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?

As the vast majority of transwomen (90 something % from memory) are very happy with their penis and have absolutely no intention of doing anything to stop it working in any way, you are saying that they should be in the mens by default and very rarely could one be allowed in the ladies. How will you know who is penisless to give them an exemption?

And where do we fall with Genderfluid people, do they also get to have priority over women for womens facilities?

Let's take a look at Eddie Izzard as a real life example.

Girl mode - for using toilets (and according to Eddie having fun scaring teen girls, for running marathons and being listed in the female league tables, for partying.

Boy mode - for acting roles and serious Business events (where being male gives you a negotiating and pay advantage)

Should women disregard their privacy, religious and mental health boundaries as well as accepting that their significant training efforts are negated immediately because someone with a biological advantage has trespassed into their sporting class? All to accommodate the feelings of this minority group of predominantly male people?

In face @Fieldofgreycorn if you said what you just said in trans activist circles you would likely be fiercely set upon and told you are being transphobic as being a woman is not about surgery, and might well be told that you are forcing trans people to have to have surgery to be accepted. You could try saying it and see if I’m right!

In fact… not face! Duh.

‘My sort’ (whatever that means) doesn’t have a desperate need to do anything. I’m also not concerned about your definitions or my definitions, more how those definitions lead into just or unjust social practices.

@Fieldofgreycorn is allowed to have an opinion that neither 100% aligns with TRAs or gender critical.

If you feel very strongly that trans women need a space other than male single sex spaces, then go and help them create an alternative.

Don’t need to. The EHRC have already stated that if an establishment wants to explicitly exclude TW from female single sex spaces then in most cases they should provide them with such an alternative. That’s what they should be doing now.

Yep, see, you don’t actually have a definition, just a really pressing need to force women to put up with males in their spaces and facilities.

I don’t have a pressing need. I should know. I am, after all … me. You can have whatever opinion of me you like, I suppose. I also didn’t say I don’t have a definition. I said I’m not concerned with definitions.

@Didimum I completely agree, 'as evidenced by these disputes in policies of pool changing rooms etc, that those boundaries won’t always be upheld. We are seeing, in real terms, that they are not being upheld.'

What were also seeing is that more and more women realise that they seem to not be entitled to that, very basic, boundary at the moment, thanks to Stonewall's efforts (amongst others), and Civil Service's and Ministerial inaction (and often active support).

And they are not at all happy about it!

Many of them are life-long feminists and/or left-wingers, but not necessarily - it's quite a biggy for most women (and men), the assumption of privacy from the opposite sex when undressed!

It is not a boundary that has been debated and removed by consensus, and I hope this breach will not be allowed to stand.

Once people realise that's what TWAW means, they are aghast - see YouGov latest.

Agree with you here. However, males should not, as a practice, breach female assumed single sex spaces, without consulting with the management. If they have any issues with using the male changing rooms, individual private arrangements should be made.

If the management have been consulted and agreed with this arrangement, then women using the service need to raise their objections and choose to use/not to use the service depending on response.

However, it seems the rules are unclear at the moment, and many males (majority not post-op) appear entitled to use women's, without even raising this issue with the management.

We don't know which is the situation here, but clearly what happened caused grave distress to the female service user(s) and needs to be addressed.

@Fieldofgreycorn

If the person has a penis then it is not unreasonable to exclude them. If we’re talking about public changing rooms, gyms, leisure centres etc and they are post op genitally then I do think it would be unreasonable to exclude them.

How would you police this?

Ask them before they enter to show whether they have a penis or not?

There is absolutely no need in law for third spaces, all males can and should use the male facilities.

If some want a third space then they are free to campaign for them, or for the law to be changed.

We know of course that that’s not what many want, as shown clearly by the example in this thread; he had a third space, just for him, yet still used the women’s single-sex space. Not a single one of the TRA posters has said that this was wrong or that he should have used the third space instead.

it is very, very telling.

If they have any issues with using the male changing rooms, individual private arrangements should be made. If the management have been consulted and agreed with this arrangement, then women using the service need to raise their objections and choose to use/not to use the service depending on response

That reads - men should speak to management and if management have an issue they should provide a private space for the men.

Women should speak to the management and go elsewhere if they don’t like their decision.

Why the difference?

''@CherryBlossomAutumn
@Whitehorsegirl I truly don’t get why you would back men in women’s single spaces without doing your due diligence and actually finding out if this is a problem. Due diligence being, listening to other women (like on this thread) who are saying it’s a problem for them. Legitimate lived experience. And evidence and research.''

I am a woman and I have used various swimming pools in London for the past 20 years. I usually swim once a week at list. The pool I am at as mentioned as mixed changing rooms (it is a former Olympics venue) and I have used it for 12 years.

Issues I have had with trans women while at the pool: 0
Issues I have with men wile at various pools: all the time...

