Bsac qt+xyz

[wonderiter]

BSAC have taken it upon themselves to issue guidance to branches and instructors on what language they think is permissible when dealing with QT+. I purposely leave out LGB because men and women of all sexualities and none have trained, socialised and dived together for years without needing to make a fuss about which sex they choose to sleep with. Over the past 5 years or so some men with a penchant for putting on what they consider to be women’s clothes have become emboldened by the likes of Stonewall to claim that they actually are women and should be given unfettered access to women’s spaces.

This has invaded our schools, universities, NHS, sports bodies, even clothes shops such as M&S and Primark have all been infiltrated by Stonewall advising them of how they would like the Equality Act 2010 to be rather than what the law actually is. And now BSAC. The result is that women’s safety, dignity and privacy is being sacrificed for the sake of hurting a few men‘s feelings. At a time when organisations are waking up to the dangers of listening to Stonewall and Mermaids is being investigated for serious safeguarding issues concerning children, BSAC is providing links to both organisations on its website alongside the unlawful advice “Allow the individual to use the changing room and toilet consistent with their gender identity” Changing rooms and toilets are segregated according to sex, male or female. Sex is immutable. Gender identity is whatever you want it to be at any moment in time. We do not have self identification in the UK…yet. Ladies, imagine stripping off for a shower at Stoney Cove and a man walks claiming he’s a woman. This is where we’re heading.

In an already male dominated sport, roughly 30% are women, we face being pushed out by the likes of BSAC with their virtue signalling. Someone in BSAC has decided they want to pursue this misogynistic line even going so far as writing a policy and now offering an online course for instructors to make sure they use the correct language and police the language of others in their branch. It is incumbent on all of us, male and female, to ensure that our women and girls are safe in our sport.

[Divemouse]

I know some trans people and they have all so far been very sweet and unassuming. On the other hand, people in the club who definitely wanted to identify as male have attempted to share a changing room and a shower with me and I did feel very threatened indeed - there was eventually some punching. I much prefer the modern way of having open, unisex facilities with individual loos and changing cubicles for everybody - they remove all the opportunities for aggression and bullying that the single sex closed systems encouraged.

[MikeF]

BSAC have taken it upon themselves to issue guidance to branches and instructors on what language they think is permissible when dealing with QT+. I purposely leave out LGB because men and women of all sexualities and none have trained, socialised and dived together for years without needing to make a fuss about which sex they choose to sleep with. Over the past 5 years or so some men with a penchant for putting on what they consider to be women’s clothes have become emboldened by the likes of Stonewall to claim that they actually are women and should be given unfettered access to women’s spaces.

This has invaded our schools, universities, NHS, sports bodies, even clothes shops such as M&S and Primark have all been infiltrated by Stonewall advising them of how they would like the Equality Act 2010 to be rather than what the law actually is. And now BSAC. The result is that women’s safety, dignity and privacy is being sacrificed for the sake of hurting a few men‘s feelings. At a time when organisations are waking up to the dangers of listening to Stonewall and Mermaids is being investigated for serious safeguarding issues concerning children, BSAC is providing links to both organisations on its website alongside the unlawful advice “Allow the individual to use the changing room and toilet consistent with their gender identity” Changing rooms and toilets are segregated according to sex, male or female. Sex is immutable. Gender identity is whatever you want it to be at any moment in time. We do not have self identification in the UK…yet. Ladies, imagine stripping off for a shower at Stoney Cove and a man walks claiming he’s a woman. This is where we’re heading.

In an already male dominated sport, roughly 30% are women, we face being pushed out by the likes of BSAC with their virtue signalling. Someone in BSAC has decided they want to pursue this misogynistic line even going so far as writing a policy and now offering an online course for instructors to make sure they use the correct language and police the language of others in their branch. It is incumbent on all of us, male and female, to ensure that our women and girls are safe in our sport.

I try not to get dragged into extremism in any form but on this one I'll dive right on in and probably get drummed out of the brownies. so maybe this is my TDF swansong

I got the email too and went WTF? and ignored it. I thought it was overbearing self obsessed twaddle from BSAC. I've been diving and in BSAC clubs for 40 years and I've never seen a discrimination issue in diving, until right now, so maybe they have a point.

TBH I suspect a very very large percentage of divers, couldn't give a monkey's about what anybody else wants to do do with their bits and who with (so long as they are consenting adults) or how they wish to present themselves to the world. Or for that matter what colour they are or what accent they have, so long as they don't behave like a knob and are a steady dive buddy. I also suspect most don't like being told how to think and act when taking part in an activity they enjoy in their own time so I'd have been happier without BSAC assuming I needed some inclusivity training rammed down my throat.

