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

But as there are no sanctions for rule breaking all rather a waste of air

Apparently business is booming for porn sites that have video posted by men who leave cams in those lockable cubicles.

Additionally there is nothing preventing a man from leaving the door open. Or famously claiming that he was 'just standing there in the middle of the common area moisturising his penis'

My 79 year old partially sighted frail mum is very up to date on the whole TRAs vs women's rights debate, and would definitely prefer to share with a trans man than with a trans woman.

Would your 83 yr old mum be happier sharing the changing room with an actual man though?

I love these ones. "Hey I'm on your side but I just had this thought."

Gosh! we would never of thought of that.

If TRAs hadn't been trying that one on for years.

Unisex changing rooms are smaller because you can get away with a smaller number of cubicles overall because each cublcle can be used by anyone. So if 100 customers turn up in tbe morning 80 of them might be female (especially if there is an aquaerobics class on). In the afternoon, if might be 80 men and 20 women. To cover these scenarios you need one unisex changing room for 100, or you need a male changing for 80 and a female changing room for 80….and ideally a group of family changing room too and a separate disabled facility.

With single sex changing, you are supposed to have a male and female cleaner and male and female lifeguards. The lifeguards make regular checks of the changing rooms and are often called upon to do first aid in the changing rooms. It does happen, irrespective of whether you have noticed or not. It is part of the job.

You need to make a complaint to the Monitoring Officer. It is an officer role, rather than a councillor and they are legally responsible for ensuring the council follows the law as well as ensuring Councillor’s follow the code of conduct.

As a single parent with opposite sex kids, yes, mixed sex changing can be handy, although even with dyspraxic DS1, we managed OK by preparing/hoodie towels/onsies/changing pool-side.

But when going alone, I very much prefer single sex. Changing at a bench in an open room in front of my locker is so much quicker than getting all my stuff out of the locker into a cubicle, whacking my elbows, dropping stuff on the floor because the hooks are inevitably busted etc.

And when cleaning, I would BY FAR prefer to clean one big room, than 10 little rooms.

And still not legal for employees

who MUST be given single sex changing spaces

There was a bearded trans identifying lass working at a charity shop I visited recently
so clearly female despite the beard and buzz cut
people were calling her 'miss' and 'dearie' despite themselves

I have spent a lot of time in leisure centres with time on my hands - waiting for swimming lessons etc.

Why would it need fewer cleaning staff and fewer staff to supervise? I’m not sure what you mean by ‘supervise’ - I’ve never seen staff supervising in any capacity in the changing rooms - only people on the front desk.

Ratios for facilities like cubicles and sinks should be the same as it’s based on total number of users and it doesn’t make much difference to cleaning the floor if a space is divided into two large single sex spaces or many smaller cubicles (as in a unisex changing village)

In fact you might find that a large open plan single sex space with a handful of cubicles is quicker to clean than 30 individual unisex cubicles where you have to enter and check each one individually and there are 30 locks to check and multiple holes in the panels to fill, lost property to gather etc etc.

Unisex facilities by their nature are generally less space efficient because it needs all cubicles and I can’t see why it would be more expensive to heat the spaces if the heating system is designed sensibly.

This feels like something everyone claims without really thinking about it and it sounds vaguely convincing but isn’t actually backed by the numbers.

My suggested answer to this is “no comment”.

I think more information will come out in the fullness of time.

i do not have any evidence but I used to work in a leisure centre and I understand how leisure centres operate, I know that one changing room is going to be less costly than 2 or even 3. Fewer cleaning staff, fewer staff to supervise and check them, smaller overall space, less power for heating, simpler design with one toilet and shower block, no requirement to ensure both male and female staff are on duty at all times. Plus
parents taking their opposite sex kids to the leisure centre prefer it and they are the ones who spend the big money (swimming lessons are usually a big revenue source).

If you can say without further harming the women involved, how did the sharing of personal information happen?

I must have typed the suggestion about ignoring the law without even realizing 🙄

I keep hearing this claim. Do you have any evidence of cost savings that can’t be achieved by sensible design?

wrt left/right alignment, as PP said the Communist Party have no truck with denying physical reality
there's this guy too
https://labourheartlands.com/the-darlington-nurses-won-the-unions-should-hang-their-heads/

I totally agree.

I think in this country, we are pretty blase about the seriousness of this (I have lived in several others which saw the end results of this type of action - from both left and right authoritarians! End results were the same for the ordinary person. Oppression and fear. We do NOT want to go there).

But as you say, it's easy to assume, and a lot of people do, that "that type of thing doesn't happen in the UK." But as soon as someone in power starts undermining the rule of law at the governance level, and worse, attempting to justify it like this, we are really f*cked. It is a dangerous position to be in and I'm not sure how many people are truly aware of quite how dangerous it is. Can we pull ourselves back? I hope so but it requires not standing for it or enabling it from anyone and being really clear about where the line is.

Not convinced that we're really there yet or that our political system is strong enough or has enough high calibre high integrity people to ensure that happens.

I’m fairly sure my 83 yr old mum would just stop at the beard!

A couple of years ago I was in the women's toilets when I came face to face with what at first glance appeared to be a bearded gentleman. Fight/flight/freeze kicked in, and I couldn't move. Then I clocked the height, the facial bones, the lack of Adam's apple, the carrying angle of the elbows, and the hips. It was just a transman in the biologically correct toilet. And my fear went.

Which other laws do you support them breaking to keep costs down.

the 1992 Health and Safety Regs are in place for a reason.

The issue in this case is acceptance and active promotion of authoritarianism and intolerance at a local government level towards members of the public. This is misuse of power.

Exactly. This is what frightens me the most about this whole thing, and should frighten everyone. Has everyone already forgotten about the storming of the Capitol building? I have always said that the British are too sensible to let their leaders goad them into such disgraceful abuses of power and privilege. Yet here we are, heading that way. It doesn't matter which party is in charge. They are authoritarians or they are letting authoritarians rule in their stead.

It doesn't matter how many different ways women can come up with to ask questions about respecting the rule of law, if all they have to do is shout women down so that no one can hear the questions.

Do we really care if Trump is Republican or Democrat? I don't think so. We care that he does not respect the rule of law. He thinks he's above the law. Trump believes in Party Trump. Given half a chance of getting away with it, I do not doubt that there are a few Democrats who would do exactly the same.

Bristol Council must be forced by the courts to obey the law and the democratic process. Or this will end up somewhere very bad.

Because businessss like to keep costs down. (I am explaining why it probably does happen and not what should happen).

No. And there is a long and extensively evidenced history of why we had single sex spaces in the first place. But no impact assessments or consultation with those it most affected - women and girls - was carried out when a small yet powerful lobby of male activists and a number of their ideologically captured female enablers decided to change things unilaterally.

And anyone objecting gets demonised and lied about and then this type of behaviour in the public sphere. Utterly appalling.

It is. Completely unacceptable.