Diversity & Inclusion at Out To Swim
Out To Swim is an inclusive aquatic club and welcomes everyone who wants to participate in our disciplines, whether that be water polo, synchronised swimming or swimming. While we operate as an LGBTQ+ charity, we recognise that even within our community we need to do better at being inclusive across a myriad of individualities and stigmas including, but not limited to, gender, ethnicity, disability, age, and religion.
We are not the perfect organisation (shocking, right?) but we continuously strive to create an inclusive and welcoming culture within OTS and if you think there is something we can do better, please reach out inclusion@outtosim.org to us – we don’t bite.
Gender
OTS welcomes all genders and have daily mixed-gender sessions. Recognising the disparity in the proportion of male swimmers to female swimmers in the swimming discipline, there is also a dedicated women only swim session at the Oasis Sports Centre on a Thursday evening.
Members of the trans community are certainly welcome within our club across any discipline. We recognise that you may face additional barriers to participating in water-based activities and have included in various sections of this page information which may be relevant to you when deciding whether to join OTS, however, if there if any additional concerns you may have or questions please get in touch!
Ethnicity
Out To Swim welcomes members from all races and socio-economic backgrounds. We have a diverse membership in our club and are open to all who wish to join. We pride ourselves in being the only LGBTQ+ Masters club offering lessons through to training for international competitions across all our disciplines and welcome all levels of ability.
Age
As a Masters Aquatics Club, our sessions are open to all adults above the age of 18. Specifically, in the swimming discipline, members are placed in lanes based on their overall swimming ability to ensure a productive swim for all members. Water polo fields teams of mixed age, abilities, gender, and trains as a group. Similarly, within synchronised swimming, members of various ages and abilities are encouraged to participate and compete.
Disability
Out to Swim recognises that disabled people often face a multitude of barriers to joining a sports team, especially those in the intersection of LGBTQ+. We have a number of disabled swimmers in the club, although the majority are non-disabled. Disabled members are welcome to join the club and participate in all disciplines, training sessions and competitions. Our head coach is a former Paralympic coach and would be happy to discuss your needs, and all our coaches have had relevant training to make you feel welcome.
Not all our venues are accessible but we have detailed the here and accessibility options at each pool.
Additional Information
Pronouns
We try to ask people their pronouns as well as their name when they come to their first session, but not all members remember. Similarly, we encourage our coaches to use gender agnostic language in our training sessions. If you find it difficult to correct people, you can ask a coach to listen out and correct people as it happens, or to make a general announcement if you want that. We have team members who use they/them pronouns and members are accepting and supportive.
Swimwear
Members are free to participate in whatever swimwear they find comfortable (e.g., trunks, swimming briefs, jammers, one-piece suits, 2-piece suits, rash vests, etc.). It is advised that baggy clothing will be much more tiring to swim in, and may be prohibited in certain pools.
Our water polo club ‘London Orca’ runs alongside the swim club. Lots of polo players participate in swim training too. All training is mixed gender, and members are free to wear what they like to training, although if it’s baggy it will likely be used by your opponents for their advantage!
Competing
Swimming Competitions: OTS participates in numerous competitions at a local, national, and international level. Swimming competitions are generally conducted under the ASA rules which are gendered and members compete under the gender registered with the ASA. If your gender does not align to ASA registration, we have worked with trans members of our club to obtain exceptions to the ASA and if you would like to do this, we will support you through this process. OTS is also working with the ASA to update their rules in respect of trans swimmers. OTS also participates at LGBTQ+ competitions (including our own GLLAM) which allows swimmers to compete under their identified gender as well as running mixed races.
Water Polo Competitions: London Orca is part of the Champagne league which sees 3 - 4 tournaments each year hosted by our sibling clubs around Europe. All teams are mixed ability and gender for these tournaments with no specific requirements re. numbers as long as we have enough players for a team! We are mostly there for fun so whatever your ability you’ll still get time in the pool. We also send a competitive team or two for players who would like to take it a bit more seriously. Orca has 1 women’s and 2 men’s teams that compete in the London Summer and Winter leagues. Unfortunately these competitions are regulated by the ASA meaning that currently, transgender competitors are only allowed to compete if they comply with the ASA policy. We currently have some trans members who compete already and we are more than happy to try and find a way for members to compete if they wish to.
Synchro competitions: OTS Angels compete at a range of competitions at local, national and international level, including LGBT+ competitions. Whilst synchro has historically been a women’s only sport, the Angels are at the forefront of gender inclusivity within UK Masters. We enter mixed gender routines wherever the competition’s governing body allows. Unfortunately, many of the competitions are run under Swim England rules, which requires competitors to enter under the gender that they are registered as with SE. We support any trans members to obtain an exemption for this process. The Angels also have a strong emphasis on synchro for all abilities, and ensure we enter routines of varying difficulties, to suit to our members’ range of abilities. We recognise that not everyone learning synchro has the desire to compete and there is no pressure for any of our members to do so. We do welcome all our members to come along to support those competing, so they still have the opportunity to enjoy the competition atmosphere.
Pool Information & Changing Facilities
The information below seeks to give a practical summary of the changing room / toilet facilities at the pools which we make use of. We rely on the policies implemented by the individual pools as we have no control over their policies however, if you encounter any behaviour that threatens your privacy and dignity (as either a trans- or cis-gender individual) we encourage you to make us aware of this and we will work with the various organisations to help them improve their policies. A more detailed outline of the facilities can be found here.