Known simply as the “women’s baths”
A space for women and children:
There are few things I find more calming than being near water. Drawing a hot bath or driving to the beach early in the morning feels a bit like turning the volume down in my head, like cutting off anxiety’s dripping tap at its source.
When a friend first took me to McIver’s Ladies Baths in Sydney I was scared of being denied entry, but quickly became enchanted with the place, returning over and over. Known simply as the “women’s baths” among friends, the ocean pool just south of Coogee beach has operated for over a century, providing a space for women and children to swim and spend time, sheltered from both stronger sea currents and the unwanted attention of men.
Why scared of being denied entry though?
As a trans woman, the place has held a particular importance as somewhere I have felt able to swim not just away from the male gaze but outside of a gaze at all.
Ohhhhh I see – this is a man talking. This is a man talking about how calming and enchanting it is to have a swimming place just for women, away from unwanted male attention and the male gaze. This is a man talking about that while blithely ignoring the fact that by going there he is taking that pleasure away from all the women who are there at the same time. The entitlement is breathtaking.
Trans existences are constantly under scrutiny, from the bodies we exist within, to the rights we hope to one day hold. Spaces where I’ve felt able to just exist, especially spaces designated for women, are rare, and I hold onto those that I find dearly.
And fuck the actual women who feel the same way, because they just don’t matter.
This week, I was disappointed to learn that the McIver’s website contained a definition of women that included only “transgender women who’ve undergone gender reassignment surgery”. After an immediate backlash, this was amended to remove the note about genital surgery, and instead note that their “definition for transgender is as per the NSW Discrimination Act”, passing the buck onto anti-discrimination law that is unclear at best.
This isn’t an uncommon disappointment for trans people: to invest in a place as hopefully somewhere that’s for us, only to have it shown to be explicitly otherwise. If you’re not trans you may not notice, but transphobia isn’t a marginalised, scared, or silenced perspective, it’s woven through the fabric of society. This phenomenon is known as cissexism, a structural belief of gender determined at birth, and trans lives as fiction. This allows the creation of myths about us, that if we are not women we must be men, if we are not truthful we must be hiding something, and must be predators, and that their womanhood must remain safe and separate.
He sneers at women for wanting to be safe and separate while swimming, just a couple of paragraphs after talking about the joy of being in a swimming place intended for women. He gets to enjoy being safe and separate, but women don’t. He gets to exclude men, but women don’t get to exclude him.
When transphobes talk about womanhood as exclusive, they have to come up with reasons for this false distinction: this group has an attribute (genitals, physical attributes, life experiences, take your pick) which makes them women, so this other group without that attribute cannot be women. They reduce womanhood to a series of boxes to be ticked, like women are a monolith of experience, rather than accept that some women might look or be a bit different from them, and in the process miss out on the joy that comes from knowing and loving women of all different kinds.
So how does he know the women at the women’s swimming pool are women? Why does he like it precisely because it excludes men, when he argues that men can be women too if we just “accept that some women might look or be a bit different,” i.e. might be men? Why is it that the “accept men as women” rule applies to women but not to him? Why does he get to prefer a women-only swimming pool while women don’t?
The clueless narcissism is breathtaking, isn’t it?
If he can’t define women, having decided that the usual definition is ‘exclusionary’, then how did he decide that he’s one?
Last paragraph of the OP was the first thought I had.
If gender is defined by self-identity, then you can’t tell whether the person swimming next to you “is” a man or a woman. You can only know, at best, how they present themselves. So once again it all comes down to which cultural stereotypes you conform to.
I’m not cheering for this to happen, because I think it would be an asshole move towards all the women who value that space, but eventually some group of conservative culture warriors are going to show up at places like that with a bikini top and pearl necklace over their hairy male chests and dare the authorities to dispute the sincerity of their gender identity. And I’ll be very curious to see what the response would be. (Sure, you could try to address this by checking government-issued IDs that list legally-recognized gender, on the probably correct assumption that random troublemakers aren’t going to go to court to legally change their gender just to stir up shit. But are trans people going to be satisfied with having ID checks for anyone who doesn’t “pass”?)
But are trans people going to be satisfied with having ID checks for anyone who doesn’t “pass”?
Definitely not!
First of all, “cis” people don’t need to present a GRC to prove their gender! It would be discriminatory to require that of trans folk.
