Full Council Chaos. Bristol City Council refusing to implement single sex services

What do you think about the resistant-to-sound, floor-to-ceiling toilets?

Yes. That's why I don't like the secluded changing rooms very much and prefer the ones round the pool. I often swim early morning and am first in the changing room. I think if I was attacked no one would hear me or know until the next swimmer arrived. With the round the pool cubicles the lifeguard would almost certainly notice.

You used to work for the police?

Thats interesting. Have you heard about Design Out Crime Officers?

Very true. When I worked for the police we had a very disgruntled off duty officer bring a prisoner in. He'd tried to proposition him, or whatever happens in these situations and he'd picked the wrong man. It was hard to tell if the officer was more upset about being propositioned or having his day off ruined. I bet the man got one hell of a shock when he realised what he'd done.

Those toilets were closed not long afterwards.

Talking of Victorian design, they built some beautiful toilet blocks that resembled cottages, which is where the term cottaging comes from. Most of these toilets have closed down now because of misuse.

I think you are making things up, well I know you are. Where have I tried to stop women being safe from being filmed by predatory men?

Try reading what I actually said before jumping to such accusations.

I said:

You appear to be the exception but I think most would prefer to minimise their risk of being filmed or spied on by predatory men.

This means that I think most would rather choose single sex facilities. Your repeated references to the apparently mixed sex Victorian poolside changing cubicles as your gold standard implies that you don’t value single sex.

You've never been sexually assaulted by a woman so you don't think that matters but it does to some of us.

What a personal and rather bold claim when you have literally no idea.

I have seen women parading around naked in open plan changing rooms. It is a minority of women but they exist.

So because, in the few times you have ventured outside of your favoured Victorian baths, you have seen a ‘minority of naked women parading around’ and you are personally perturbed by this and don’t do the usual thing of focusing on your own changing and ignoring the women in the room, you are demands that if we are to have single sex facilities they MUST be all cubicles even though this is clearly less space efficient and more expensive to run than a communal area with some cubicles?

My feelings and the feelings of other women who want privacy don't matter to you, you just want a situation that suits you. How selfish.

What a weird accusation. The usual arrangement for single sex changing is a communal area with some cubicles. I made the observation that that is suitable and satisfactory for the majority of women. It is you that are making the exceptional demand based on an implausible claim.

My only question is ‘why’? What are you asking for and do you think that is achievable in a way that satisfies the needs of the majority in a way that is reasonable for service providers?

I learned to swim at Moseley Baths, which were set up as TheignT describes.

They were fabulous - reopened after their closure & a long campaign but now seem to have lost the viewing gallery & Victorian cubicles.

A couple of reasons why the set up probably wouldn’t work now:
• there were never quite enough cubicles at busy times. Each cubicle could hold two kids or an adult & child, but two large adults would find it a squeeze, & of course people don’t always go swimming neatly in single sex pairs. So if you went at a busy time, you’d have to use a cubicle that someone else had already left their stuff in (it was considered polite to put your clothes in a bag & hang it from a hook rather than leaving everything strewed about, for this reason). Occasionally you’d come back to find the other person had gone, & so had your money/watch/shoes. Or you’d both happen to get out of the pool simultaneously & have to stand there dripping & having a polite British argument about who got to get changed first
• the pool is small - my first swimming badges were 10m (width) & 25m (length). Modern pools are maybe 4x that size? So 4x the area, 4x the capacity for swimmers…but not 4x the perimeter, so you’d have even less space to put enough cubicles.

That aside, the baths were/are stunning, & in terms of changing facilities they did provide both individual privacy AND if you collapsed in one, or were up to something nefarious in there, there would be dozens of pairs of eyes including staff noticing a door closed for too long.

But probably not a viable future blueprint for the reasons above.

We actually used to quite often go with swimsuits on under a tracksuit, tbh, especially in the summer holidays when it was basically kid soup & you knew there would be little chance of a cubicle. Not so much fun leaving with wet hair & soggy pants in January.

I learned to swim at Moseley Baths, which were set up as TheignT describes.

They were fabulous - reopened after their closure & a long campaign but now seem to have lost the viewing gallery & Victorian cubicles.

A couple of reasons why the set up probably wouldn’t work now:
• there were never quite enough cubicles at busy times. Each cubicle could hold two kids or an adult & child, but two large adults would find it a squeeze, & of course people don’t always go swimming neatly in single sex pairs. So if you went at a busy time, you’d have to use a cubicle that someone else had already left their stuff in (it was considered polite to put your clothes in a bag & hang it from a hook rather than leaving everything strewed about, for this reason). Occasionally you’d come back to find the other person had gone, & so had your money/watch/shoes. Or you’d both happen to get out of the pool simultaneously & have to stand there dripping & having a polite British argument about who got to get changed first
• the pool is small - my first swimming badges were 10m (width) & 25m (length). Modern pools are maybe 4x that size? So 4x the area, 4x the capacity for swimmers…but not 4x the perimeter, so you’d have even less space to put enough cubicles.

That aside, the baths were/are stunning, & in terms of changing facilities they did provide both individual privacy AND if you collapsed in one, or were up to something nefarious in there, there would be dozens of pairs of eyes including staff noticing a door closed for too long.

But probably not a viable future blueprint for the reasons above.

We actually used to quite often go with swimsuits on under a tracksuit, tbh, especially in the summer holidays when it was basically kid soup & you knew there would be little chance of a cubicle. Not so much fun leaving with wet hair & soggy pants in January.

