Gym /. Swimming changing issue

[BelfastDadof3]

I'll start first and say I'm sorry for intruding on a safe space for women.
Am a single dad (widow but not recent) with three kids 2 girls 11 +13 and a 9yr old boy.

Also I'd say kids are bright and confident, very excepting as I've tried to bring them up to accept all body shapes and not point / shame.

I go to the gym three times a week, do my workout and the kids have a supervised kids swim lesson (just the three of them) and I meet them after for a swim and play.

There isn't family changing, but I don't think it's applicable as my girls are old enough.

So having a muffin after the swim my 9yr old boy asked me.
"dad, why do most of the men walk about naked in the changing room?Willie's out. Is it not normal to have a towel around you untill you get your pants on."

So I said some people were just very free, but I think it's a bit over the top. Bit of a discussion about respecting others space etc and then my boy said" it's also odd that some shave all their body hair off, even the old fat men, it's weird looking"

Normal ish conversation.

Then he asked the girls what happens in the changing rooms. They were a bit horrified and said that most women and girls had big towels and kept private. Because - their words " girls arnt horrible like boys"

Then the eldest daughter said "a room full of men drying their bits would be duscusting. When the [transwoman - edited by MNHQ] is in the changing room we use the disabled cubicle. There's lots of room and we don't have to see him dry his bits. And (jokingly) his man bum and huge boobs do not look nice."

So really I don't know how to approach this.
I presumed that if a man transfered to a trans woman he would have female genitals. Maybe I'm niave.

It's a really nice gym and pool - Bannatynes - a treat for the kids..
Is this the same everywhere?
If I raise it with the manager am I being transphobic to suggest no penises in the female changing?

Just read your update, well done OP. We've got to keep pushing on this and you have to advocate for your daughters.

You know all those films from years ago set back in civil war era and the women in their pretty but ridiculously stupid dresses running awayfrom/avoiding the man on the plantation who eventually catches her alone in the hay barn. The guy catches her, there's the scream and he has his way with her and it's just accepted as that happens don't put yourself in that position.

we are back there.

Sorry, lost a line.

It's as if we've gone full circle on the rights of women to a time that should be long dead.

Well done OP. Your WhatsApp group wants you to ignore your parental instincts, to protect your children. That's what we've all been getting urged to do for a long time. Even the ones complying to this madness, most of them will know deep down that its wrong for a male to be in a female changing room, exposing himself. Maybe their moment of clarity will come. So good on you for sharing this, because it may just reach a few more people who were afraid to listen to their instincts.

Kia Kaha Dad

When I left virgin active as they told me men could get their penis out in front of my daughters, I had loads of abuse on the local VA fb group.
Water off a ducks back. We are in the right protecting our daughters @BelfastDadof3

How do we feel about lesbian women being naked in front of teenage girls whilst getting changed in the changing room? How do we feel about gay men getting changed in front of teenage boys in the men’s changing room?

We feel fine, because lesbians are women and gay men are men. You seem to be confusing sexual orientation with sexual predation.

And the rest of your post is tosh as well.

Your daughters shouldn't have had to see this I'd be furious. To be honest I wouldn't be to happily if a woman got her vag out in front of my kids, I get that sometimes there aren't enough lockers but you can still put underwear on discreetly.

It's great that you have now taken this up with the gym OP, but this is a great example of how trans activism has in a staggeringly short space of time hacked people's brains and overridden their ability to recognise and set personal boundaries. What happened to your daughters was indecent exposure, but everyone in this scenario, including you, significantly underreacted at first.

It also makes me worry that that despite victories elsewhere it's basically going to be impossible to secure convictions (or even prosecution) for male indecent exposure or voyeurism in women's spaces for the foreseeable future.

"Trans rights are now standard in our society" says Kate.
I have read this thread with increasing aghastness. (I know it's not a word, but flabberghasted is too funny.
Who died and made her Emperor?
She (?) must know that if trans rights are standard, womens don't exist any more. She must know that to make them standard their has to be a massive change in the social contract involving all of society including the 51%, and there has not been.
But she says that women and girls have to change in the loo to accommodate the 1%. By what right?
I suppose she thinks safeguarding means protecting (I'd like to use Belfast Dads daughter's term here as it is about the right tone, but MNHQ will alter it) these men from psychological hurt, not women and children from unsafe situations. Fragile little things.

You've done right by your children: everything is secondary and don't let it get to you. Keeping an occasional eye on this board could be useful in future so you can see what's happening,and reassure yourself you're not alone.

Even if girls and women change in the loo or a cubicle then they'd still have to walk through the main changing area where the penises are being waved about?

I think there are perfectly innocent trans women with legitimate gender dysphoria who would be fine to use the cubicles themselves and would be upset if they exposed their penises to someone who didn't feel comfortable with them. But the problem is that there are men who are perverts who get off on both exposing themselves and on wearing women's clothes. Those are the ones who are doing this and they're hiding under the badge of "trans" because that's the magic label that let's them do whatever they like nowadays under the guise of "be kind."

