Are women's only swim sessions in council pools no longer a thing ?

[habibihabibi]

Arrived back in the UK after 20 years living abroad.
Before I moved I'd swim regularly at women's only sessions ( London).
My local pool had day and evening slots. I went at least three times a week.
When I was barely a teen I was abused by a male swimming coach and rather than give up on the sport I loved , it felt so much safer to swim without men present.
I went often with a friend who reason was faith driven ( I taught her to swim ) .
Now I'm in Edinburgh and there is only one women's only sessions and it's on the other side of the city , once a week for an hour.
Is this a countrywide shift ?
If anything it feels like women need more of their own spaces and from what I have researched Scotland did have more sessions historically.

With the SC judgement stating things named “women only” would exclude males claiming trans identity would be excluded, many places, especially in Scotland, have cancelled all things designated woman only for fear of hurting the feelings of the TIM when they get told no.

I have not researched the details but it does not surprise me if this is the case. Probably alongside reduced opening hours, and the contracting out of leisure services. Or having them at times such as late evenings, so they were not well used.

One area where women only sessions seem to be recognised is in the wood fired and other independent saunas that have grown up over the last three or four years across the country.

There’s one near me that does it three times a week. I’m sure the other local one used to do it as well.

My local council run sports centre runs women only sessions for swimming, gym and some classes. We have a high Muslim and Jewish population in the area so they are catered for.

This all happened long before the SC judgment, I think. Weekly women-only sessions used to be a big draw for many religious women in Glasgow. I think helping women exercise has become less fashionable since Glasgow Life decided colourful gender identities were more exciting.

Ours never resumed after Covid ☹️

Our local pool used to have women’s night on a Tuesday night. I used to love going. It was a casualty of Covid and never came back.

Glasgow seems to have one women only session once a month.

glasgowclub.org/activities/women-only-swimming/

For many years, anything reserved for women has been relentlessly targeted by transactivists. Things like swimming sessions and the associated women's changing rooms being a particular target. All aided and abetted by the useful idiots in Swim England and other sporting governing bodies who excitedly enabled men's access to women and girls undressing.

As a result many women just stopped attending what became mixed sex sessions and / or councils stopped offering them. Then there's the imposition of safeguarding busting mixed sex changing villages that enable sexual predators

https://www.womensrights.network/post/how-leisure-centres-enable-sexual-predators

Sadly more examples of how transactivism can trash anything women centred.

Ours does but like a pp said we have a very large orthodox Jewish population locally and when I have been the majority have been from that community.

To be fair to swimming organisations, they have in recent years started to impose boundaries on men seeking access to female changing rooms after a number of scandals exposed their previous stupidity

https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-12350741/Parents-raised-concerns-transgender-pool-official-using-womens-changing-room-time-young-girls.html

I used to go to womens' only lane swims with my Mum every week. She preferred it because they weren't any men 'splashing about all over the place and tutting at women they thought were in the wrong lane'. I liked going with her and not being around strange men in my swimsuit.

My Mum and I both live in different areas to where we grew up now and neither of our local pools have women only sessions anymore. It's sad.

Ask your local pool for sessions. Ask local councillors to tell the pool to put them on. Some places just don’t realise there is demand for this.

Ours vanished after covid. We do have a women only local authority gym though.

Same here in West Yorkshire in most local authorities as high demand for women only sessions due to religious requirements.

I've messaged both Edinburgh Leisure and my local councillor. One thing I found out was that historically poolside female staff couldn't be guaranteed, which excluded some religious groups of women participating.

Our ‘council’ pools have been run by Better for quite a few years, which I think is some sort of charity.
Anyway, the pool nearest me doesn’t seem to have any single sex sessions nowadays. The one on the other side of town, which is in an area with a larger Muslim population ( the whole city is multicultural though) has quite a lot of women only pool sessions, and one for men&boys only.

I don’t think they were common anyway, I can’t remember seeing any in the council owned pools near me. We have lane swimming or general swimming. As soon as you offer segregated swimming people will demand the other way around, you get into arguments over who qualifies etc

There are certainly two council run leisure centres in Liverpool which have women only swim sessions, with guaranteed female lifeguards too.

better here too.

I’m not sure if it still has a female only session but ive never forgotten colleagues 20 years ago who were struggling with weight depending on being able to go to a session. As they were so self conscious. It was literally a life line for them.

Mine had them pre-covid, then they dropped off, then they came back but weren't utilised by enough women so it didn't make sense.

We have them. Some pools guarantee female lifeguards and covered windows.

My local pool has two double sessions a week that are women only. It’s imperfect - they can’t guarantee female lifeguards and one of the sessions coincides with a children’s session in the attached small pool some of whom are brought by dads, but they are lovely sessions.

Did you really just tell her its time she got over it and she'll feel better once she's undressed and around men in swimming trunks?