Some of the behaviour by men have included:

• countless instances of aggressive behaviour in the lanes while swimming. Usually followed by verbal abuse when asked to stop invading my space/barging into me. Male life guards failing to intervene to stop the harassment although they had seen/heard it
• one man purposely swimming close/rubbing himself against female swimmers, including me. When I reported this to the male life guard he said ''yes I have noticed'' to which I said ''why haven't you done anything then?''. Only then did he intervened and asked the man to leave...
• unwanted comments/attempt to start conversation when I did not want to be disturbed
• being stared out by men when walking around the pool minding my business
• I have also seen a man deciding to suddenly dive into the pool (next to a big ''no diving allowed sign'') and almost crashing into a middle-aged woman as he entered the water then continuing as if nothing had happened while she had to get out of the pool and report him to the life guard.

I have to avoid the faster lanes to try to stay away from these idiots and only the pool at quieter times now.

This is my evidence: trans women are not a problem for me and they have never been.

The big difference is that you see trans women as men. To me they are not. You see them as a threat. Again to me they are not.

I am not a young woman anymore and I have seen a lot in my life. None of the violence against me has come from a trans woman. If anything what I have seen is aggression from men against trans people.

I do think though that a good way to solve this is for pools to be told they must have enough private cubicles so that people can have always have their privacy to change.

told you are being transphobic as being a woman is not about surgery, and might well be told that you are forcing trans people to have to have surgery to be accepted. You could try saying it and see if I’m right!

I’m not really interested in engaging with the more extreme end of the TRA argument or the people.

I don’t want to force people to have surgery. I think people should be treated in a pragmatic way proportional to the situation and their situation.

If it’s a facility or service with private cubicles then trans people can be included as the sex they’re transitioning/ transitioned to. If it’s a communal area where genitalia are visible then it should be based on genital status.

For situations that provide for vulnerable women eg. assault support groups, refuges then they are legally able to exclude TW if they want to.

Appreciate what you are saying about Transwomen not being the problem.

This is a big part of what we have been saying.

You have described a whole load of ways that men are a problem , by giving access to the womens facilities to any man who says he identifies as needing to use them, you are giving access to those problematic men.

The man who thought it was ok to surreptitiously rub against women in the pool in full view of the life guard, he would be able to go into the womens communal changing room, where women are naked outside of cubicles.

The lifeguard who willfully ignored the man in the pool sexually assaulting the women in the pool, he would be in charge of policing the womens communal changing room.

All the man has to do is say that he identifies as a woman. He doesn't actually have to genuinely feel that way, he just has to be willing to use it as his excuse for being somewhere he shouldn't be.

Can you really not see how that increases the risk?

Extend that to womens prisons and male prisoners, or womens psychiatric facilities or womens domestic abuse shelters or rape crisis provision.

How did you know they were men and not transwomen though, did you ask them? What gave it away?

Your experiences can't be extrapolated to everyone. For example, I've never been raped, so in my experience, it doesn't happen. Does that sound right to you?
Or maybe it's about more than just you?

All the man has to do is say that he identifies as a woman. He doesn't actually have to genuinely feel that way, he just has to be willing to use it as his excuse for being somewhere he shouldn't be.
This. I genuinely don't understand how anyone cannot understand that this is the reality nowadays. The genie is out of the bottle. It is not possible to exclude men and include genuine trans women (whatever that's supposed to mean). If this is what you are advocating then you are actually asking for mixed sex spaces - so all those men you mentioned can now act with impunity away from the beady eye of the lifeguard. This is not safe or dignified for women and especially girls.

@Fieldofgreycorn 'If it’s a facility or service with private cubicles then trans people can be included as the sex they’re transitioning/ transitioned to. If it’s a communal area where genitalia are visible then it should be based' on their sex at birth, and safe private mixed-sex accommodation provided for those unable to use these.

That is EHRC advice, not what you're suggesting. For obvious reasons. Happy to expand if you don't find them obvious.

Maybe we don't need a third space, two spaces could be sufficient.
One space is for females only, that's it.
The second space is for everyone else, transmen, transwomen, gender-fluid, non-binary, multi-gender, people who don't care, people who picked this space because it's got the shortest queue, and males.

Would that suit everyone?

It would suit everyone except men who want to use the female facilities for reasons of voyeurism, intimidation or a few paraphilias.

If trans activism was really about the safety and dignity of trans people then it’d be a great idea. That it is seen as unacceptable suggests something else going on.

This second space can be communal or private cubicles only, up to provider/all these users' preferences, via government or user consultation if necessary

Meanwhile, the seeming majority of women who don't want to strip naked with males will have a safe and private provision, with other women (as has always perfectly fine for a large majority of women).

The women who don't care about it can change in the men's (although you'll find a majority of men don't actually want naked women in their changing rooms either!), but that's not my business, so I'll butt out at the arrangements people will come up with.

Great solution I reckon!

Maybe the trans community should be kind and support safe spaces for women? Just a thought. 🤷‍♀️ Why do you expect women to shut up and pt up with something which has been proven to make them less safe.? Allowing people with penises into women’s spaces is less safe, there are documented attacks. What about the transwoman who was allowed in a female prison and raped women?

Sadly it wouldn’t suit everyone. Because it wouldn’t give some individuals the validation they crave.