Thank you for your update. I hope you get things resolved.
I am beginning to wonder if part of the issue is the use of the terms 'women's changing rooms' and ,'men's changing rooms'.
Maybe we should rename them 'open changing rooms if you have a penis' and 'open changing rooms if you don't have a penis'.

The goodwill women extended to a few males has been eroded.

No males at all in female spaces.

I completely agree.
Decent human beings tend to care about the comfort of others; I bet there are a lot of trans women who have children and grandchildren who completely understand the issue of not wanting our girls to be conditioned to seeing male gentiles in their safe spaces - we just need them to stand up and help us with this debate.

Statistically men are far more dangerous to women and girls that transwomen are.

Got any receipts for that @CalMeKate ? Because Ministry Of Justice figures suggest exactly the opposite. But of course all those criminals might just be pretending to be trans. Which brings us back to the question, how can we tell? Of course we can't. So ALL males, regardless of how they identify, should stay out of spaces where women are vulnerable. It's not hard.

i also agree with this - the transpeople i have come across in my health care work have been considerate and private people who are actually often disgusted by their own genitalia - these are the sort of people who I'd be more than happy to share a space with because they would be the ones hiding themselves away in the cubicle, at least until they have completed transition. The sort of transwoman who is happy to stand in the middle of a women's changing room whilst exposing their penis is the sort of transperson that we can and should be concerned about. @CalMeKate do you see the difference??

Male and female is fine. The organisations policy on using the Equality Act single sex exceptions should be made clear to everyone when they join. This changing room user needs to accept the club policy or use a club with mixed sex changing room policies.

@BelfastDadof3
Op thank-you for standing up for your girls and every other girl and woman in the gym.
Sorry the manager was an ass, but at least it's gone up the line and they have your back.

Re the What's App group, sorry they are being arses and don't see the risk.
Isla Bryson single handedly manage to peek half of Scotland, in the same week the Gender Recognition Bill was knocked back by Westminster. He really was God's Gift to women. Google him and share if necessary.

You might be happy but I'm not.

How does that policy work? Are you disgusted with your genitals? In with the women then, that's where the disgusted go?

If it actually were the case that now the society functions on the assumption that men can have vulvas and women can have penises, then all the new gender groups would be mixed sex groups, there would be no justification for separate changing rooms, prisons, rape refuges, toilets etc. for women and men, no reason to have any sports segregated by this new idea of an abstract feeling in the head and so on.

The outcome would in some ways allow any predatory or appropriating male person do whatever f* they wish to do on female people, including sexual harassment, taking over the leadership positions and podiums of previously female groups and sports.

It would become very hard to spot misogyny or sexism or to fight against them as in that new world there would be no name for the targets of those phenomena and some people in all the new genders would be affected by them so it couldn't even be seen as gender-based discrimination.

That is not a feminist utopia, for sure. The idea of feminism surely was to minimise sex-based discrimination and mistreatment of women due to our sex, to provide equal opportunities for women in all those fields of life where sex does not matter, not to pretend that biological sex does not exist at all. There are certain circumstances where it does matter very much (reproduction, sexual violence, sports etc.) and should not be erased from public debates.

This all reminds me of Anne and her determination to use women’s facilities even when unisex was available. Anne stomped and shouted about HER privilege to be acknowledged as a woman being far more important than the teenage girls who wanted to get changed in private without a penis being waved about in a woman only space.

its probably down to whether or not you consider all transpeople to be predatory,deviant or a sexual risk - i certainly do not and accept that there are people with gender dysphoria who are committed to wanting to live as the opposite sex quietly and without fuss and without trying to shoehorn "their rights" above the rights of women. Perhaps you have never met anyone who falls into this category? i do understand that there are people like yourself who disagree that trans people should have any consideration in how they live their lives .

Trans people without a gender recognition certificate are able to access single-sex spaces and services.The Equality Act (2010) protects trans people under the protected characteristic of “gender reassignment” from the start of social transition. This protection applies regardless of the age of the trans person, regardless of them being under medical supervision and regardless of what it says on their birth certificate. Under the act, trans men have the right to be treated the same as other man and have the right to access male only spaces and services. Similarly, trans women have the right to be treated the same as any other woman and have the right to access female only spaces and services. Non-binary people are protected under the “gender reassignment” characteristic of the Equality Act.
There is a legal basis for excluding trans people from single-sex spaces or services, however the law is clear in stating that these decisions must be made on a case-by-case basis and it must be a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. It is worth noting that the legal bar for this is incredibly high.

This is the Equality Act 2010 which the government passed as legislation.

It is not my opinion, it’s legislation.

Can I just profusely thank @CalMeKate for bravely and stunningly articulating, in full brilliant sunlit clarity, The Right Side of History in all its glittery glory? Please keep posting as much as you possibly can.