Mixed changing room - is this considered ok these days?

Exactly.

We don't need all this bollocks about 'what is a woman', we just need to look at who gets heard and cared about and who gets told to shut up, put up, get their clothes off and validate men's inner selves or lose their resource.

Very, very binary and easy every single time.

Edited to add: this applies regardless of chosen identity, as the poor transman who was raped in the taxi discovered, despite sobbing to their rapist that they were a man. They still had to shut up, put up and service the man in the situation.

Non of this is acceptable in any way. Just that no one takes notice of what women are saying. Sexual rights for men is the agenda here.

It won’t make any difference. There seemed to be an epidemic of VAWG, the government wrings its hands but still intends to make it easier to get a GRC and thus 1. Make it easier for men to get access to WAG 2. Contribute to the breaking down of boundaries where women feel safe and able to say No to men.

It will be interesting to see how these discussions progress in light of the current horror of the revelations about Mohamed Al Fayed and moves to protect women from sexual exploitation at work

This.

Its the same old story every single time, the nurses' changing issue is running to the same old tired script.

Women have a space that meets their needs.

Men, supported by fantastically silly women, kick off because of wanting to share that space to meet their own needs, largely to be with women in a state of undress whether they consent or not. They do not care at all how this might impact the women in the space, it's all and only about them.

Everybody panics, because men. And obvs women's rights and equalities are always only just gifts granted by men from the resources they don't currently themselves want.

Men get exactly what they want with apologies.

Women say this doesn't work for them and are told to get their clothes off nicely and enable said man in whatever agenda with their body like a good girl, or go away and lose facility for being a nasty uppity witch.

Many women who can't and won't enable men and provide their body as a resource stop using the facility and try and make do elsewhere.

Smug men then abuse the facility and the women in it without the faintest concern until it now doesn't work to unignorable points.

Facility is then often closed, and removed from everyone. Because obvs you cannot ever say no to a man, or place boundaries on bloody awful selfish and misogynistic behaviours.

You aren't the only one left. The women who minded have left and gone. Exclusion and male dominance in action.

I don’t use my local pool/leisure centre because all the showers and changing rooms are mixed sex. I would prefer to pay a lot more to use a private fitness centre further away which has female only changing facilities.

Not surprised.
I sometimes wonder whether I and my galpals are the last "girls" left who don't want to be considered as eye candy for any Tom, DICK, or Harry in the country!

My local pool has gone this way, it’s a bit grim. I’m too old to be of interest to the perves, but I feel for the teenage girls, it clearly
must be a deterrent to them exercising there. I recall as a teenager (and from the age of about 11/12) it’s bad enough dealing with the ogling in the street, let alone if you’re half naked and undressing. But who cares what women want, eh?

But its sooo inclusive! 🙄

This logic fail is what pe@ked me.

You mean like the Hampstead Pools?

Where there are three pools for men and none exclusively for women now.

The actually 'inclusive' thing to do would be to provide single sex men and women's, and then a mixed sex third section.

In there could be people who do not want to use sex based provisions, people with opposite sex children with them, carers of adults of the opposite sex with disabilities, and Layla Moran along with any other woman keen to validate male inner selves by taking her clothes off for them.

Those who use the mixed sex provision have consented to - and women using it have accepted the additional risk. No woman who has not consented is forced to do so.

And then you get the kicking off from men who absolutely don't want non consenting women to be allowed to take their clothes off in a place they cannot be, or to say no to them. The consenting women won't do. Think that one through and it tells you everything you need to know.

It has been found that sexual assaults are 18 times more frequent in mixed sex (cubicle) changing rooms than in single sex changing rooms. Mixed sex may be cheaper and more popular with men who push/ignore boundaries but they are definitely not more inclusive.

On a practical side, I've got a pullover towel which I can dress under when in a cubicle (like you would on a beach) just in case any phones are nearby. It won't protect 100% eg if the phone is from below, but I keep an eye out for anyone in the next door cubicle and dress as quickly as possible. Not great I know.