Second of all, what about genderqueer people? Surely the women’s baths should be open to genderqueer, neutrois, agender, bigender, and polygender people as well, no?
Neutrois above all!
Ophelia et al: You might find this somewhat (too) lengthy essay interesting and relevant:
https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-philosophers-philosopher-saul-kripke-illuminates-identity?
I think that a combination of duck lips and head tilt would get them in, no problem.
But is the pool open to trans otters?
And femmes!
(How do French transcultists refer to “femmes”, anyway? Do they have to call them “les women”? Or perhaps “les womens”?)
This was my go today:
Bodies of water: who is welcome in women’s spaces?
Liz Duck-Chong
Um, women? That was simple, glad we solved the issue in the title!
I won’t be returning to McIver’s Ladies Baths in Sydney until the policy explicitly states that ‘all trans women are welcome’. There are no longer any excuses
So, “women” is “too exclusive” for you, and women having something for themselves, even one thing, is something for which “there are no longer any excuses”. That sounds wildly sexist.
Sat 16 Jan 2021 06.00 AEDT
Last modified on Sat 16 Jan 2021 06.03 AEDT
There are few things I find more calming than being near water. Drawing a hot bath or driving to the beach [note that the author retains full access to both hot baths and beaches] early in the morning feels a bit like turning the volume down in my head, like cutting off anxiety’s dripping tap at its source.
When a friend first took me to McIver’s Ladies Baths in Sydney I was scared of being denied entry, [because I am an adult male] but quickly became enchanted with the place, [because they let me in anyway] returning over and over. Known simply as the “women’s baths” [because they’re for women] among friends, the ocean pool just south of Coogee beach has operated for over a century, providing a space for women [human females] and children [juvenile humans] to swim and spend time, sheltered from both stronger sea currents and the unwanted attention of men. [Except me, because I decided that my feelings about the women’s baths were more important than any other women’s feelings about the women’s baths.]
As a trans woman [an adult human male] the place has held a particular importance as somewhere I have felt able to swim not just away from the male gaze [of other males, but I’ve decided I don’t count as male, and require that you agree with me] but outside of a gaze at all [because women don’t have eyes? Really at a loss here]. Joni Nelson wrote earlier this week that the baths are a place she went “for years when [she] needed peace”, a sentiment I can relate to. [So can lots of women, but apparently that’s of no importance to you.] Trans existences are constantly under scrutiny, from the bodies we exist within, to the rights we hope to one day hold. [How shocking that women might seek to scrutinise or reject males in their spaces?] Spaces where I’ve felt able to just exist, especially spaces designated for women [so, not adult males], are rare, [indeed, the women’s baths are the only one in the country] and I hold onto those that I find dearly.[Except that you are determined to ensure that they are rendered useless to most women.]
This week, I was disappointed to learn that the McIver’s website contained a definition of women that included only “transgender women who’ve undergone gender reassignment surgery”. [A straightforward no adult or teen penises policy, which obviously will be acceptable, even necessary, for most women. Women’s policies don’t typically centre the needs of people with penises, and that’s both how it should be, and not surprising.] After an immediate backlash [because women are no longer socially permitted to say no to people with penises anymore], this was amended to remove the note about genital surgery, and instead note that their “definition for transgender is as per the NSW Discrimination Act”, passing the buck onto anti-discrimination law that is unclear at best. [No penises in women only stuff.]
This isn’t an uncommon disappointment for trans people: to invest in a place as hopefully somewhere that’s for us, only to have it shown to be explicitly otherwise. [Again, why would you think the women’s baths would have been created for males? They’re called the women’s baths, not the people’s baths.] If you’re not trans you may not notice, but transphobia [needs defining – here you’re complaining about being excluded on the basis of having a penis, and since having a penis isn’t the sole preserve of trans people, it’s unclear how excluding penises is transphobic on the face of it] isn’t a marginalised, scared, or silenced perspective, it’s woven through the fabric of society. [Except that saying “lesbian = female homosexual” will get you condemned at London Pride by London Pride, saying “only females get cervical cancer” will get you booted off Twitter, and saying “if you’ve got a penis, you’re a bloke” will lead to calls for, and the supplying of grovelling apologies, so what speech is marginalised here?] This phenomenon is known as cissexism, [sexism] a structural belief [observance of fact] of gender [biological sex] determined at birth [conception] and trans lives as fiction [not existing outside the material reality of male and female]. This allows the creation of myths [observation of facts] about us, that if we are not women [because trans women are male, and women aren’t male by definition] we must be men [because males are men by definition], if we are not truthful [by claiming to be women] we must be hiding something [like being male] and must be predators [because males defying women’s clearly stated boundaries are exhibiting typical male pattern predatory behaviour], and that their womanhood [existence as female people] must remain safe [because women should matter in matters pertaining to women] and separate.
