Do you support swimming venues maintaining single-sex or private changing facilities

[ChristinaXYZ]

If you were interested in indicating your support over this: 'Require swimming venues to maintain single-sex or private changing facilities'. Then one can do so in the usual way.

The government has to respond at 10,000 supporters and the list is around 240 people short of that at the moment.

They never have floor to ceiling walls separating changing rooms. There tends to be drainage running through.

Transgender people are not "excluded" by being asked to follow the same law and safeguarding procedures as everyone else. Many transwomen understand that they should not override women's boundaries and safeguarding for women and children. You do trans people a huge disservice by suggesting otherwise.

Please focus your efforts on encouraging males to make sure transwomen know they are welcome in their spaces. Campaign for 3rd spaces. Counter the lie that disagreement with trans ideology means we think trans people shouldn't exist - a dangerous thing to say to people with fragile mental health.

Thanks OP. Signed and glad to see it is all ready over the 10k mark. How about 100k?

From the trans rights document Dadjoke linked to:
blanket exclusion of trans individuals without a GRC is unlawful because refusing to allow a trans person to use a gender appropriate changing room prima facie constitutes direct discrimination under the protected characteristic of ‘gender reassignment,’.

The document is written by lawyers. But I thought people couldn’t legally claim the protected characteristic of ‘gender reassignment’ if they hadn’t actually taken steps to change their gender. And that can only be proved by holding a GRC. Can any MNers shed light on this, please?

That’s what the government’s 2018 attempt to extend the scope of the GRA was about: it would have allowed total self-ID. But women put up a terrific defence of single-sex rights, and the planned amendment was dropped.

I know a lot of places allow self-ID in practice, because it’s easier to appease transactivists than to defend women’s rights. But I can’t see how that justifies a claim that blanket exclusion of trans individuals without a GRC is unlawful.

@Live4weekend

I think opposite sex small children are generally exempt from any rules regarding the use of single sex spaces.

@Ofcourseshecan It's because the EHRC has stated that single-sex facilities are lawful that the protest was held outside their offices.

Anyone can claim the PC of "gender reassignment" you don't have to have done anything or make any changes.

The linked article is written by lawyers from Garden Court Chambers (who were recently found to have discriminated against Allison Bailey). Their article from 2019 misinterprets the law. The rules on single-sex provision has been clarified (in 2022) by the EHRC. It is lawful to discriminate against a person with the PC of GR if it is a proportionate means to achieve a legitimate aim. And this can be done service by service (i.e case by case).

www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/advice-and-guidance/separate-and-single-sex-service-providers-guide-equality-act-sex-and-gender

Dadjoke's post is pure fantasy. No service is separated on the basis of gender identity. Those of us without a gender identity would have no service provision if that were the case.

DadJoke, You'll be aware (of course you are) that Alex Sharpe who is co-author of the article you linked to is transgender and has been a lobbyist for the TRA cause for many years. Sharpe offers a legal position that is at odds with the actual law which the EHRC upholds.

Mostly changing rooms are labeled womens or mens. The only legal justification for segregating facilities is “sex”, so legally “women” must mean female in this context.

If swimming pools are allowing some males to enter changing rooms labeled “women” and preventing other males from entering (based on what? Clothing? Behavior? Physical appearance?) then they are discriminating.

Thanks Signalbox. I thought that article, and Dadjoke’s claims, couldn’t be correct!

But given that it was co-authored by a university lecturer in Law, and published by the impressive-sounding Oxford Human Rights Hub, I thought I’d better check.

You really can’t take anything they say at face value.

It's quite worrying that a university professor of law could publish something so misleading, isn't it?

The one where males were throwing urine over themselves and the pavement, and one actually urinated on the pavement, Pattihews?
www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4628118-protest-at-ehrc-hq

Great way to convince the rest of us that they should have access to all areas!

Yes, definitely.

Arghh. They do something similar at Dutch swimming pools but even worse - only showers there are poolside and open to all. Disgusting and bordering on sex discrimination imo - fine to shower in your swim gear if all you're wearing is a tiny little speedo, but try getting the chlorine off your skin if you're in a swimsuit. Given my exzema-prone skin this basically meant never going anywhere after the pool but rushing home instead for a proper shower. Or else lathering myself in a thick layer of vaseline beforehand. Great for the pool but fuck do I care if they're economizing on something as basic as shower facilities.

I have 4 local pools, all in different authorities, all have changing villages. Three have a mix of communal showers / locked cubicles, and one has showers in the toilets. So many don't offer single sex anyway.

Bump.

Lucky to have single sex facilities where I live. Mix of cubicles and communal areas, separate for men and women, with separate family rooms for children with male parent or female parent. Definitely separate showers including private and one for people with disabilities. So tw would have privacy in the mens’.. Occasionally an older boy child comes in the womens facilities with his mother, and I noticed a young disabled man there. I pointed out the separate area for families. There is no way any other man would be welcome in the female areas . I feel generally safe there though there is the usual low level harassment by men in the pool which staff try to deal with. I tried to suggest separate women only sessions but no one supported the idea.

Our local leisure centre would be classed as "no nudity" because I've never seen a nude person in there. It's all individual cubicles, some single and some double and a group changing room, presumably for school groups. No one gets changed in the communal area.

I don't think many people realise you need to soap chlorine off the skin, not just rinse. I didn't until my kid attended a swimming course daily and came out in an all over rash.

Swimming pools should know this though! It's kind of their job I'd have thought.

The swimming pool I used to go to was 'no nudity', didn't stop men from peering into cubicles and drilling peep holes through the partitions. Did you mean 'no consensual nudity'?