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?

Unisex as in single occupancy, not mix sex shared, facilities seem the best way forward to me

Well fine but the best way for me is as we used to have it. Single sex spaces, actually made single sex, not gender. I like the idea that women are together, usually helpful, not creepy, very little chance they will be hiding cameras or finding a way to hide in the unisex til a woman comes in so they can lock the door and rape the woman.
I say what we have, enforced single sex is better for all women than single unit unisex. Many many many reasons, too many to go into. And finally why change what's worked for 100 years until recently? Why do we lose out yet again for a man?

Yesterday, my mum was telling me that they wouldn't even wrap themselves in a towel when they came out of the shower. They were drying themselves and chatting and getting dressed. Just completely at ease with their old saggy wrinkly bodies scarred by childbirth and hysterectomies, just celebrating the fact that they were still alive and able to move. My mum has been going to these classes for 18 years.

And this fucking arsehole has ruined all that overnight.

This made me nearly cry. Your poor mum. An army of women think she sounds lovely and have her back

All of this.

And it's a solution that benefits an absolute maximum of 1% of people.

While the current set up benefits all women. 50% of the population.

If male toilets are too dangerous for transwomen how can they be safe for any man? Lots of men are gentle or short or young or stand out in some way which could make them a target.

I thought it was telling that the instructor agreed with your mum but didn't know what to do about it. No one generally seems to know what the actual rules are and assumes it's been decided in law that transwomen can use female spaces so they just shrug their shoulders and pass the buck.

The end of this for females is cast iron gates and boundaries around female spaces, resources, access and equality, and you'll be able to hear the tantrums from space. But the evidence will be there. In the same way it has now stacked up sufficiently high for the beginnings of the push back we are seeing.
Female access will never be tolerated by some males unless it is compelled by law with consequences for breaching it .

Yes, and consequences for business, public buildings, publicly funded institutions, private clubs, etc., that do not supply sufficient easily available provision and enforce the single sex rules.

It is the only way forward now, TRAs and their simpering allies have seen to that so on their own heads be it.

Sounds really tough for your mum OP. As you’ve described, she’s looked after people all of her life, and now her husband. One time that could be just hers alone. How on earth did one man’s wish to be validated trump hers? It’s very demeaning of her value as a human being.

It’s also worrying me more and more who is being most negatively affected by pushy trans ideology and intrusion into spaces, names and education.

Women, especially vulnerable women like the OPs mum.

And children.

The absolute insistence on pushing oneself into a space regardless of the feelings of anyone else, completely indifferent to the distress you may be causing anyone else in that space, strikes me as an extremely male behaviour.

I cannot believe (well, actually I can) the AUDACITY of men thinking (well, knowing) they can just waltz into our women spaces and get away with it. Fuxk off out of our space!!!

No one will answer why male toilets are too dangerous for transwomen, it's been asked over and over on these boards.

It's kind of assuming that transwomen are delicate creatures and completely unable to stand up for themselves. Seeing as they are born male they are just as likely to be evenly physically matched to the person they are supposedly at risk from.

A transwoman could be 6ft 5 and built like a brick shithouse, but we're being told that the male toilets are too dangerous for them. As women we need to welcome this person into our toilets so we can protect them if necessary. And if the dangerous person wants to come in as well then we should welcome them too because they might also identify as a woman.

Absolutely.

Proof that you can't transition out of male entitlement.

It’s dangerous for women because if they complain they risk being thrown out and barred - of clobbered (remember that huge trans woman who knocked teeth out of a woman who dared to suggest that they were in the wrong loo - I’m talking the size of a rugby player?).

Quite.

The massive majority of women, when alarmed and feeling unsafe because of the actions of a male person, are going to very quietly and discreetly avoid eye contact and get the hell out of dodge while trying hard not to draw attention, because they don't want to be screamed at or injured. This apparently seems to result in many TW having the belief that no one has noticed they were T, and thankfully, few have ever noticed the women quietly getting the fuck out of the space because they were scared. Fear grimace smiles also a thing that tend not to be picked up on: hint - they mean 'please don't hurt me'. Hence male people really not seeing the problem here.

And often, some male people love to call this 'self exclusion' which means a nice bucket of DARVO to have a splash in and no messy thoughts about whether they should take some responsibility for their impact on other people's access, inclusion and equality.

It's the endless screams of 'Mummy pick me up' from male people who demand that female people are there to meet their needs, and have no existence beyond this. And females who don't rush to service them whether providing 'protection' against scary men in scary spaces or to sacrifice their own access and inclusion and feelings to more important male ones are unnatural hags who shouldn't be permitted to go out in society anyway.

I'm thinking too of a well known not large and physically intimidating TW who used to post all over social media, whose posts used to make me think I would get out of any enclosed female only space with them at the speed of bloody light, not because I found them physically threatening but because they radiated 'so much as breathe in a way I can interpret as offensive and I will make your life a living hell'.

I don't want to be around that. I'm not a masochist. I just want a bloody bathroom I can use without having to edge around male needs and egos to get there.

The absolute insistence on pushing oneself into a space regardless of the feelings of anyone else, completely indifferent to the distress you may be causing anyone else in that space, strikes me as an extremely male behaviour.

This. Always have this front of mind when you are being guilt tripped about having healthy boundaries.

Don’t discriminate (such as in job interviews).

I own my own business. If I advertise for help and a man in full fetish gear shows up, you can bet I'll discriminate against him. For the same reason any man who tries to rub his penis against me in a crowded train is going to live to regret it.

I am not a doormat for men to use as they please.

Exactly. The very insistence on accessing the space is the basis on which they should be excluded.