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?

@Norma27 don't engage with this one, they're over on another thread suggesting that Lesbians might like penis and Gay men might like vagina if they just give it a try and not giving it a try makes them a bigot and transphobe.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4870736-lesbian-speed-dating-event-accused-of-transphobia-for-not-allowing-men?page=1

Thank you @FatAgainItsLettuceTime i hadn’t seen that other post.

Just the usual from you then owning. No surprises from
you.

Helpful of you to confirm that anyone complaining about a man exposing his genitals to young girls is going to be called 'transphobic'.

You do realise you're not actually helping your cause, don't you?

Although Arabella has owning supported ‘no dicks in the [female] changing room’ before. I cannot remember. If not, is this progress????

Your memory is way better than mine, Helle!

Boiledbeetle that picture takes me right back to my glam metal days in the 80s when I hung out with the long haired boys who wore make up.

Now plenty of ‘em were threatened by “dressers”, indeed some wear beaten up for their music taste and dress sense but they used the men’s toilets.

@OwningAllMyMistakes that is a disgusting post about this single dad who is trying to safeguard his children. "Trash"? "Transphobic"? WTF is wrong with you?

That was my thought when I saw it, took me back to my youth! How have we gone so bloody backwards, so much, so quick? (Rhetorical question, we all know the answer 🤐)

It's DARVO.

Do you really work in child safeguarding? Then you must know that transwomen have a higher rate of convictions for sexual offences than other males, according to UK prison statistics.

Same here, except it was alternative rock / grunge in the mid 90s. I remember well a long haired male friend being asked actually quite civilly 'you want a fight'? by a 'townie'.

None of these guys used women's toilets/changing rooms.

Yeah, DARVO for sure. It is unbelievable that someone asking for help and views on the issue of preventing their young children from being the victims of repeated sexual offences is accused of writing "trash". I find that really upsetting tbh.

The one advocating for dick at the AHF lesbian meet wants no dick in the women's rights forum.
Irony.

We are still waiting for CalKate to link us up to the stats to prove their words.

"The behaviour is what is important. If the behaviour feels wrong it probably is. The fact the transwomen has breast implants implies to me that this isn’t a man pretending but someone who was born male and now identifies as female."

and

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

and

"However MEN far outweigh the balance of predatory risk"

So far though, they either misread the request or attempted a blatant misdirection and posted the stats we know about VAWAG.

Surely a person in child safeguarding would not simply accept guidance from a lobby group such as Stonewall who has Peter Tatchell as a spokesperson? It seems thought that this could well be what kate has done. Failing the very first principle of safeguarding as I see it. That of ‘no groups to be above suspicion’. Hhmmmm. And add to that ‘seek evidence to support claims that aim to reduce scrutiny of a particular group’.

That this poster has a 5 year old daughter that they are conditioning to have such low boundaries that their daughter will not quickly be able to view a male adult being naked in a communal change room as an abuser and so she should get undressed there is seriously dangerous. Because that is the outcome. That this daughter will walk into a space and, unless the male is fulfilling the narrow and very limited criteria this parent has given them, will believe that this naked male being there is righteous and normal and so will put themselves in harms way.

This parent is teaching their child to ignore the very reservations that they have admitted to having on this thread. And believes they are a good parent and that they are kind. After all, they are a ‘ally’ don’t forget!!! That is the priority in their safeguarding.

They have made being an ally the priority in their relationship with their daughter too.

kate is willingly putting their daughter and all daughters at risk in their pursuit of being an ‘ally’.

That they cannot see this is just fucked up.

EnfysPreseli to CalMeKate

You trot out nonsense advice like an automaton.

oh yes

I don’t remember this from my history lessons. Was it the Parlimentarians or the Royalists who were the rapists? My money’s on the Royalists.

I know that was tongue in cheek, but (depressingly), it would have been soldiers from both sides of the Civil War that engaged in it.

Wellington’s soldiers raped, WW2 German and Russian (and Allied too) troops raped in the territories they’d fought through and Russian / Wagner troops have reportedly raped in the parts of Ukraine they’ve occupied.

It’s pretty much a standard ‘tactic’ in the many conflicts across Africa, and the Chinese state likes to forcibly billet male soldiers in the houses of ethnic minority women - in part so that lots of half-Han children result.