When transphobes [needs defining: here you are complaining that women should not be allowed to define themselves, which sounds straightforwardly sexist to me] talk about womanhood [existing as an adult human female] as exclusive [because if it included males it would be personhood, not womanhood, so a degree of exclusivity is necessary for the term to retain some meaning], they have to come up with reasons for this false [accurate distinction that the author cannot allow to stand because the author finds it distressing that women should be allowed to consider any distinction between females and himself] distinction: this group has an attribute (genitals, physical attributes, life experiences, take your pick) which makes them women [like being human females], so this other group without that attribute cannot be women [because they are males]. They reduce womanhood [it is not reductive to note that something is something, rather than nothing] to a series of boxes to be ticked, like women are a monolith of experience [not at all, women comprise over 3.5 billion experiences, and that’s just counting those alive right now] rather than accept that some women might look or be a bit different from them [because they are male, and therefore not women] and in the process miss out on the joy that comes from knowing and loving women of all different kinds. [I am prepared to miss out if it means women can continue to have female only spaces, but thanks for your concerns. Perhaps women can experience the joy of knowing trans women anywhere else? As in, literally anywhere else. You’re talking about the only women’s baths in the country. Perhaps we could get to know you at a park, a pub, at work, a function, the movies, the beach, the shops, you know, pretty much anywhere.]
I understand the need to feel protective about women’s spaces [do you? Really? Do you? You’re arguing here that no woman may refuse entry to anyone who asks] especially public spaces like this one, but protectiveness at the cost of women [here the author means adult males with penises] already at a high risk of harm and violence feels less like closing the door of a clubhouse and more like locking a gated compound. [You are quite right that trans women need safe spaces, but that’s a question for the council, not for the women’s baths. The women’s baths were set up under a then uncontested definition of woman as adult human female and maintained for female people, because adult human females still exist and the reasons they need penis free spaces remains. Making it also for adult human males with penises will defeat the entire point.]
As I read the news this week, I wanted there to be a good reason [apparently “women can decide this one tiny thing about their own lives” doesn’t count in the author’s mind] why the website was worded as it was, why the follow-up was lukewarm at best, but there are no longer any excuses [women saying no to penises is reduced to an “excuse”] for a version of womanhood that’s not trans inclusive [womanhood includes all female people, a feature that includes lots of trans people, since lots are female, and that includes 3.5 billion humans – you can’t get much more inclusive than that] – you can’t protect women by kicking some of us [here, the author claims you can’t protect human females without including human males, which is a clearly false statement] to the kerb. What’s not to be gained by believing we are who we say? [Wow. Among the things “gained” by “believing what we say” is the wholesale transfer of women’s power to say “no” to third parties, that is, everyone else. Under this iteration of “women’s spaces”, the author would have women’s spaces available to literally anyone who asks or seeks entry. That’s obviously going to include a significant number of males, some of which will have ulterior motives, and some women cannot even share spaces like this with the nice ones, because that’s not how their trauma/religion/dignity works.] The trans women I know are extraordinary, resilient and caring – why wouldn’t you want your womanhood to include that, and to include us? [Again, you can have that literally anywhere else. Don’t make me list them all.]
But even as it should, it’s important for us [males with an agenda] to continue to challenge what the category of “woman” [because we don’t want women to have it to themselves anymore] means, and who is and has historically [woman: adult human female *all gasp*] been allowed entry. The exclusion of trans women [adult human males] is the latest in a long and ongoing history of tightly defining womanhood [the state of existence as an adult human female], inseparable from racist [all races have human females] misogynist [outrageous that a male considers saying no to penises “misogynist”] and colonialist [because according to trans ideology, pre colonial indigenous societies didn’t know what males and females were] ideas. Alex Gallagher wrote earlier this week about baths, beaches, and this obsession with policing non-normative bodies [excluding males for women’s safety claimed as “obsession with policing non-normative bodies”, not keeping penises out of women’s spaces] asking if a space which “seeks to facilitate an alternate environment outside of that gaze loses its significance if it’s just another site for policing whose bodies are acceptable”. [Either women can say no to you, or not. Your repeated assertion is that we shouldn’t be allowed to, and that’s unacceptable if we plan to continue to have any sort of autonomy for women.]
