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?

sure but does the law give the right for an intact transwoman to expose their penis to a child in a designated womens changing room? transpeople are not doing themselves any favours if they fail to observe societal rules.

I think young girls not having to feel uncomfortable because adult males are exposing their penises counts as an legitimate aim.
I mean, if that's not a legitimate aim, what is?

A transwoman without a GRC who said that they were being discriminated against because of their gender feelings would be compared to other men. Transwomen have the right to use the male facilities and not to be kicked out just because they want to call themselves a woman. The genderists like to pretend it's the other way around but they are deliberately quoting Stonewall law rather than actual law.

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 .

It’s really not about that though. We know not all all trans people are predatory but some (a disproportionately high number) are and we can’t tell which they are. We see posts from them on social media about them sitting in the ladies passing judgement on the sound of our wee, getting off on listening. They rummage through the sanitary bins ((I’m leave you to imagine why) and take endless triumphant selfies of themselves breaching women’s boundaries of privacy from the opposite sex.

But all many women are focussed on is having privacy from the opposite sex when we are carrying out private bodily functions. It’s not a lot to ask.

Changing rooms are listed as one of the examples in the legislation where barring transwomen from the women's facility is perfectly acceptable.

In 2022 the EHRC made a ruling that organisations such as refuges and gyms can exclude transgender people from single-sex services if it can demonstrate its actions are proportionate.

No. You've misunderstood.

Transgender people are protected against discrimination; yes. The comparator for that is someone of the same sex as them. A male who is undergoing a process of transition should not be treated any less favourably than any other male would be.

Michael Foran is good on this, I can dig out some other legal analyses if you would find that helpful.

Single sex exemptions are exactly that; there is no way you could read the Act to think that 'gender reassignment' protections meant that anyone was entitled to use a space that had had a SSE applied.

It doesn't all come down to what men want.

The single sex exemptions in the equality act allow for what women want too.

Anyone "shoehorning" men into a single sex facility or service for women is simply prioritising men.

It's up to service providers to have consideration for women and men, and not engage in shoehorning.

Which is exactly what you are doing, shoehorning on the basis of bizarre criteria like "disgusted" and "quietly".

Wrong!

Protected from discrimination, yes. But the comparator for anyone with a protected characteristic is a person who is the same apart from that protected charateristic.

So a man who identifies as trans is protected from being treated less favourably than another man who is not trans.

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

• 'The Equality Act allows for the provision of separate or single sex services in certain circumstances under ‘exceptions’ relating to sex.
• To establish a separate or single-sex service, you must show that you meet at least one of a number of statutory conditions (set out in this section of the guide) and that limiting the service on the basis of sex is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. For example, a legitimate aim could be for reasons of privacy, decency, to prevent trauma or to ensure health and safety. You must then be able to show that your action is a proportionate way of achieving that aim.
• There are circumstances where a lawfully-established separate or single-sex service provider can prevent, limit or modify trans people’s access to the service. This is allowed under the Act. However, limiting or modifying access to, or excluding a trans person from, the separate or single-sex service of the gender in which they present might be unlawful if you cannot show such action is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. This applies whether the person has a Gender Recognition Certificate or not.
• When considering how your service is provided to trans people, you must balance the impact on all service users and show that there is a sufficiently good reason for excluding trans people or limiting or modifying their access to the service. Some service providers may find it helpful to have a policy for how services are provided to trans people. Where this is the case we recommend you develop a policy but this is not a legal requirement. If you do have a policy you should be prepared to consider whether particular circumstances justify departing from the policy.

'

This is completely wrong.

And:

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/advice-and-guidance/when-you-can-provide-separate-or-single-sex-service

Single-sex services
...
Example: separate male and female changing rooms.

1. A person might reasonably object to the service user being of the opposite sex because the service involves physical contact.

The page I happen to curenetly have open is the NI legislation rather than the UK Equality Act, but the same legal principle applies to both. A tranwoman should be treated the same as a man; a transman should be treated the same as a woman.

www.legislation.gov.uk/nisi/1976/1042/article/4B

More examples:

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/advice-and-guidance/gender-reassignment-provisions-equality-act

Example: A leisure centre introduces some female only fitness classes. It decides to exclude trans women because of the degree of physical contact involved in such classes.
Example: A gym has separate-sex communal changing rooms. There is concern about the safety and dignity of trans men changing in an open plan environment. The gym therefore decides to introduce an additional gender-neutral changing room with self-contained units.
Example: A small cafe with limited space and facilities for public use has separate lockable, self-contained male and female toilets with hand basins in single units. To ensure they are fully inclusive, and to make the most effective use of the available facilities, the cafe decides to make them all gender neutral.
Example: A community centre has separate male and female toilets. It conducts a survey in which some service users say that they would not use the centre if the toilets were open to members of the opposite biological sex, for reasons of privacy and dignity or because of their religious belief. It decides to introduce an additional gender-neutral toilet. It puts up signs telling all users that they may use either the toilet for their biological sex or to use the gender neutral toilet if they feel more comfortable doing so.

No. You've misunderstood.
Wrong!
This is completely wrong.

Like I said above, I'm very very delighted by @CalMeKate's brave and stunning work at shedding the brightest sunlight on The Right Side of History, and I really hope they keep going

It's extraordinary that people believe that the default for single sex exceptions is mixed sex and you have to, one by one, find a reason to keep each individual man out.

Absolutely incredible that people believe this crap.

I know we've had years of Stonewall lying about it but the basic LOGIC MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL.

Oh and before someone misrepresents case by case, that does not mean individual people, it means the situation. In the case of a communal changing room you can choose to make it single sex and ban trans people of opposite sex as a blanket rule. It's not a case of looking at each individual transwoman and deciding if he's 'womanly enough' to go in with the women.

https://www.scottishlegal.com/articles/michael-foran-getting-the-equality-act-right

'Without a gender recognition certificate (GRC), a trans woman is legally and biologically male, and the comparator, as was the case in Green v Secretary of State for Justice, is a man without the gender reassignment characteristic. The comparator cannot simply be, as King argues, a generic “someone” who isn’t trans. The comparator must be someone who is similar in all relevant respects except for the protected characteristic in question. So if the trans woman does not have a GRC, and is therefore legally male, the comparator is a man. With a GRC, the comparator will be a woman. Sex matters when analysing gender reassignment discrimination. '

i'm not sure this is true is it? transwomen who are transitioning or have transitioned are not the same as men who enjoy cross dressing or have a sexual fetish ....this is very like how gay men were historically treated ,with the presumption that they are all predatory or paedophiles.

It is not my opinion, it’s legislation.

Ha ha! How I love to see the over-confident being schooled by the knowledgable women on these boards. As @Kucinghitam says, LET THEM SPEAK. They do it to themselves.

Right. So how do we tell the difference between 'transwomen who are transitioning or have transitioned' and 'men who enjoy cross dressing or have a sexual fetish'?

If a man is standing naked in a woman's changing room, what do you tell the girls in there?

You report the flasher to the police for indecent exposure - every. single. fucking. time.

What is the common denominator here?

Male.

What are single sex services? Options for men to decide on?

That’s the expectation of the right side of future history.

https://twitter.com/glosswitch/status/1690099232622223360

And if the victim is a 9 year old girl and the gym refuses to act, then you report the business to the local safeguarding team as a safeguarding risk to children