinctive - a safety mechanism.

I second contacting Sex Matters. The pool has a third space by sounds of it that this person could - and should - use.

oops!

not quite sure what I read earlier!

sorry guys!