If there’s any consolation in this saga, it’s in the community outcry to the original wording, and the ongoing calls for apologies and addendums of explicit trans inclusion. This is by no means the first time a place I love has shown itself to be unwelcoming, but it’s the first time I remember seeing this many loved ones and allies say it’s no longer acceptable. [Pretty disconcerting to women though, to see that so many will rally behind the cause of adult males to force entry into women’s spaces, and deny women the right to even one space to themselves.]
It reminds me of the joy I felt, walking through the entry to McIver’s for the first time with a group of friends who were ready to throw down for my right to be there [women are still waiting for society to be inspired to “throw down” for women’s rights to full consideration, since we’re still fighting males over who gets to say no to their penis], a sentiment I’ve gone on to have as I brought trans friends and lovers to the baths, holding their hands, saying “you belong here, you’re OK”. They do, and we do. [Only if women’s rights should be trampled on your behalf.]
I won’t be returning to McIver’s, not until the policy explicitly states that “all trans women are welcome”, [if trans women could all collectively boycott all women’s spaces, that would be great. Why not petition the council for access to one of the other pools or beaches? Never mind, you already can access those all freely] but I will keep dreaming of that body of salt water; waiting for the day when they do better [tell women saying no to penises is super mean] so I can throw my gold coin in the bucket, slip out of the day’s armour, and dive under the surface into the quiet deep again. [In the event that day occurs, you should know that you will have succeeded in excluding women whose trauma, religious needs, privacy and dignity needs, and many, many more, from the one and only place they could go and swim. I hope that bothers you, because it should.]
Downloaded from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/16/bodies-of-water-who-is-welcome-in-womens-spaces on 17 January, 2021
…He says, as he brings the male gaze within the space that was set aside specifically to not have that.
Dishonesty. We* aren’t telling Liz or any trans people to cease their existence, and we certainly don’t want their death. Again, this is a question of language and its use on people – telling a trans woman he is not a woman does not cause him to enter cardiac arrest.
This space is for women. Women are female. Liz is not female and thus is not permitted entry here, but is free to live in peace outside of such spaces.
Which is more than they need to do. An organisation may make themselves a female-only space, or can make themselves more broadly available as they wish. They’ve made themselves somewhat more broadly available than just women only, for which Liz could be grateful, but no. TRA narcissism is supreme, and so all people need to unconditionally genuflect when a trans woman deigns to bestow his presence on such a location. No caveats permitted.
Yes? And? Not all spaces are available to all people, so this is normal.
Say rather, sex is determined at conception and through gestation. And being a woman requires being female.
And the usual deliberate muddying of concepts continues.
*It is very possible that there are religious conservatives that wish trans and homosexual people be harmed or even killed. We ain’t them though.
@Arcadia, well done. I enjoyed your exegesis. I think I can help with a few points where you seem unsure:
Perhaps better to drop the “other” from that last sentence. It carries a better point: ” more important than any women’s feelings…” Women is not a class to which the author belongs. He wishes to disrespect the wishes of the entire class of women, as being lesser in importance than the wishes of one man.
Perhaps he feels the lack of a gaze because the women at the bath avert their eyes from the creepy dude in a woman’s bathing suit. They are not allowed to throw them out, they are perhaps afraid of him, and the only recourse they have is not to look at him. Nobody wants to look at you = no gaze.
A man insisting that knowing him holds a joy, which women may not refuse, is very rapey. Could that many maybe let women determine for themselves whether, when, and where they want to know him, and retain places he may not pursue them in case they fail to find such joy?
The number of women is ticking upwards from 3.89 billion, and it’s worth noting that, unlike in my childhood, that number is now exceeded by the number of men, at 3.96 billion and counting.
https://ourworldindata.org/gender-ratio
Once upon a time, women were the majority of humans, and women are now the minority. Why is this? There are two reasons, euphemistically called “missing female births” and “excess female deaths.” The annual number of “missing female births” (i.e. selective abortions) tops 1.5 million per year, barely exceeding the “excess female deaths” (mostly, murdered female babies). Going into the future, the “missing female births” are expected to decline, and the “excess female deaths” are expected to increase.
