Mixed High school changing rooms

Is anyone asking the girls?

Fine for posters here to say "Well the Germans don't mind", as if Scottish teens and preteens should ignore any reservations they might have.

FWIW even well run schools will have issues with some of the alpha boys bullying quieter boys in boys changing rooms. And some of the girls will be very body conscious when going through puberty. And that those with gender dysphoria could well be even more body conscious. Putting the two groups together sounds like a toxic mix. Add in the assumption that you then need a staff member present, when you did not before. Madness. For what. To prove you are virtuous?

It's the standard emotional manipulation response to try and normalise it, much the same lines everyone was warned of as kids about being pressured to take drugs or have unwanted sex. Everyone else is doing it, all the cool kids are doing it, you're not frigid/boring are you?

It's also front and centre as a planned strategy in the paedophile's handbook incidentally. A truly ghastly but real document, intended to get paedophilia as accepted as homosexuality.

I wondered how long it would be before the 'oh the UK is so prudish about nudity' lot turned up.

Listen: I do not give a flying fuck about how they do things in Denmark, Sweden, Germany Finland or anywhere else.

We are in the UK, with our laws, social customs, behaviours and social contracts and all the rest. We are not going to change those on a sixpence because some wally comes on here and says 'ooh, why so modest?' sounding like every dirty old man I've ever met in my life.

Understood?

Agree @GrumpyPanda I lived in Nordic countries for many years due to work and never in any Nordic country saw mixed sex changing rooms - not in schools, swimming pools, sports centres etc. Plenty of nudity as Scandinavians are quite comfortable about that - but always within sex-segregated settings. And maybe because of the nudity, the sex-segregation is strictly kept to even these days.

The UK really is an outlier when it comes to these things, but just doesn't realise how normal this and nudity are in most European countries.

Really? In which European countries is it normal for schoolchildren to be naked around each other?

I’ve been to Portugal several times a year for last few years and that’s my experience as well

They'll still have separate-sex changing areas as well as separate single-sex days or sessions

Indeed - even if "mixed-sex" exists, there's a huge gulf between it occurring and it being the only option.

And I'm going to chip in with my own Nordic (Finnish) experience - I've never come across any mixed-sex toilet or changing room situation at all.

Spaces that might be used by both sexes, yes, but not by both at the same time.

Maybe. My SIL is Danish and hated it

Bollocks. I've lived in three European countries (NL, Sweden and Germany.) Generalized mixed-sex nudity isn't a thing in any of them. Changing rooms and showers are mostly open-plan except for swimming pools which have both communal and cubicles changing, but even those have communal showers.

Yes some countries have rigorously socially controlled areas of mixed-sex nudity such as saunas and nudist clubs. They'll still have separate-sex changing areas as well as separate single-sex days or sessions (FYI the preferred sauna option for roughly half of German women.)

@EarthyMangold
I'd be very VERY curious to know what mystical unicorn country of uninhibited mixed-sex changing you're talking about. In my personal experience, it's precisely BECAUSE we're less prudish in communal spaces (no changing under towels, most women will happily walk around in the nude) that actual single-sex become even more important.

Look further down the twitter thread.

forgot to add - changing facilities in schools after primary were segregated by sex. Primary? all in together

I'm in Germany where nudity isn't a massive taboo in the same way it is in the UK.

I know no gym (as in fitness studio) with mixed changing or shower area. Although most of them do have a sauna with dedicated male only or female only times, the rest are mixed. And naked.

Swimming pools though? nope, all in cubicles which aren't segregated by sex. And I've never had a problem in them. Showers for before and after swimming are single sex

Even if it was an outlier, is that a bad thing? What is acceptable in one country or countries doesn’t mean it has to be acceptable in all.

I lived in Portugal for 16 years and never once encountered a mixed sex changing room. There may be certain countries where this is the case (I would imagine it to be more common in some of the Nordic countries) but I wouldn't say the UK is an outlier.

They are toilets not changing rooms

Depends if there are cubicles, I wouldn't care if it's mixed sex if there's cubicles for privacy

@DarkDayforMN Slovenia. My husband is native, our children were born here and currently attend school here. I have seen a lot of schools (I work as a language teaching assistant). Some older schools have open plan single sex changing rooms (like classic UK schools) but newer ones tend to have mixed changing areas with a lot of private cubicles.
And I have never seen a public swimming pool here that didn't have mixed changing facilities - again, always featuring lots of private cubicles. Given the number of threads on here about the issues faced by parents wanting to accompany their children in changing rooms, this seems like a good solution.

Would you mind saying which country? It often happens that people say stuff like this on here and then people native to the country supply a more complete and accurate picture, but that can’t happen if the country isn’t named.

If you were going to set out to design a system that was guaranteed to end up in a safeguarding mess, it would look a lot like this. Insanity.

Looking at the SNP (with Wales galloping along behind them) gives a good idea of what England under Labour would look like. Ideological zealotry over any basic sense or regard, even for children.

There won't be private changing cubicles in a school though. It will be a pegs and benches situation with fuck all privacy.

How do you know?

There won't be private changing cubicles in a school though. It will be a pegs and benches situation with fuck all privacy.

The UK really is an outlier when it comes to these things, but just doesn't realise how normal this and nudity are in most European countries.

To me personally, yes. If it’s full floor to ceiling individual or small group cubicles with teacher supervision outside the cubicles then I’d be ok with that as my teen dc use those types of facilities at swimming pools fairly regularly. Our local flume park just has those. I wouldn’t love it but obviously that is a huge difference vs a room with boys and girls getting changed in full view of each other.

Going to go out on a limb here and mention that in the (European) country where I live, mixed changing rooms are the norm everywhere - at schools, gyms and leisure centres. There are always plenty of private cubicles and no-one seems to find it difficult. It also makes things much easier for families.

Lots in NI, judging by Derry Girls.