Rules in pools

[SmallandSpanish]

I took myself to the ‘ladies pond’ on Hampstead Heath today. Signs everywhere saying ladies only. Women only etc. I was nervous as it was my first time and I was on my own. It was my treat to myself after a stressful morning. I got loudly told off for taking a carefully placed selfie (discreetly, with nobody else in view). Meanwhile the big boomy man parading around in a woman’s swim suit, talking loudly and generally acting like he owned the place was completely free and unchallenged. I didn’t want to ruin my brief moment of time to myself so forced myself not to dwell on it. But FFS. Fuck. Off.

Jaessa · Yesterday 22:59

It was very funny and made a clear point.
If it was done in poor taste, mocking the idea of being trans as something whimsical, then it is not funny nor nice indeed

Two men posing as women in the entire competition. Both of them in the final.

And you think that they're oppressed?

Was the big, boomy man there with a friend he was talking to, OP?

I was recently told by an aquaintance that there had been a similar, big, boomy voice at her women’s guild meeting. She immediately knew there was a man there, the moment she walked in. She was trying to make sense of it and work out how to react. A man infading women’s spaces is never a neutral act.

That said, I don’t think the Pond Committee actually have any power in this. It was a male pervert in the City of London Corporation threw away 19,000 consultation responses from women who objected because they used the correct language according to sex.

Even if one swallowed the fantastical idea that male people-of-gender are a dreadfully oppressed minority, I can't quite connect the dots to "therefore they are owed whichever spaces their lovely hearts desire" let alone "therefore they are owed female people in a state of undress."

Punching down?!! Can you check you language on this board please? You do know that the vast, vast majority of actual punching down, now and throughout history, has been male on female? That most women are dwarfed by most men who are bigger than us, stronger than us and more predisposed to violence than us - and that possibility exists regardless of whether they are strutting round in a bikini or not. That is the scenario the op describes, if you had bothered to read her post - a much larger man marking ‘his territory’. Hence the need for single sex spaces. Plenty of women here have been victims of male punching down. Vawg is endemic. Probably best not used as an idiom, particularly in the unlikely context of women being the aggressors against much bigger, more powerful human beings.

"Won't anyone think of the men?"

Are you serious? Why isn't the mixed pool good enough for them? What about women who don't want to swim with men? The men have a single sex option. Are you seriously saying that women don't deserve the same?

Hi OP, I’m with you on the issue of men in the women’s pond and I’m really sorry it spoiled your visit.

But I also want to say, if you go to the pond again, please don’t try and take selfies, however discrete you think you’re being. The no cameras rule is there for good reasons and is important for women feeling comfortable.

I would assume they would allow women to self ID as men as well? Not if they were obviously just doing it to make a point, but for those who actually said they were men?

Yes, you'd think it would work equally both ways, but oddly enough everyone says no on a binary sexed basis if women try to take the piss the way that men do and women are required to enable.

As to 'legal women' - I strongly doubt for a start that anyone is checking GRCs, due to the obvious major loophole issue with them, but when you have to kick women out of women's spaces and leave some women with nothing in order that men can have everything and express their personal inner self with all the choices? Anyone who is not seriously prejudiced against women and sees the binary class sex of men as supreme above them, would have a problem with it.

Why should women be expected to care about and respect men's legal issues and self expression and inclusion when those men are showing them no respect at all?

Trans women are men.

Nothing to do with punching down on a minority. Everything to do with highlighting the fact that men are apparently allowed to say no to women in their single sex spaces (even if those women say they are men) but women are not allowed to say no to men who say they are women in women's spaces.

Why the double standard?

Because men are men, and men who say they are women are also men, and men of all types must always be allowed to have what they want.

Trans women are a privileged minority. They couldn't be less oppressed if they tried.

Women are an oppressed majority.

I would assume they would allow women to self ID as men as well? Not if they were obviously just doing it to make a point, but for those who actually said they were men?

How can you tell the difference?

Just as how can you tell the difference between a man who truly believes he is a woman, and a man who simply wants access to undressed women?

There's no difference between someone who says they are the opposite sex for one reason and someone who says they are the opposite sex for another reason.

Whether you are doing it to prove a point or not, you are still not the opposite sex and your presence in a space for the opposite sex is still going to be at best an irritation and at worst a danger for the people that space is actually for.

Think about it for a second.

Women calling themselves men in order to access the men's single sex pond do not represent any danger to those men. They aren't going to set off any trauma responses in men who have been raped or sexually assaulted by a woman. Probably the worst they can do is make the space unsuitable for a man whose religious beliefs prevent him from sharing that space with women. And yet this is unacceptable.

Men calling themselves women for any reason do represent a danger to the women that space is for. Statistically, the risk that they may actually harm those women is significant enough that it should not be ignored. If they do actually try to harm a woman in that space, for example, by touching her in a way that she does not consent to, she probably cannot defend herself because he is strong enough to physically overpower her, whereas a woman in a men's space is not strong enough to physically overpower the men. Statistically, a large minority of the women in that space will have been raped or sexually assaulted by a man, and may find his presence traumatising for that reason. We also know that a greater number of women are restricted from using mixed sex spaces like this due to their religious beliefs. For example, Muslim women have much greater restrictions on exposing parts of their bodies to strangers than Muslim men do.

And yet, the men are allowed to object to this, even though the impact on them is nowhere near as great, but the women are not.

It's misogyny on steroids.

I don't give a fuck why a man is saying he's a woman, whether he believes it or not, or how sad he will be if I don't go along with it. He's not my problem. He shouldn't be any woman's problem.

Aunt Lydia is exactly the right term for the women allowing this.

Brilliant post. Thanks.

Transwomen are neither oppressed nor women.

Women don't feel comfortable at a women's pond with men there. I can assure you that's much worse than a woman taking a discreet selfie

I’m not arguing it’s worse, I’m saying please don’t do it. Take a selfie by the entrance if you want one

When a group of women self identified as men there, the men called the police on them. Man Friday as I and other pp have mentioned.

He’s still a man.
Even if he truly thinks he’s a woman. Whatever that means.

For some reason, as I read this, and regretting the absence of access for me at Hampstead Ponds, I had a vision of all the actual women there joining hands and surrounding the appallingly behaved one, singing Ring a ring a roses around him, and then manoeuvring him into the pool, which as he hadn't chosen it at that moment would be humiliating.
Forgive me for trivialising this. I thought the matter was being approached with the City of London, re inclusion not being observed.

“Not if they were obviously just doing it to make a point” … but men do exactly EXACTLY this when saying they are women - just the pint they are making is very much more malign and oppressive

Exactly my point, @Jujujudo .

how is it 'punching down on a minority' when women have zero single sex spaces? Women are the minority.

But yes. They will pick you. Well done.

how are they oppressed?

the list of women who have lost their jobs, not just those who make it to tribunal, lost their means of making a living, lost their publishing contracts etc etc is HUGE.

The list of men who have pushed into women's spaces, taken their jobs, silenced women etc etc is also long. The fact that they have managed to shit on so many women suggests to me that they are not in any way a minority. They are the oppressors.

fgs, rtft

"to make a point"

if we have to accept that any ol bloke who says he has "lady feelz" is allowed into the women's pond, then we should have to accept that any ol woman who says she has "menz feelz" should be allowed into the men's pond.

Acceptance of what people say - them's the rules. We don't make the rules, men do.

And yet, they don't apply them to themselves.