So, perhaps “3.89 billion women, which is growing at a rate three million per year less than the 3.96 billion men, because women are under physical threat from men from the moment of gestation.”
“Throw down” means to fight. The author has now stated that he gained access to the women’s baths through the threat of physical violence. Physical violence from men is the very thing women wish to escape, and he has brought it to women’s last safe space. Does anybody need any more proof that the author does not belong in the women’s baths?
I can imagine some women reading this heaving a sigh of relief at this announcement. Does the author even wonder whether this declaration might mean that women who stopped going because of the creepy guy in a women’s bathing suit they couldn’t even look at will now feel safe to return?
Why do women wear armour? Mostly, to protect themselves from men, a category which, for the vast majority of women, includes the author. This man diving into the women’s pool means that women must put their armour back on. Can women ever sacrifice enough safety and dignity to satisfy the cocks in frocks?
Holms:
More than that. I think most of us would strongly oppose (at the least!) anyone who tried to to prevent Liz living in peace outside female spaces.
The idea of a swimming pool that is open to women plus me has its attractions (for me!), but still… My sister was in the navy in the 1960s, and was stationed for a while at Aden. A favourite place to go on leave was Sharja, on the Persian Gulf. The Emir’s personal private beach was freely open to women.
The author’s explicit desire to be away from the male gaze per se makes this whole thing clearly nonsense and self-defeating. It acknowledges that male-ness is the criterion for exclusion and that such exclusion is justified. Some sleight of hand follows to try to hide this admission, using the words “women” and “men” rather than “female” and “male”, but the rhetorical damage is already done. You can’t argue against categories while arguing that you’re a member of a category. That’s literally contradictory.
He floats the idea that the group woman “has an attribute” that makes them members of that group, such that those without that attribute are not members. This he rejects on the grounds that—well, because it’s damaging to his case. That is, however, how categories work. There is some set of sets of attributes the possession of which constitutes membership in the category. Note, it is constitutive of group membership to possess those qualities. Being an X just is having certain attributes; having certain attributes just is being an X. There is some set of sets of attributes that marks femaleness, already accepted as a valid criterion for exclusion, that the author can recognize, otherwise being free of the male gaze would be meaningless. If no attribute makes one female, then certainly that makes gender identity (and any other attribute(s) he would posit in support of his “womanhood”) insufficient.
The idea that a woman-only feminism does not include that already is just insulting.
Nullius, that is so spot on. I know it is noted here frequently, by many of us, but the idea of rejecting the category you are in means there must be a category to reject; the idea that you are moving to a different category means there must be a category to move to. And the non-binary need it just as much, because being non-binary means nothing unless there is a binary. (Really more of a dimorphism than a binary, but okay.)
It’s a binary dimorphism, yeah? There could in theory be three, or five, or whatever, but in fact there are two.
Perhaps I’m hijacking the thread a bit, but has anyone noticed how similar “FEMINISM SHOULD BE ABOUT EVERYONE, INCLUDING MEN!” sounds to “NO, ALL LIVES MATTER!”?
iknklast: Indeed to all that. One cannot use the term non-anything without instantiating a binary, and being trans-anything requires moving across a category boundary. It comes down to prefixes. If I were feeling snarky, I might say never mind pronouns—learn your prefixes, people!
Ophelia: Yeah, dimorphism sort of entails binary just by the … prefix. And a trimorphism would be ternary, quadrimorphism would be quaternary, and so on. For completeness, a monomorphism would be unary. … It’s all prefixes! All the way down!
GW, yes. I’ve made that comparison many many many times.
Yay. Can you supply a link to any of those posts, please?
For ‘immediate backlash’, read I saw something that didn’t validate my fantasy so I brought it to the attention of the screamers and shouters. Job done. No telling for how long the original definition of transgender women had been up on the website, so the ‘backlash’ was not an immediate reaction to the wording, it was a reaction to the shit-stirring by Duck-Chong.
All that bullying of women made you feel better, then? Well good for you, you spiteful shit.
You know the phrase that pays, so SAY THE WORDS, BITCHES! SAY THE FUCKING WORDS!
GW, is this the sort of thing you’re looking for?
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2019/the-one-forbidden-word/
Yes.
Wow. Just wow.
