Trans Swimming sessions

[DaveDave]

Just saw the below event advertised at my local pool. How come this is ok but we can't have biologically female only swimming sessions? I'm annoyed, not because of the event, but because it seems impossible to have female only swimming without being accused of being transphobic.

"Been hoping for a swimming event that's only for trans, non-binary, and/or intersex people? Well, here it is!

To ensure privacy we have booked an entire public pool so it's just for us! Apart from the lifeguards, the rest of the building will be empty too, so there's no need to worry about which changing room to use or people staring. Whether you want to swim laps, float about, or just hang out, you're very welcome. We want these sessions to be accessible to as many people who need them, so if you need a carer who is cisgender to attend with you they are welcome to come along. Parents/guardians are welcome to come and wait in the changing rooms but will not be allowed in the pool or on the poolside.

VENUE: The venue will be given to you during booking to ensure privacy. Please do not advertise this information. You can arrive 15 minutes prior to our swimming session starting, but please note that if you arrive more than 15 minutes late you may be locked out. There is very little phone reception by the pool so you may not be able to get in touch with anyone to let you into the building.

CHANGING FACILITIES: The changing room is gender neutral, wheelchair accessible, and has individual changing and shower cubicles. Before swimming you'll have 15 mins to get ready, and 30 mins at the end.

AGE RANGE: This event is for all ages, but if you're under 18 you'll need to get a consent form signed. Just let us know when you're booking and we'll send you one to bring filled in on the day. Please bear in mind that we do not currently allow cisgender parents and guardians to be in the pool or on the poolside.

DRESS CODE: As always, genitals covered. If you have [insert word you're comfortable using for your chest/boobs/breast tissue] you'll need to have your chest covered too. A rash vest would be best, but if you don't have one or can't afford one a light weight t-shirt is also acceptable.

BOOKING: To book, or ask any questions, contact [email protected]. If you are disabled and need a cisgender carer to attend with you please let me know during booking.

COST: This event is free to attend but as a charity we welcome donations. You can donate on our website

www.rainbow-project.org/donate/ or there will be a donation bucket available at the event.

(redacted)

As has been pointed out already BanjoVio if you contact and ask if the women’s only session welcomes transwomen you’ll be told yes

Bad bad women wanting women only exercise spaces

What is your belief that this group has specified no ‘cis-gender’ parents are allowed on the side of the pool for under 18?

And what events have you organised for your children where you have been excluded from being present have been open to the public and unknown people without having a specific set aside space for those children and access to parents if needed?

Please be honest. Would you be comfortable leaving a 12 year old
girl in a mixed group of strangers of all ages when the terms of attendance are that you, as their parent, could not be by the side of the pool or within close visual range? Have you ever done this?

They clearly don’t.

They allow strangers without DBS checks to be in a pool with your children.

What part of a school or after school care facility that doesn’t allow adults to just walk around or sometimes enter a room with children is comparative to this scenario?

And clearly they don’t have a safeguarding officer. Because if they did the meeting would go like this:

Team Member: let’s have a trans only private swimming session where everyone of any age can swim without prying cis eyes!

Team: oh yes, that’s wonderful!

Team Member: no cis parents of course.

Team: of course!

SO: So mix all the people together, all ages, with no parents? In a pool?

Team: yes, what’s the problem?

SO: well it’s not a good look, having strange adults mingling with children they don’t know in private.

Team: but we aren’t dodgy! We’ve all had DBS checks and it’s just for fun!

SO: yes I know that, but it’s important that such measures are stated because otherwise it makes it appear that we aren’t taking safeguarding seriously, even though we certainly are. And it’s to protect you lot too, so you’re not put in a position that may be viewed as inappropriate even though it’s not the intention.

Team: can’t we just assume people will know that we take it seriously?

SO: no.

Team: ok, we will make that clear then.

The pool can hire to whoever they like and the organisers can open the event to whoever they like. My only concern is the safeguarding issue, this has "All Bodies Swim" written all over it. Is it a British JY organising this?

I’d like to go to special sessions for fat people. Please can that be a thing?

