The operational manager kept saying that she needed to get an answer from head office to be sure that she was getting it right.
What I didn’t know – but she did – was that there was in fact a male member of the club who was transitioning. It had already been agreed that he would use the enclosed unisex/family changing area until fully transitioned – whatever that meant – and from that point on he would be welcome to use the female changing room.
In March 2023 I received a letter from the David Lloyd regional manager. It said: “Whilst you ask for a straightforward answer of yes or no the answer relates to a topic that is anything but straightforward and David Lloyds maintain to seek the balance of needs and concerns of individual members at club level.”
At a meeting in April 2023 we were shown the UK Active guidance adopted by David Lloyds Leisure. This allows members to access changing rooms according to their “gendered appearance”. No one at the meeting was brave enough to describe what that might actually look like!
I asked if this guidance had recently been adopted. But the David Lloyd staff were adamant that they had always followed UK Active guidance, and this had always been what it said.
Finally we were told that should I or my daughters feel intimidated, threatened or unsafe we should report it immediately to management.
Our girls are 11 and 13. They would be so shocked and humiliated at seeing a man’s penis in their female changing room I doubt they would want to tell anyone, let alone make a complaint. This is clearly not a family-friendly policy.
In accordance with our gender-critical beliefs, we do not accept that a man can become a woman in order to access the female single-sex spaces our daughters are using. I don’t accept compromising women’s and girls’ privacy and dignity in the name of “inclusivity”. It’s not inclusive of us.
Had David Lloyd Leisure made their changing room policy clear to us up-front we would never have joined.
Please support me in holding David Lloyd Leisure to account for misleading their customers. I hope by taking this action we will send a strong message to anyone sacrificing women and girls right to privacy and dignity in the name of 'Inclusivity'.
Thank you very much.
Emma
All unused funds will be donated to organisations fighting for women and children.
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Final Update: September 2025
Thank you to everyone who has been following my action against David Lloyd Leisure ‘the family friendly’ Health Club.
What happened since my last update: September 2024
After much soul searching my family and I decided we had taken this as far as we could. This decision coincided with several shifts which would determine the legal protection of biological sex in relation to single sex-changing rooms.
In February 2025 a “drop hands” settlement was agreed and this included a letter of apology to me and my daughters for ‘experiencing distress upon discovering that David Lloyd Leisure follow UK Active guidance, in respect of their changing rooms’.
On 16th April 2025. The UK Supreme Court handed down a judgement in the case of For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers which determined the correct interpretation of the protected characteristic of sex is biological sex.
UK Active’s ‘Guidance For Front Line Staff To Assist Trans People To Access Leisure Facilities’ was promptly removed on 30th April 2025.
Conclusion
Whilst we didn’t ‘win’ in a legal sense, we are winning in the sense that their ‘inclusive changing rooms’ have been exposed for what they are – a big, fat perverted lie.
I have asked for 3 x hard copies of the apology letter to be posted to myself and both of my teenage daughters, who are both included and named in the letter. To date this has not been received.
18th July 2025: "I appreciate this may not seem like an important detail but I it would signal to my teenage daughters that their feelings about preserving their dignity and privacy matters. Thank you for your understanding."
21st August 2025: “I have chased my client again, but am having some difficulty getting an answer, possibly now due to the holiday period. I will let you know when I receive more substantive instructions.”
David Lloyd Clubs have also declined the offer to make a ‘gesture of good will’ - a donation matching the public donations made to Democracy 3.0 - towards a charity of my choice. Incredibly, it remains unclear whether they still allow trans-identifying males to access female single sex changing rooms:
4th July 2025: “At the current time, David Lloyd awaits the new EHRC Code of Practice for the provision of single-sex services; as you will appreciate, David Lloyd will be unable to comment or discuss further while that process is ongoing.”
Thank you and God Bless
I have been very blessed to have had so many wonderful people reach out and get in touch. Thank you for sharing our story and for your encouragement. Thank you for your incredible generosity in helping to raise over £10,000 – quite literally we couldn’t have taken this stand without your support. We will always fight to protect the privacy, dignity and safety of our daughters.
Emma Hardy