In early 2025, after several years and lots of deliberation, Anne Isabella Coombes dove headfirst back into her favourite sport and petitioned to join competitive swimming.Pink NewsBy Amelia HansfordJune 2, 2025An aquatic aficionado, Anne has been swimming for over 60 years, or, as she puts it, for “as long as I’ve known I was transgender.”Fluttering in and out of the sport over her six-decades of experience, the 67-year-old tells PinkNews she took it upon herself to dip her toes back into the pool once again in January after just over two years away from the pool lanes.However, in 2023, the UK’s competitive swimming regulator, Swim England, updated its policy on trans and non-binary athletes, effectively forcing trans feminine competitors out of the “female” category. Anne knew she had an uphill battle ahead of her.“I thought, I’m going to take up competition again,” she says. “Then it occured to me, I was taken back to a conversation I had with who I believe with the diversity and inclusion office in 2023. They rang me up to tell me what the new regulations were.”[...]Instead, she decided on a third option: prove the ludicrousness of Swim England’s new policy through malicious compliance.“I said [to Swim England], OK, can I just clarify which costume [The is what the British call a bathing suit] I need to wear?” she recalls. “Costumes are very important in swimming because a costume slips through the water far easier than skin does, so the more costume you can wear, the more advantage you get.”
A decade and an ocean a part,
A transgender woman in Tennessee is asking the state to make a consistent ruling about her gender after a government office labeled her a male but police arrested her on a female-specific charge. Andrea Jones of Morristown, Tenn., who had gender reassignment surgery and has been recognized as a woman by the Social Security office, decided to make a statement after her local Tennessee Department of Safety office refused to let her change the gender on her driver’s license from male to female.PrideBy Shewired EditorsNovember 15 2011A transgender woman in Tennessee is asking the state to make a consistent ruling about her gender after a government office labeled her a male but police arrested her on a female-specific charge.Andrea Jones of Morristown, Tenn., who had gender reassignment surgery and has been recognized as a woman by the Social Security office, decided to make a statement after her local Tennessee Department of Safety office refused to let her change the gender on her driver’s license from male to female.She walked out to the parking lot and removed her shirt, which she reasoned would be acceptable if the state recognized her as male.Instead she was arrested for indecent exposure.The police report even referred to her as a man: “Mr. Jones continued to yell that he had the right to show his breasts in public,” it read, “and wanted to be recognized as a female.”“If I was a male, I had the right to, when I stepped out the door, take off my shirt,” Jones said.
The judge gave here 23 days in a male prison!!!!
Hopefully: I am on my way to Tuesday I'm going to the Cape if I haven't procrastinated.
That DMV incident/story brought some chuckles to my mind because I remember all the overweight men I see at the beach who definitely would fill a bra. Some, if wearing a wig, would definitely draw the attention of law enforcement.
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