My 14 year old daughter has been sharing school changing rooms, including swimming, with a male. The school never told me, or her. What would you do?

Great letter. Thank you on behalf of women and girls everywhere.

Excellent letter, well done.

Great letter, @SernieBanders

And the children are under pressure to obey without question 24/7 because they will be bullied on the school ground, over social media if they misgender the child who is just attention seeking.

As for sports some teams (female or male) field over age players and even adults to win non compeditive matches.
And if the Ref is with the team which is cheating that way or tatical fouling the other children they can and do ignore their obligation to play fair.

Gender stereotypes are really "in" at the moment. Be they the traditional (stay in your pink / blue lane) or the faux progressive (I like the stereotypes from the other lane therefore I have changed sex).

One feeds off the other. If we had no sex stereotypes associated with clothing, it would be interesting to see how many people claimed a trans identity without there being obvious signifiers to express. (Interestingly men never seem to want to adopt the deeper stereotypes associated with keeping women out of power).

The point I was trying to make was that I could live my life and play any game I wanted, anywhere I wanted, in the school playground, park etc, without fear of being misgendered. Poor kids nowadays
Not to mention how backwards it is for parents to think that it takes a boy to come on to score!!

In the 80s and 90s no on was letting boys who say they are girls play on the girls' team.

There were very few girls football teams in the 1980s anyway.

Off topic - sorry OP but astounded to hear this on the radio just now about an U12 girls football team in York challenged by parents because a girl with short hair came on and scored - the implication being that she must be a boy. Not a one off according to the coach. Unbelievable that parents have this attitude In 2025.
I had short hair in the 80s and 90s - never once did anyone accuse me of being a boy. Poor kids nowadays 😞

One of my local pools with a unisex changing village set up had a guy arrested for sliding his phone under cubicles and filming teenagers getting changed.

It turned out the staff were already aware that this same guy was always around during school swimming lessons (huge pool, schools with older kids just get a lane cordoned off). Always happend to be in the unisex showers at the same time as the school kids. But presumably as he had every right to be at the pool staff felt unable to challenge him.

When police investigated him they found he was the owner of a soft play centre and had rigged the women's loos with cameras to film mums and really young kids.

It just demonstrates that safeguarding is partly about the design: the unisex showers and changing gave the paedophile easy opportunity. As did being a boss of a business for small children.

And also that it is imperative that employees feel able to report concerns even if management culture is dismissive. I've been been lucky to have attended excellent safeguarding training but I know it can be quite "tick box" in some organisations. Clearly the lifeguards at the pool felt unable to share their concerns. One wonders how many employees at the soft play had any idea their own boss was the threat.

They let in random users without children into family swim time????
Who wants to bet on the computer check will find something

A Local pool used to let random user in during primary send school sessions. Saw many of the aforementioned old men timing their swim to our session. Im not at the school now and I don't know if the pool still do or not now. A friend had a voyeur incident at the same pool that went to court.

The pool I use allow swimmers what ever is going on, unless the large pool is being used for lessons and they have filled the space.

They do close for school sessions, but again as the whole pool is being used.

Pools need swimmers and will close if they can't make money. But they've a duty to make sure it's safe.

It was clear that they thought I was the problem.
There’s another pool in town seems pervert free … with female staff.

@Cerial that's grim. Is there someone to complain to other than the on-site staff? Is it a council facility?

@foodfiend the issue is his mental reasoning is impossible to prove, he could be drying sweat from his genitals and he is allowed to look around a room he has been given permission to be in.

@Cerial
They let in random users without children into family swim time????
Who wants to bet on the computer check will find something

The town pool in Taunton ignores the old men walking around “community” areas naked during family swim.
They just say “it’s community”

The old naked freaks are the only ones not using the change cubicles.

Cannot decide if the old freaks want pool to themselves & are naked to scare away women and children or if they are actual perverts.
I did wonder why pool was so empty of families at family swim session. Never went back
but must say
the staff utterly spineless.

I like to think it is a result of how we bring up and socialise teenage boys rather than Original Sin - but, as you say, we are where we are.

The school are putting the boy at risk too. Say one of the girls complains about his behaviour - the way he's looking at the girls, or the way he shows his body when he dresses and undresses. What happened? Indecent exposure? Voyeurism? (Both criminal offences) Or transphobic bullying by the girl? The school will have to decide. Unless she's already gone to the police of course.

The school are breaking the law, as well as all notions of common sense and decency by enabling this situation. No need to wait for 'something bad' to happen. It's already happening: they're violating the girls' rights to privacy and dignity, eroding their ability to set and maintain boundaries and failing in their duty to safeguard all the children.

I can't believe this wretched toolkit is still in circulation. I'm afraid it's going to need a legal case to finally get rid of the blasted thing. We had a similar situation which we thought we could resolve through sensible behind the scenes conversations. Total waste of time.

Good luck OP. Thank you for your concern, and your honesty about boys. I don't think there's anything in the least bit creepy about acknowledging that teenage boys are teenage boys.

MrsOvertonsWindow · Today 16:49

Marks and Spencer have been unable to silence reports of voyeurism in their mixed sex changing rooms:

Crikey, that's not far from me. We go in now and again for clothes for my daughter.

I’m appalled by the homophobia in @JustAskingThisQ ’s disingenuous comments.

This has nothing to do with sexuality nor gender. It’s an issue of sex. Males of any gender presentation are not allowed to be around (female) women and girls in specific circumstances because they pose a risk.

98% of sex offenders are male. To protect the safety and dignity of women and girls, we exclude all males. Even the really nice ones.

That includes those with disabilities that would make offending near-impossible, those who are exclusively same sex attracted, those who would drop dead of shock if a girl kissed them, those who are just adorable poppets. All of them. Because the ones who do pose a risk look exactly like the nice ones, until…

It’s not about being seen by someone who might fancy you. It’s not about lesbians, gay lads or bisexual young people. It’s about sex.

I just can’t figure out what is setting my alarms off.

Is it not possible, @LondonPapa, the alarm might be discomfort with OP's recognition of the power imbalance between men & women, and the tendency of his/your sex to exploit it?

It's just a fact of life. Discussion about it brings accusations of 'man hating', which I can only suppose come from cognitive dissonance in those who don't want to think about it. You've not gone that far overboard, but it wouldn't be unusual to feel a little bit squeamish about someone confronting the dangers that men pose to young women - perhaps especially if that person's also a man.

Sigh 😒 indeed
........... and my perdiction is that the solution is something something we cant manage the risk lets close the changing rooms

Marks and Spencer have been unable to silence reports of voyeurism in their mixed sex changing rooms:

https://x.com/WomensRightsNet/status/1883922279530389907

Why schools and organisations like M & S are deliberately enabling crimes like this defies belief.

I'm sure nobody could have possibly predicted this 🙄.

Tweet by Sharron Davis today:

https://x.com/sharrond62/status/1888557577119637628?s=46&t=A2fpFNgDRyXF2d6ye97wEA

I know for a fact swimming bodies across the Uk are having to deal with an epidemic & explosion of reported incidents of voyerism & sexual assault in mixed sex changing rooms. This IS a growing issue we can’t keep ignoring