“I lost my confidence to swim for a while because I didn’t feel as safe. But in Lake Windemere, November 2019, I had my first swim as myself and it felt great” - Bobbi Fisher
We enjoy a community of freedom, acceptance and understanding in the open water world, but what is it really like for LGBTQ+ swimmers? Transgender swimmer Bobbi Fisher came out in her 30s. She has been swimming all her life, but the only time she didn’t swim was after she transitioned.
In our lead feature this issue we put the ‘out’ in outdoor swimming and speak to LGBTQ+ swimmers about their acceptance in the outdoor community. And throughout this issue we meet some wonderful humans who are helping make outdoor swimming, and the outdoors in general, a more diverse community: the lido volunteers working towards making their pools more accessible to disabled swimmers; the transgender swimmer
swimming every day of the year; and the writer aiming to get more women accessing the outdoors.