Because I don't think it is reasonable to say women can't have privacy because the most efficient way is open plan. Obviously open plan mixed would be cheaper to run so the suggestion wasn't correct.

It seems ok in here to twist what people say or even an obvious truth if it suits you.

I think you are making things up, well I know you are. Where have I tried to stop women being safe from being filmed by predatory men? Where have I said anything about single sex spaces? My point was I want people to undress in private. You've never been sexually assaulted by a woman so you don't think that matters but it does to some of us. I have seen women parading around naked in open plan changing rooms. It is a minority of women but they exist. Single sex doesn't have to mean communal changing and it doesn't mean you can't have cubicles for everyone.

If you think communal areas are most space efficient then that would mean an area open to everyone and I know you don't want that. You didn't think that through

My feelings and the feelings of other women who want privacy don't matter to you, you just want a situation that suits you. How selfish.

No I was responding to another poster that @selffellatingouroborosofhate had mentioned me in.

You mean I disappeared. If it's any comfort it was nothing to do with you. My husband is disabled and needed help with some personal care plus dressing a wound from recent surgery. Then he expected food. Sorry if that made you feel ignored.

No one has suggested that such an extreme option is needed though. What was said was that within the scope of providing facilities that meet the needs of the majority of female people, that communal areas meet that need.

Diverting to the ‘mixed sex’ communal space is the best option in this instance is an attempt to discredit single sex provisions with communal areas. It is an unreasonable option though and it still doesn’t discredit the single sex communal area.

You’re missing my point. The liklihood of any particular problem happening varies by venue, the type of customers, the staffing levels and their training etc. The likelihood of some problem going unnoticed depends on many of the same factors and others too Eg in this case it is much more likely to be noticed if it is a place where people go with groups of friends. And there is also the consideration of what risks take the highest priority. Is the organization more concerned about filming under cubicle doors or people collapsing and going unnoticed?

This is why all organizations have to assess and manage their own risk. It is not a black and white situation where some particular design or working method is always going to be better or required. My doctor’s surgery has toilets with floor to ceiling walls and doors.

Because I don't think it is reasonable to say women can't have privacy because the most efficient way is open plan. Obviously open plan mixed would be cheaper to run so the suggestion wasn't correct.

It seems ok in here to twist what people say or even an obvious truth if it suits you.

I wasn’t talking about toilets. But I have discusssd this further in other posts.

i’m sure you’re right that many/most women prefer single sex loos.

I think this is much more nuanced and less black and white than how you describe it. For example your point about medical emergencies and people getting trapped - I would assume that it would be mandatory to design in an emergency mechanism to open the cubicle from the outside but that is only of use if there are staff around to deal with this. I was talking about leisure centres. There are always staff in leisure centres. Other places do not have staff though.

Or your point about sex and drug misuse being more common. How do you know? In the leisure centre I worked in which had single sex loos with doors that did not go to the floor, we had people shooting up in them.

Hygiene - that is a surely more related to cleaning standards and frequency rather than whether the facility is mixed or single sex?

“If you think communal areas are most space efficient then that would mean an area open to everyone and I know you don't want that. You didn't think that through”

What this tactic is though it one of absolutism.

Sure, the ultimate in efficiency may be a fully mixed sex communal space. But that is not going to meet the right to privacy from the opposite sex. So why mention it except to use the extreme to then dismiss the argument.

I seem to have this affect where posters disappear when called out for confidently announcing their preferred design is safer than the design that can be used in a single sex environment. It’s rubbed off on @selffellatingouroborosofhate now too.

“If you think communal areas are most space efficient then that would mean an area open to everyone and I know you don't want that. You didn't think that through”

What this tactic is though it one of absolutism.

Sure, the ultimate in efficiency may be a fully mixed sex communal space. But that is not going to meet the right to privacy from the opposite sex. So why mention it except to use the extreme to then dismiss the argument.

The mixed-sex facilities are all cubicles. It's not a given that the single-sex facilities will be open-plan, but they can be. A single-sex changing room with cubicles will probably have some users who change in the open. Hell, mixed-sex changing rooms have problems with men stripping off in the open.

What percentage of sexual assaults are ok in your book?

That is an invalid framing of the problem. It makes as much sense asking what type of cheese the moon is made of.

Given the following:

• We cannot reduce sexual assaults to zero.
• There are objectively fewer SAs in single-sex changing rooms than in mixed ones, despite mixed facilities being 100% cubicles.

The answer is that to minimise the number of SAs, we adopt single-sex changing facilities.

The difference is no one is expecting me to strip off in an open changing room with men or just to walk through to find a cubicle and have to witness naked men but it seems like it's fine to expect me to do that with women.

• The woman has the same body as you, reproductively, so cannot take advantage of the situation to force you to risk a pregnancy.
• Most cultures require a higher degree of modesty in front of the opposite sex than in front of one's own, probably because of the rape and pregnancy risk I mentioned in my previous point. The UK is no different.
• It's accepted in the UK to share open plan changing rooms with one's own sex but not the opposite sex because the requirement for modesty is lower.

I wonder what the stats are for the sort of changing facilities I detailed in a Victorian swimming pool? I bet the are so low as to not register.

I'd expect them to be pretty high, because the lack of floor gaps means you can't see two pairs of feet where there should be only one, and the noise of the pool so nearby would cover the sounds of a struggle and even screaming because kids often scream when in the water.