Protest planned for Lady McIver Baths as transgender rule slammed

Activists will protest against the owner of a ladies only pool in the eastern suburbs after the council refused to clarify if it is open to all transgender women.

Coogee Ladies Pool, also known as McIver Baths, has been open exclusively to women since 1920s. Picture: Verity Chambers

Thousands of transgender women have vowed to protest against a “cruel” Discrimination Act exemption that effectively bans pre-operative trans women from swimming in a female-only pool.

Activists Community Action For Rainbow Rights will fire its opening salvo against the owner of Lady McIver Ladies Only pool in the Eastern Suburbs next Tuesday after more than 16,000 supporters signed a petition against Randwick Council refusing to clarify if it is open to all transgender women.

The row over whether all transgender women are allowed to swim at McIver’s Ladies Baths was sparked after a comment on the organisers’ website and social media.

The McIver’s Ladies Baths website.

The council has not spelled out if all trans women are welcome and said it subleases the pool, on Crown land, to the Randwick and Coogee Ladies Swimming Association which manages entry into the facility.

McIver’s Ladies Baths, built in 1886, is Australia’s only coastal pool to remain the sole reserve of females and children after the NSW government granted the baths an exemption from the Anti-Discrimination Act in 1995.

The signage at McIvers Baths rock pool in Coogee states women only and children are allowed. Picture: Gaye Gerard

The Randwick and Coogee Ladies Swimming Association, which operates the baths, says transgender women are welcome, stating “our definition for transgender is as per the NSW Discrimination Act”.

According to the act, a transgender person is someone whose recorded sex is changed under law.

“Under NSW law, sex affirmation surgery is still a requirement to have one’s legal gender marker changed,” a spokesman for campaign group Community Action For Rainbow Rights said.

“NSW law should change, but this is a choice by McIver Ladies Baths management and it is a cruel one.

“Trans women, like cis (non-trans) women, just want to have a swim in a pool for women.

“Many trans women cannot afford surgery, or do not want it.”