Mixed sex changing, Swim England

[Davros]

Discussion on Woman’s Hour right now.

Men taking pictures of women naked in the swim change area. What a surprise! Who could have predicted it! 🙄

Infuriating that they scarcely considered that the rise in these crimes could be almost entirely due to the rise in mixed-sex changing rooms.

If men don't have access to women in changing rooms then they can't do this.

Have just emailed Woman's Hour about it.

Good to see the WRN report mentioned.

I keep asking this question: now we can have a man in a changing room and he gets to stay there if he says he's a woman, how do we tell who's a flasher or a peeping Tom?

New leisure centre near me had a case of up skirting under the cubicle in the first fortnight of opening. I'm really not keen for my children to use them.

I am not able to listen at the moment but I expect someone will come on to say that just make every cubicle completely private cos then mixed sex is fine. As if having completely private spaces where no one knows whats going on inside, accessible to both sexes in public, is such a positive for safety and hygiene.

Exactly.

There was this article in yesterday's Times: https://www.thetimes.com/uk/society/article/swim-england-report-female-swimmers-filmed-unisex-changing-rooms-d8d8lwjfz

To quote: "In a statement at the safeguarding meeting, Swim England said it “strongly recommended” that swimming organisations engaged with local pool providers to encourage them to create “simple barrier systems” to allow mixed changing villages to have separate changing areas for either sex."

So, it's important to have changing areas segregated on the basis of biological sex in order to keep perverted men away from women? Who'd a thunk it?

I consider ANY male in a female changing space l, with no reason (such as cleaner or fixing something, when I would expect there to be warnings to advise of this), as up to no good, regardless of whether they claim to be a woman. Because they are not a woman.

Quite. It's very obvious to those who engage brain.

What I don't understand, is how those who cheerlead the TWAW mantra and are happy to have males undressing in women's safe spaces, think we can identify the pervs, as distinct from the merely confused (who also shouldn't be there, of course, but that's the moot point, isn't it). Mostly, they just seem to insist that anybody saying they're trans must be in good faith and then switch to banging on about 'genital inspections', 'most vulnerable' and all that rubbish.

Swim England will just blame the pool operators. Their “put it away” campaign is useless.

Can we not circumvent the whole nonsense by changing male and female to has penis or does not have penis? (Ideally the "does not have penis" cubicles have an old fashioned attendant equipped with a very sharp pair of garden shears to make this a reality for anyone encroaching on this space whilst still fully equipped?)

Well, no. Because (a) even those who've had 'the surgery' remain male in every cell till death and beyond and (B) how can you tell if they've had it or not without the famed 'genital inspections'?

Ah swim england who several years ago employed lgbtq+ sports campaigner Jamie hooper to write guidance that basically said “everything mixed Yaaay” and then how to row back rather rapidly….

Quite.

Any man who wishes to change with women - or search women or carry out intimate procedures with women - in a way men are normally excluded from in the women's interests has already demonstrated their disrespect for women, women's boundaries, and their view of women as a resource they can use to meet their needs.

Once you've permitted that, you're only into wibbling about just how much he can use her and for what ends, and there's a whole lot of grey between 'I want to use her for my emotional needs and identity validation' and 'I want to use her for sexual gratification'. The point is, she is not his to use at all. She is walking around in biology he does not have any entitlement to.

So sick of seeing this kind of thing. Surely it's happened so many times in so many places that the conclusion should be that single sex spaces are a must and anyone who has a problem with that can just jog on because why should women have to be violated in all these ways just because idiots want to pander to a bunch of men with confused feelz 😡

Afaic, a p in the v chamging room is a peeping tom and deserves to be - um - excommunicated to put it nicely.
OK that solves nothing, but it makes me feel better!

‘Excommunicated’ is probably the least it deserves!

Exactly @BunfightBetty

And furthermore, this weakens the social convention that the sexes are separated for things like changing, washing, showering & going to the lavatory. And that those of us who insist on this are not prudes, or assuming every man is a pervert, but that we are taking society-wide sensible precautions against the minority of men who are sexual offenders. (Remember, 98% of convicted sex offenders are men).

The supposed "gotcha" trotted out by TRAs is that "there's no law that keeps public toilets single-sex" - but there is (or used to be) a very strong social barrier. And the TRAs are weakening it.

But it's backfiring - whereas maybe 20 years ago, most people would live and let live, a lot more women (and a fair proportion of men) are quite active in protesting and not giving an inch to any man. THe temperature against drag, for example, has hotted up, whereas maybe 20-30 years ago, drag was seen as pretty harmless dressing up by gay men. And so on.

Only 20% of trans-identified men have sexual reassignment surgery, and that doesn't always include removal of their penis. I don't blame them - it's brutal & experimental surgery.

But most men who want to be "accepted" into women's single sex spaces aren't old-school transsexuals. They are men with a specific sexual fetish. The condition that dareb not speak its name ...

Well I was being nice.
Personally I would feel justified in sn*pping off the p, but I can't say that.
Oh I just have!

🤣 At least a swift kick in the n*ts.

Absolutely, they were given an inch and then tried to take a hundred miles. And inevitably there’s backlash. That works in our favour.

It's insane, isn't it? Haven't yet RTFT, but...

Some think that however many women and girls are harmed, and however badly, it's a greater evil to demonise all males who claim to be women (who are just sweet and vulnerable) and deny them their "right" to enter female changing rooms, etc. A variant of this line of thinking is that it's unfair to make MCW pay for the crimes of "men" because only "men" offend against women.

Others think that every time a woman or girl is harmed it is an isolated incident (however often it happens) and it's just not a big issue - the MCW are at much greater risk from male violence. Oh, and women are really violent, too.
And something something lesbians.

A lot of the people who argue in these ways are women, some of whom are SA survivors. I think it's a coping mechanism - the potential threat from male people and the physical power imbalance is so frightening, they pretend it isn't there.
Or that male people can be effectively "gentled" (Wheel of Time reference) by identifying as women. But presumably not like the women who are "just as violent as men".

I just had to write those arguments out because they are so mad when you see them delineated I would love a genderist to tell me what I have got wrong.

And another one is "how would you police it/if men want to assault women they will do it anyway". This is the same argument and I always ask, if it can't be policed, or "men" can't be kept out, then why are the women's changing rooms/toilets any safer for the MCWs who are supposedly being protected from male violence?
How do they know who is a stunning and brave MCW and who is a "man" intent on assaulting the MCW?