I thought it was going to be something about “Feminism = Standing up for the rights of all women, including people traditionally not considered women [=men that claim to be women]”, but it’s not even that. Feminism is for ALL people, even men that *don’t* claim to be women!
Have you heard of “glitch feminism”?
From UN Women, at that. I can remember the rage when I saw that tweet.
From http://lizduckchong.com/
Queer, trans and a non binary woman? What does that Venn diagram look like?
Trying to play on all the teams at the same time except the men’s? Yes, I’d say he’s “mixed up a little.”
As far as I can tell, “Glitch Feminism” is amazing bullshit. So amazing, in fact, that it doesn’t seem to mean anything at all, except to take feminism away from women:
https://rokzfast.com/otherkin-are-the-internets-punchline-theyre-also-our-future-109350/
“Glitch Feminism is not gender-specific—it is for all bodies that exist somewhere before arrival upon a final concretized identity that can be easily digested, produced, packaged, and categorized by a voyeuristic mainstream public,” the term’s coiner, Legacy Russell, wrote for the Society Pages in 2012.
As our understanding of identity and bodies changes, otherkin are at the center of the fight. At stake is not just otherkin but the fundamental right to create, foster, and earn respect for self-determined identities regardless of society’s approval. For people like Rhia and brooke, that future rests in unpredictable moving parts: trans acceptance, emerging digital cultures, growing skepticism toward the reigning social order, and a growing political rift between liberal and left-wing members of the kin community.
Then there is:
Which, she then tries to walk back by claiming to be a poor, misunderstood soul, who just wants rainbows and unicorns for all.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/transgender-activist-children-puberty-blockers
That argument sounds about as convincing as:
Nobody consents to being born, and yet nonetheless women are allowed to give birth to them, without their consent.
Therefore, just as people don’t consent to being killed, nonetheless people should be allowed to kill them, without their consent.
How dare you look at me with distaste! As a Blue- furred Venusian DRAGON deep down inside, I only fart rainbows! You should feel honored! You speciesists, you!
I’ve tried a different tack, simply translating the obfuscating language into plain English:
Liz Duck-Chong’s opinion piece, translated into plain English
Bodies of water: who is welcome in women’s spaces?
Liz Duck-Chong
This man won’t be returning to McIver’s Ladies Baths in Sydney until the policy explicitly states that ‘all men are welcome’. There are no longer any excuses for women to keep men out of women’s spaces
Sat 16 Jan 2021 06.00 AEDT
Last modified on Sat 16 Jan 2021 06.03 AEDT
There are few things this man finds more calming than being near water. Drawing a hot bath or driving to the beach early in the morning feels a bit like turning the volume down in my head, like cutting off anxiety’s dripping tap at its source. When a friend first took me to McIver’s Ladies Baths in Sydney this man was scared of being denied entry, but was allowed in anyway quickly becoming enchanted with the place, returning over and over. Known simply as the “women’s baths” among friends, the ocean pool just south of Coogee beach has operated for over a century, intending to provide a space for women and children to swim and spend time, sheltered from both stronger sea currents and the unwanted attention of men.
As a man who thinks he feels like a woman the place has held a particular importance as somewhere I have felt able to swim not just away from other male’s gazes but outside of a gaze at all. Joni Nelson wrote earlier this week that the baths are a place she went “for years when [she] needed peace”, a sentiment your this man can relate to. Male existences are constantly under scrutiny in women’s spaces, from the male bodies we exist within, to the rights we hope will override women’s rights, or even be considered to be a part of women’s rights: women’s rights for men who want them. Rights for men to legally call themselves women, officially. Spaces where this man felt able to just assert his own preferences, regardless of what women want or need, especially in spaces designated for only for women are rare, and I hold onto those that let me in dearly.
This week, I was disappointed to learn that the McIver’s website contained a definition of women that included only women and “men who’ve undergone gender reassignment surgery”. After an immediate backlash to women’s autonomy and rights, this was amended to remove the note about genital surgery, and instead note that their “definition for transgender is as per the NSW Discrimination Act”, passing the buck onto anti-discrimination law that is unclear at best. This man would prefer it were completely clear that all men who want women’s rights can have them without any hindrance, and that women who object be labeled bigots and charged with hate speech violations.