When the rules of society break down, accidentally or by engineering, some men will use the opportunity to rape and sexually assault. Blurring the boundaries in what should be single SEX spaces is profoundly stupid if one of our societal goals is to prevent harm to the vulnerable.

@CalMeKate I'm astonished at your response if, as you claim, you work in child safeguarding.
The OPs daughters are facing a situation of 1) a male bodied person breaching the norms of a female changing room - women tend to be modest and discreet when changing. 2) the transwoman can see the behavioural norms and are choosing to breach them for their gratification - sexual? Because they get off on feeling "entitled" to? Because they need young girls seeing their penis to feel "validated"? 3) The transwoman is either ignorant of the feelings of women and girls (because they are after all male) and/or has no respect or care about these. OPs daughters can see these things plain as day, same as most of the posters here. Don't gaslight them by telling them they are wrong.
You must know that a minority of males exhibit their genitals to others for sexual gratification. You must know that since the dawn of time women and children have been told this is minor despite anyone who has experienced it knows it is violating. You must know that research shows that indecent exposure can be a "gateway" to other forms sexual offending.
Yet you still think the priority for the OPs daughters, who have no Mum in the changing room to help them navigate this, must adapt their behaviour to the male bodied person. (At least you give them permission to do what makes them feel comfortable - thank you - women are often told by trans rights activists that we are transphobic Nazis for not embracing male bodies in womens places). You think that it best that the OPs girls hide in the Disabled women's Cubicle. What if a Disabled woman/child needs it? Would you say the OP's daughters should stop their swimming lessons if they can't access the disabled women's facilities?
Just because the vast majority of sexual abuse is perpetrated by men known to the victim it does not mean that women should be literally faced with male genitals being exhibited in womens places.
And I also believe that the majority of ordinary transwomen just want to get on with life rather than exhibiting their penises at women and girls.

@CalMeKate in case you really are the mother of a five year old girl, I think you should have another read of The Well Armored Child, in particular, the chapter on institutions. Think carefully about what Castiex says attracts people* to institutions who want to abuse children. About the way perpertrators of child abuse use the written and unwritten rules of an institution to put themselves above suspicion. Ask the questions Castiex provides.
To put it clearly, does adopting the identity of trans woman allow someone to do things to / in front of children that would not otherwise be tolerated?

*About 90% of perpertrators of CSA are male. A male perpertrator abuses on average many more children than a female perpertrator.

Reem Alsalem, 'person from the UN' has done quite a bit of work on sexual violence in war-torn countries, iirc.

There are a lot of people who work in or with safeguarding. Some of the do the admin / answer the phones, some of them are in the next door office, some of them have been on a safeguarding training course etc. All perfectly legitimate but doesn't make them an "expert" in child safeguarding or with appropriate training / experience to manage complex issues - as we can see with this poster.

"Just because the vast majority of sexual abuse is perpetrated by men known to the victim it does not mean that women should be literally faced with male genitals being exhibited in womens places."
Indeed. And the reason so much abuse happens within families is because non-offending adults pretend it isn't happening.
If it becomes the norm to look the other way when sexual crimes agains children occur in public, the rates of stranger-perpertrated sexual abuse will go up and up.
It's the wrong way around. We want to bring intra-familial rates of abuse in line with pubic/stranger abuse rates. Not bring the hiding-in-plain-sight hideousness of incest into public life.

Yes. Another reason why @CalMeKate needs to present the stats or studies that prove robustly that male people with trans identities and at any stage of transition have a lower propensity to commit sex crime than the rest of the UK male population.

Kate has believed it. Has stated it in different ways on this thread. And has based their entire safeguarding principles on this premise. Yet despite being repeatedly asked cannot provide the evidence.

yet feels morally superior enough to tell us to check our privilege and bias!

How proud can anyone really be of lowering the boundaries of girls in the name of kindness or that then leaves them open to abusive situations? And to their own daughter!!!

It is a clear case of an-action-I-cannot-mention-without-deletion by proxy. Proxy being an enthusiastic ‘ally’ who cannot think for themselves at all.

@CalMeKate Also what do you want the outcome to be today when you go to the gym and speak to them? Do you want the transwomen banned from the female changing rooms? Do you want all people with penis’ to change in the male changing rooms?

Yes, that is absolutely what we want.

Going back to the OP's question re men walking around naked in the male changing room, this might offer some explanation

Exhibitionism | Psychology Today