Why?
Personally I'm not bothered by naked men (I mean I don't WANT them to be naked but if they want to walk around like that, then let them), BUT I am worried about them seeing me in a state of undress.
And I shouldn't be put into a position where men or boys are able to see me. It's not prudish, it's sense, and it's a situation which I know men will always take advantage of.

The gym I go to has male, female and family changing rooms. There is a notice on the female changing room that no male over 7 is allowed in - this has not stopped a transwoman btw and some people complained. I haven't been to the class this man usually attends lately, so don't know if still around. However, there is a firm rule that phones and cameras must be turned off.
I would be seriously alarmed by men (or women, of course) having mobile phones on in a changing room and would question the organisation on this - it's very dangerous.

Thank you. Excellent post that should be tattooed on the forehead of every useful idiot promoting mixed sex showers, changing rooms, hospital wards etc

This.

It is not 'more inclusive', that's a lazy downloaded thought that is in actual fact a lie.

It permits a very small group who are mostly men, the privilege of more freedom of self expression and choosy choices (which include easier abuse and sexual harassment and harm of women and children) at the cost of entirely excluding those who require privacy, dignity, single sex provision. The massive majority of those excluded will be women. The disadvantage will be sex based and binary. The advantage will be mostly also sex based and binary: this is mostly pushed for by men for men, who have a very strong desire to be with women in a state of undress and for those women to have no right of consent.

If you're into racial exclusion, religious and cultural intolerance, a single faith society, ableism, ageism, misogyny and homophobia - because they'll CALL it LGBT but they mean T and they've thrown out the LGBs who want to be able to openly choose partners by biological sex? If you're in to excluding large groups of society and raising kids to believe that they deserve exclusion because they can't fit in with the belief zeitgeist of the second? If you're into teaching your daughter that she's a second class service human and her right to privacy must be subordinated to the right of a man to watch her take her clothes off and expose himself to her without her arguing back? Then crack on, this kind of fuck up is all for you. And because of you.

Inclusion means adding to. Not taking away. Inclusion also does not mean 'we are scared to say no to difficult, shouty, scary men's rights activists'.

This is an interesting discussion. Here in Canada, newer swimming pools all seem to have male, female, and family changing rooms. All have cubicles and lockers. We always use the family changing room. One time there was a father, with his two primary-aged kids, walking about naked (he was German) in the shower and common area of the family changing room. I gave him short shrift. But recently, my husband took the kids to an older swimming pool which has only male and female changing rooms, and no cubicles. He was really reluctant to let our 8-year-old daughter go into the female changing room on her own, because of the whole thing about males in female spaces. There was no other choice though.

Hi, Holg

We probably can't do anything about the religious strictures which some women feel they have to abide by, but we can help make pools and gyms accessible to everyone. I used to go to women-only sessions at my local pool and 90% of the women there were Muslim. Some wore what looked like bathing dresses, others wore all-in-ones. Most of them spent the entire session in a group, sitting on the edge or paddling in the shallow end, virtually all just chatting. That speaks volumes to me. It was like meeting for a coffee or in the park, but without men.

My local pool has a mixed changing area but with full height doors. No way in hell would I be prepared to change in there with men present if the doors weren’t full height.

Edited for total misunderstanding of point made by pp!

There are as many opinions (as my mum used to say) as backsides. Some are just barking !

Two decades back, when we used to care about integration and racial equality I was involved in a fund designed to support young people in an area of south London. One of the concerns was the very high suicide rate amongst Muslim teenagers.

I met "community leaders", mainly led by a white convert, who told me that young Muslim girls wanted cookery and housekeeping lessons to help prepare them for being good wives. Not that much later I met a group of girls from that community and asked similar questions. No surprise. They wanted single sex activities that their parents would let them attend and where they could mix with their non Muslim school friends. They also wanted access sports including swimming. Essentially they wanted to be both British and Muslim.

I worked quite hard to identify a school swimming pool that would be available for hire and where both pool and changing rooms could be single sex. Unfortunately this was vetoed by the elders, indeed they told me off for talking to the girls directly. I hope things have improved. My concern is that with all our focus on LGBT++equality we are sending the message to young Muslims that we don't care if they take part in our society or not, and that, as per posts above, we don't care if they are excluded as long as the men are happy.