I really like the idea of separate sessions for different groups, but the idea of children being unaccompanied (separate room), terrifies me

There should be women only sessions, and men only, and strong swimmers, and maybe a singles night. I love to swim but am not going hurt other peoples eyes with my almost naked disgusting body, and yet swimming would help me tone up.

@DaveDave
Absolutely everyone should be allowed to swim, and do all other activities in a manner that they feel comfortable.

Sadly, that’s not the world we live in.

I am trans, in the sense that I was born as a female and have surgically altered my body and am not perceived as male.

However, I don’t identify as trans, don’t prescribe to the current culture of calling everyone transphobic and don’t demand I am treated differently to anyone also.
Though I know I’m in the minority.

My question to you though,
is in a women’s only session that did not allow trans women, which unfortunately you are probably correct to say doesn’t exist because it would be deemed discriminatory,

How would you know that all participants were women and had been born so?

You wouldn’t, it would come down to how well someone presented as a woman. For some trans people, mostly trans women, it’s very obvious they are trans
For others, you’d have no idea.

if you met me, and indeed you may have, you would not believe me to be anything other than male, unless you saw me naked and looked very closely, which I’d like to hope no one was doing in a changing room/swimming scenario

So I wouldn’t be permitted in a women’s only session, and rightly so because I do not live or identify as a woman.

But, if there were a men’s only session, they’d accept me no problem, yet they may not accept a transman who was awaiting surgery.

And there lies the issue, not just with swimming, with all single sex spaces.

There have been biological women who have been accused of being in the wrong space because they look very masculine

So there is no solution that will please everyone.

I spent most of my early 20s feeling excluded from everything. I looked too masculine and presented too much as male to be permitted in to women’s spaces, but my body was still too female for me not to be at significant risk in men’s spaces.

Meaning the only option available was unisex spaces or missing out.

When organising an event such as trans only swimming, self ID has to be allowed, because there are thousands of genuine trans people awaiting medical assessment.

in a trans exclusionary session for men or women
ID isn’t adequate because trans people can obtain ID, and legal documents in the aquired gender.

But the pool can’t very well say ‘trans people can participate as long as we can’t tell they are trans’ can they?

And if a Muslim only session were held how long do you think it would be before other ethnic minorities cried racism?

its the system that is broken
Not those trying to find temporary solutions

By the way.

How many pool parties have you been to?

Because even at the age of 10, I held a pool party for my child and there was no one else in the pool but my child and their mates and about 3 or 4 qualified life guards on watch and a smattering of parents watching their 10 year olds.

Swimming lessons until a certain age have a very low pupil to teacher ratio and the pools encourage parents to be present. Even in large pool that are sectioned off with floating ropes, the children are surrounded by qualified swimming instructors.

If you have just breezily left your 10 year old at a pool party without checking the arrangements or having confidence that the parent organising is very careful about the arrangements AND knowing you have the ability to stay, that is your issue to deal with.

You actually believe that people would think a Transwomen in a swimming costume was born a woman?
It is pretty obvious when a man is a biological man even fully clothed
I know this doesn’t validate the idea that TW can pass, they can’t, not outside touched up photos

@IrishJ I'm sorry you went through that in your 20s, and I hope you have found some peace and acceptance. You raise interesting points that I'm afraid I don't have a clear answer for. I agree that we do have a broken system though.

This.

Jazamataz
Turning it into a safeguarding concern is baffling. It’s saying under 18s can come, if they have a consent form but their parents who aren’t trans can’t. That’s like organising a women’s only event, saying girls can come but their dads can’t as it’s not for them.

Except their mothers could go so its a false equivalence.

At the pool I work in, there are many customers in their 80s and some in their 90s. In fact I would say the customers se mostly the elderly and children.

If there are genuinely people on here who can't see the safeguarding issue then I worry for their judgement.

Most of them, though, I believe, are just pissed off because of the trans element. They think that people who identify as trans should not be subjected to the same safeguarding measures as everybody else.

Well they bloody well should.

You wouldn't let a bunch of adults organise a swim session for all ages, on the basis of everyone being a Scorpio, and by the way, no parents allowed.

