Today’s Glasgow Herald has an offensively framed, scaremongering article about trans people in council swimming pools causing an invasion of “cross-dressing males”. It’s labelled new and exclusive, but it’s neither. As Duncan Hothersall put it on Twitter:

Not exclusive. Not new. Simply the result of an active anti-trans campaigner seeking out the most scaremongering situation possible and pitching it to a newspaper desperate for clicks. We need to talk about these issues and resolve them; this sort of coverage doesn’t help.

I wrote about the reality last year: people like me don’t use public swimming pools because we’re scared of people like you.

I’m not scared of much any more, but I’m scared [of] public humiliation. Scared that someone will be scared of me. Scared that even in gender-neutral changing facilities where the only time I’m naked is in a locked, private cubicle, someone will loudly object to my being there and claim I’m somehow dangerous.

Dangerously clumsy, maybe. But dangerous? The only risk from my presence anywhere near a swimming pool is if I fall on you or belly flop nearby.

Two weeks ago, I swam in a hotel pool. It’s the first time I’ve been swimming in three years, and it was wonderful. Maybe next year I’ll go on holiday and be able to swim again.