This isn’t an uncommon disappointment for male people: to invest in a women’s place as hopefully somewhere that’s for men too, only to have it shown to be explicitly for women. If you’re not male and trans (the 1%, as opposed to the 99% of society you likely belong to) you may not notice, but observing facts is a marginalised, scared, and silenced perspective, that we have woven through the fabric of society. This phenomenon of observing reality, of biological sex determined at conception and people who live outside of certain gendered norms as still being consistent with material reality. This allows the observation of facts about men, that being clearly not women must be men, and if men are pretending to be female, those men must be hiding something and must be predators as they violate women’s boundaries and laws, and that female people must remain able to state their own boundaries, safe and sometimes separate. This phenomenon is clearly to your author, hateful to all men, but especially men who believe they are women.
When women talk about being female as excluding men they have reasons for this distinction: women have an attribute (being female, being raised as girls, take your pick) which makes them women, so men, without that attribute cannot be women. They note being female only includes being female, and excludes males, like women are women rather than accept that some men think they feel like women and in the process miss out on the joy that comes from knowing and loving men of all different kinds.
This man should understand the need to feel protective about women’s spaces especially public spaces like this one, but protectiveness of women at the cost of men who claim to be already at a high risk of harm and violence feels less like closing the door of a clubhouse and more like locking a gated compound.
As I read the news this week, I wanted there to be a good reason why the website was not clearly including men, why the follow-up didn’t enthusiastically include all men, but there are no longer any excuses for a reality of being female that doesn’t include males – you can’t protect women by kicking all men to the other available pools, beaches and baths. What’s not to be gained by believing men are women? The men I know are extraordinary, resilient and caring – why wouldn’t you want your womanhood to include that, and to include us?
But even as it should, it’s important for men to continue to challenge what the category of “woman” means, and who is and has historically been allowed entry. The exclusion of men is the latest in a long and ongoing history of tightly defining being female inseparable from racist, misogynist and colonialist ideas. Alex Gallagher (he/him) wrote earlier this week about baths, beaches, and this rationale of keeping all-female spaces free of males, asking if a space which “seeks to facilitate an alternate environment outside of the male gaze loses its significance if it’s just another site for keeping men out for having male bodies and gazes”.
If there’s any consolation in this saga, it’s in the community outcry to the original wording, and the ongoing calls for apologies by women and organisations, and addendums of explicit men’s inclusion. This is by no means the first time a place this man loves has shown itself to be unwelcoming to men, but it’s the first time I remember seeing this many loved ones and allies say it’s no longer acceptable for women to exclude men for any reason.
It reminds me of the joy this man felt, walking through the entry to McIver’s for the first time with a group of friends who were ready to throw down for this man’s right to be there, a sentiment I’ve gone on to have as I brought male friends and lovers to the baths, holding their hands, saying “men belong here, you’re OK”. All men do, because it’s cruel to men for women to ever say no or keep their bodies private from men.
This man won’t be returning to McIver’s, not until the policy explicitly states that “all men are welcome”, but I will keep dreaming of that body of salt water; waiting for the day when they stop women complaining about men so I can throw my gold coin in the bucket, slip out of the day’s armour, and dive under the surface into the quiet deep again.
Original downloaded from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/16/bodies-of-water-who-is-welcome-in-womens-spaces on 17 January, 2021, alterations to remove all obfuscation my own.
@ papito, #12, I do accept some of your notes, in particular the “other women”, but the “throw down” in quotes was deliberate at the time, although probably unnecessary.
Sadly, management have now caved.
Women must be forever grateful to Liz Duck-Chong for giving them the opportunity to change and shower with naked men. I am sure the ladies are shaking with anticipation. Or something.
Petition to get the bath’s as women’s only:
https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/keep-mcivers-ladies-baths-women-children-only
There is a rival petition on change.org demanding apologies for men who felt bad about this exclusion.
Those on the ground report that locals are largely unaware, and pool users and religious women horrified by the change.
I want to thank you for keeping attention on this issue. I have been involved in pretty far left politics for fifty years now, and I believe that this absurd posturing on the part of these people represents a strain that is breaking the legitimacy of the entire left wing program. Can any positive value be pushed to the point that it becomes a malignant presence? I have read a lot lately about the “paradox of tolerance,” mainly in regard to the demands of the far right, but it is equally relevant to this issue. If responsible people do not take a stand against those who want to have freedom only for themselves, which is what is going on here every bit as much as it is with the Proud Boys and the Aryan Supremacists, we are doomed.
Thank you. Same here.