Why would you even specify that? Why would you go out of your way to specify that parents are not allowed to attend?

Why can't parents attend? If a parent is happy taking their child to a trans swim session, they're clearly supportive.

They can be in the pool, too, at the side, fondly looking at their offspring and making sure that they are safe. These people will be complete strangers, after all.

But that is expressly not allowed.

Of course it's a bloody red flag.

Just about every post here says a trans only swim session is a good idea. Followed by a caveat that unaccompanied minors mixing with unknown adults in an activity that involves undressing or very little clothing in a locked private environment is not a good idea.

If you can't separate out the two sentiments then either your reading comprehension is seriously flawed, or you're responding in bad faith for an opportunity to cry transphobia.

Lang's post about sacred castes is much in need here, if anyone has it saved.

Happily, I have it saved:

LangCleg wrote Thu 21-Feb-19

"How did the scandal of TV entertainers grooming and exploiting children get so bad before anything was done?

How did the scandal of Catholic priests grooming and exploiting children get so bad before anything was done?

How did the scandal of on-street gangs grooming and exploiting children get so bad before anything was done?

Because if you create a sacred caste of any group and silence anyone asking questions about individuals on behalf of the sacred caste, abusers will see, infiltrate, and groom and exploit children. That''s how."

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3512177-Julia-Long-asking-Munro-Bergdorf-about-child-exploitation?pg=12

The continued posting of false comparators is a sure sign that some posters have little understanding of the concerns people have.

So far we have had schools, after school care/clubs, pool parties, open swimming sessions.

The commonality is ignored though. That being that where activities are limited in who can participate and parents do not have free access - there are DBS checked staff. Still participation is limited to age groups or single sex etc. Where those limitations are removed, parents are freely allowed to look to the welfare of their child.

I look forward though to more examples. Maybe we will see one soon.

Thank you!!

'Why can't parents attend? If a parent is happy taking their child to a trans swim session, they're clearly supportive.

They can be in the pool, too, at the side, fondly looking at their offspring and making sure that they are safe. These people will be complete strangers, after all.

But that is expressly not allowed.'

Yes. This is the question that is puzzling.

Safeguarding is what it always boils down to. We have nothing against trans-identifying people doing their thing. It is only when this has the potential to cause vulnerable people to come to harm that we are concerned.

Apparently safeguarding is transphobic.

@IrishJ I got a bit lost, but are you saying in effect that we can't have single sex spaces/sessions as trans people will lie to enter ? Because that what it reads as.

@NotBadConsidering - I think you might slightly naive to think that “a registered charity” means very much at all, in terms of safeguarding or ethics (or indeed, general corruption and or misuse of funds).

I once worked for a small charity - mental health sector - and it was an eye opener indeed.

Rather than place the onus on everyone else to work out whether the person in front of them is trying to deceive them into believing they are of the sex they are in fact not in a specific space or resource for?

How about the onus being upon those not of that sex to have the generosity and inclusiveness to respect that the few things specifically for female only people, where single sex provision is a necessity for their access, are not for them and they should not force entry?

Otherwise female people who cannot use mixed sex facilities are left with two options:

• worry about and try to judge who may be deceiving them - which is why the urban myth of masculine women being challenged is growing. It is male people who have created this problem. And if they find someone that makes them anxious, challenge them. (Upon which all hell breaks loose.)
• have forced upon them the belief that someone of the other sex's personal issues and history always outweighs their own needs, history, issues, access, and that they must at all costs indulge and enable the other person's preferences and wishes at their own expense.

If you go for option number 2, then the women with sufficient privilege to share mixed sex spaces will put up with the disadvantage and oppression as the cost of their access.

Less privileged females will lose access and have to leave the space and in fact lose access to any space, so the oh so important person with issues around identity can go without any uncomfortable feelings or boundaries.

That part is absolutely unjustifiable.

To summarize this: I have a significant problem with misogynistic, entitled behaviour and sex based discrimination that sees it as justified that some go without if they will not subordinate themselves to others. The identity and sex of the person behaving so badly is irrelevant.