GLP are suing Virgin Active

[ByGreatGreenWriter]

https://goodlawproject.org/were-suing-virgin-active-over-their-transphobic-rules/

“So we’re taking legal action. We are representing two claimants who are members of Virgin Active gyms and who have been subject to discrimination solely because they are trans.

According to Virgin’s new policy, both of them can no longer use facilities like the pool and sauna because they can only be reached by going through either the men’s or women’s changing rooms.“

If true that sounds like discrimination?

Because they are men? Transwomen are men, it says so on the tin.

@ByGreatGreenWriter or @ByGreatGreenWritter (if you forget your password you can just ask for a reset email you know)
If you are Jolyon or a GLP staffer then you need to amend that letter before action because you've had a C&P fail. Get off insta/tiktok/bluesky and proofread your documents properly, it's only 20 odd pages. Talk about stealing a living.

This is about following the law. It's not about how you think some trans identifying men might feel about using sex appropriate facilities.

It always amazes me when women have been told for years to reframe their trauma, do it and shut up, NAMALT, its just discomfort get over it, or self exclude and go without and that's your choice - that when men are told the same, it's wholly unreasonable.

Why are these men so amazingly special and more important than everyone else? Why is is appalling to say this to a man but fine for a woman?

Reasonable adjustments don't apply in law to trans issues - I've thought for a long time they should - but 'reasonable' is providing additional gender neutral spaces. It is not reasonable to destroy sex based spaces for women and distress, discomfort, exclude and actively put women at risk, unless you really don't think women are fully human Like What Men Are. There is no human right for men to access non consenting undressed women, nor to have the supremacy of right over women's spaces at a cost of excluding and harming women. And we have to be honest about the fact that some men with trans identities are exceptionally dodgy people with a long history of sex offending, on top of men having actively used access to women's spaces to offend against women and get to their victims. Why should women endure this shit? It's far worse than what is being wailed about at the thought of subjecting men to.

People with trans identities can have mixed sex additional provisions or they can use their own sex based ones. And the red herring of women with trans identities not being allowed is based on hearsay from someone who has not read or properly understood the SCJ. That applies only where women may reasonably be distressed or excluded by someone who strongly resembles a male in their space, and the SCJ references toilet facilities at a refuge/rape crisis support service, and requires that an additional facility should be provided so no one is left without facilities .

That's the key bit. No one can be left without facilities and access.

For activists: words like no one, people, inclusion, everyone and kind, mean women you don't agree with and whose boundaries you find inconvenient.

And just rolling at the whole 'disabled facilities are inferior due to lack of hair dryers so trans people can't use them' - they're fine for disabled people though?

Also very much misses the point that it's not women's problem to solve.

And after the last few years of abuse and threats and contempt, I'm afraid the TRAs have rather used up all my sympathy for sad men not getting what they want. I'm with Germaine.

Would it be rude of me to point out a man in a dress walking into a changing room soon becomes a man not in a dress when he gets changed. So he would be at no risk from any other men, also getting changed in said changing room, any more than an man is a risk to any other men.

Quite.

And at this point I am so very tired of the behaviours and attitudes and appalling treatment to women constantly streaming from this group of men, to the point that I really don't care where they go or what they do any more so long as they are not in the women's single sex space.

Why should women care about this when men loudly and aggressively don't care about them?

Transwoman are men though. As a woman I’m far more comfortable with everyone being restricted to changing rooms of their own sex than having random Tim’s using the ladies for validation.

I care as much about them feeling comfortable as they do about women feeling comfortable.

We women are told over and over ‘I don’t know why you have a problem sharing with men, just get on with it’. They can do that.

Not feeling comfortable isn't the problem. There are dignity and safety to be taken into consideration as well. And women have the right to be in a single-sex environment in certain situations. The law says this is legal in the UK. Reasonable accommodation can be made - but we are talking about less than 1% of the population and though I have come acrss more trans people lately they are not at all common. A gender neutral facility should be possible - though exit and entrance is likely still to be through a sexed space. Men should not be walking through spaces in which women and girls are partially or wholly undressed.

Exactly. And how does a man know he feels like a woman ? I am female and I feel like me I don’t think I I feel like a woman, I dint know what that means. Now I completely get that people may not feel like the version of femininity or masculinity that society reinforces fair enough but that doesn’t mean you need to change sex it means you don’t feel like you fit in with society’s idea of watt a woman or a man is.

and probably most important thoughts and feelings aren’t facts are they.

Are GLP doing this on a no win no fee basis? I doubt it…

‘Last summer Virgin Active banned trans people from bathrooms and changing rooms across the UK – so we’re taking them to court’ 😂🙈

Even with a most basic understanding we know that trans people aren’t banned. That’d be discriminatory.

Virgin are simply saying biological men use the men’s, biological women use the women’s. The GLP know that of course. Still if it makes them money.. £££££££

You can’t acquire the sex you weren’t born with.
Women don’t want trans women in their changing rooms because they are men. You might believe that some inner feeling trumps facts, but it doesn’t.
If you allow trans women in then you would have to allow all men in as that is discrimination.

GLP have about £4m in reserves to burn through in addition to the constant fundraising for writing (poorly drafted) letters. Even with their bloated payroll and profligate operating expenses that's still a few more years of JM trying to lawfare away his terrible parenting decisions.

There are plenty of gyms that are mixed sex - they can go to them.

There are lots of places that aren’t wheelchair accessible, there are lots of places that aren’t autism, blind, dwarfism etc accessible - it would be great if every single place was fully inclusive but it’s simply not possible.

These people are biologically 1 sex.
They are choosing to portray another gender - fine, but with that comes issues such as this one.
You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

I wonder how many people would choose to portray another gender if it meant they also receive lower pay, fewer job opportunities, fewer leadership roles etc.

Imagine being disabled and going your entire life being restricted with things like the gym and then hearing a story like this.

I am not anti trans and anyone can identify with whatever gender they want to but you are and will always be the sex you were born.
That’s not offensive, that is just scientific facts.

I’m sure. Gives them something to do with their lives I suppose.

They are of course not interested in solving the ‘problem’ (it’s not a problem) that has been raised. Such things are essential to their purpose.

They need to keep the gender woo wang alive. Keeps them in a job. Bit like (the awful newer version of) stonewall tried. And we see how that’s working out for them..

This claim by the GLP seems a bit spurious.

Surely ensuring members use the changing rooms on the basis of their biological sex and not their gender ID is a proportionate means of a achieving a legitimate aim - unless you think that protecting the safety and dignity of people (women) in a state of undress is not a legitimate aim?

If the Generally Loses Project takes a case on then it's a good rule of thumb to say the opposite side is in the right both morally and legally.

But a transmasculine non-binary person may have to stand around in they/them's wet trunks!!!
Sad times

I think TW feeling unsafe/uncomfortable in the changing room of their sex is a strawman. They want to be in the female changing room for validation. There is no evidence that they are not safe in the men's.

I think it’s just an attempt to spread misinformation. It’s a large part of what the GLP does. And it works.

The proportionate and legitimate test has already been fulfilled (or not) when you set up a single sex female space. There’s no requirement to make exceptions for particular men, is there.

That’s very telling!

Agree. I think what they are actually afraid of is that men will laugh at them. Women won't laugh at them because a) we are socialised to be nice, and b)it would potentially be very dangerous for a woman to laugh at a man in a changing room type situation. But men might well not take their 'woman' identity very seriously.

They do have appropriate spaces. Those would be the spaces for their sex. If they’re not happy with the single sex changing rooms, then like anyone, it’s time to find a different gym. I don’t like “changing villages” and I wouldn’t attend a gym or pool which has them.