For the past 40 years my mother has gone swimming several times per week at her local pool in Ottawa. Beginning in her teens and continuing off and on throughout her life, she swam competitively on teams and even competed in triathlons. Her local pool has served both as her training ground and as her go-to destination for regular exercise. After decades, she knows most of the other regular swimmers, some of whom have become good friends. The pool has been a central part of her life for years now. But this year, her once-innocuous activity became unsafe.

About two months ago, my mother finished her usual swim and as always went to the women’s changerooms to shower. She and the other ladies – also regulars at the Nepean Sportsplex – chatted in the showers, catching up on news as they always do. My mother wrapped herself in a towel as she stepped out of the shower. There, facing away from her, was a naked man. Shocked, my mother hurried over to a corner of the changeroom to get dressed. The man, now standing across the changeroom, was over six feet tall, with a combover. He got dressed, turned around and, in my mother’s words, “leered” at her, then left the changeroom.

Shaken, my mother rushed over to her friend, asking if she had seen “the man in the women’s changeroom.” The other woman nervously confirmed that yes, she had. They continued their conversation in hushed voices. Both were afraid. Both felt violated. Neither woman said anything to community centre staff.

My mother is 66 years old and no shrinking violet. A longtime journalist, her writing reflects her heterodox views and tenacity for challenging dominant narratives. I have never known her in any circumstance to shy away from confrontation. In the decades she has been swimming at this pool, she has had several run-ins with the lifeguards, management and other swimmers. From too-slow swimmers clogging up the fast lane to the Covid-19-related mask mandates that she opposed, my mother has always fearlessly spoken her mind. During the pandemic she fought back so relentlessly against the absurd requirement to wear a mask on the pool deck for the few moments before entering the water that we worried she might end up in handcuffs. She wasn’t charged, but her protests at another facility did get her a short suspension from all Ottawa-area pools.

Yet when an obvious man walked naked through the changeroom while she was in her most vulnerable state, my mother went silent.

Ten years ago, such an incident would have been viewed unequivocally as a crime. Someone would have called the police and the man would almost certainly have been arrested. He would likely have been charged with voyeurism and perhaps even labelled a sexual predator. But in this instance, not one woman in the changeroom dared speak up, complain or request help from staff in dealing with the issue.

Until very recently these women would have been considered the vulnerable population in this situation, and had the force of both social norms and the law on their side. Yet now they were self-silencing. Why? We all know why: with four magic words – “I am a woman” – the intruder and potential predator became the vulnerable one, thereby protected from criticism, punishment or any other accountability. Today’s political climate demands he be welcomed with open and loving arms into the female-only spaces, and that anyone who says different is labelled not only insensitive but hateful.

The most astounding part of this story is that no one in the changeroom even asked whether he identified as a man or a woman. (The door to the women’s changeroom is clearly marked as such, so there’s virtually no way the man could have mistakenly stumbled into the wrong changeroom.) For all anyone knows, this male individual may have been unaware that he had access to a convenient legal loophole. For all we know, he might have answered, “Of course I’m a man, but I just wanted to undress in the women’s changeroom.” Why then, did not a single woman say anything?