Despite a lot of divers obsession with short hair and techie black stealth kit (personally I blame the action man frog man for that), I can't really see where the misogynistic line is with BSAC's nonsense course?

Surely any discrimination (other than a refusal to dive with a self obsessed knob with no regard for helping others) has no place in a diving environment,

To put the hysteria in perspective I worked in Sweden when I was younger and went along to the local dive club, no separate men's or ladies changing rooms in the pool just a changing room for people, nobody stared, nobody got raped, nobody got upset, they just had a dive club pool session and then maybe a sauna and a beer and a bit of a chat. Nobody felt uncomfortable about men and women in the same space, except maybe me having grown up in a repressed UK society, but I got over it pretty quick.

Please ask yourself if you feel so strongly about this that if you were in serious trouble on a dive and were convinced that you were about to die right now if your buddy doesn't step in and do something, are you going to refuse help because it's from someone who happens to feel happier wearing pink fins and a dash of makeup? I suspect not, I suspect you'll embrace whoever the hell it is like a long lost prodigal son. Well at least until you're safe.

[Neilwood]

Deleted

[Chrisch]

...
This has invaded our schools, universities, NHS, sports bodies, even clothes shops such as M&S and Primark have all been infiltrated by Stonewall ....

Only in your imagination. Thankfully not in real life.

[notdeadyet]

There should be room for a reasonable discussion of how you make everyone feel included while making everyone also feel safe. Your post sounds more like "I want to be safe and included but I want this particular group not to be". That isn't how life works.

men with a penchant for putting on what they consider to be women’s clothes

These men with a penchant for putting on women's clothes also face regular ridicule and discrimination at best to sickening violence at worst on a day to day basis that is generally tolerated and often laughed off by society as a whole. I don't think many are living as women for a laugh.

How inclusion and safeguarding is done could be done a lot better so that everyone wins. Sadly, most progress in this country seems to be through simply ageing out society. The old people with conservative views die off, the young people get on with life thinking WTF were they all going on about? That's pretty much how it's gone with racism and homophobia rather than any impact of campaigning.

It can all be done better, no question. If you don't feel safe you don't feel safe, you can't argue feelings. But then I would imagine neither do the majority of the transgender community. In the UK we seem to have the attitude that you don't win until the other group loses rather than how do we make life work better for everyone.

[Divemouse]

It is incumbent on all of us, male and female, to ensure that our women and girls are safe in our sport.

I don't like this phrase either. We're not pets.

[Chrisch]

I don't like this phrase either. We're not pets.

Away man. Try living in Newcastle pet.

[notdeadyet]

I don't like this phrase either. We're not pets.

I don't get why it's always made as a pro-feminist argument yet simultaneously disempowers women as incapable in the same sentence.

The sad reality is that the biggest risk of violence to any woman is the men she knows. Familiarity is a hell of a lot more dangerous than anything. I'd imagine the person on the other side of her front door is statistically going to be a worse risk than a transgender woman sharing a bog.

I have a 13 year old daughter and as far as I know there is virtually nothing gender-related "invading" her school. As far as I know it's not really mentioned to any real extent other than having a written policy.

[Neilwood]

I think the problem is that in recent history there has been a few high profile cases where women have been subject to abuse from trans people. I would note that the reality for most women is that it is largely no different to them being subject to abuse from male or female. All the way back in time there has been abuse of various sexes (male/female, female,/male, male/male, female/female) and this is before we even get into LGBTQ+ and the abuse that "mainstream" people have directed towards them.

I suspect that it is not as big a problem in a large number of European countries because they have a far more open dialogue about sex and gender from a very early age. Nudity is still a huge taboo here which leads to it being overly sexualised whereas in other countries people have far more open minds to the human body in all its shapes and differences. We have tended to shy away from it in the UK (and America) however mixed saunas/changing areas/showers are not seen as unusual in these other countries. I would guess that because of this there is less suppression of feelings and more openness to differences.

What we should be doing is making sure that EVERYBODY is safe in our sport by making open decisions and making sure protection and safeguarding is in place for all regardless of what sex or gender. I would hope that a trans person would feel as safe as a woman/man/lesbian/gay man and if not I would hope that people should wonder why and try to remedy that.

I have a number of gay/trans friends and make a point of trying to treat everyone the same irrespective of what organs may or may not be present or what the person chooses to look like. Being trans is a very difficult situation for most people in that situation in that they don't correctly fit in to the pre-made boxes and have huge legal issues in being recognised as what they are as well as having to deal with the mental and emotional issues that they go through.