Can I ask if you be happy with mixed sexed changing rooms

[Hopenothate]

Just that really not loos but changing rooms
Gyms swimming pools
Keep in mind many changing rooms have no cubicles or if they do they simply have curtains like this images.app.goo.gl/H6pdSPuXJiUqjs817

My gym is mixed. Doesn't bother me at all.

With cubicles, no problem at all - in fact I quite like it now that DS is 7 and will soon be too old to come into the female changing room with me. We use a few different local pools and some have mixed, some separate.

Without cubicles, it would probably put me off.

Changing village at my local pool, never gave it a minutes thought to be honest. Men, women, teenagers and children all get ready in the same place and shower in the same place. Never once felt uncomfortable. Into a cubicle to get changed, come out, find a locker, quick rinse, pool. All anyone is seeing is me in a swimming costume, which they are all going to see in the pool. Never noticed any sniggering from teenage boys and no one has batted so much as an eyelid in my direction. Not saying that’s everyone’s experience but IMO changing villages are the best use of space for a community facility.

Also, just to add I have never seen someone not in a swimming costume or trunks/Speedos and never seen a man with his hands down his pants. Most people just have a quick rinse off and wash their hair. There are 6 showers in cubicles and people still don’t get naked, man or woman, though I have seen women coming out of them in swim suit coverups or loose dresses and men in shorts and t shirt. Never seen so much as a nipple from a man not in trunks

I wouldn’t mind it as long as there were cubicles. Do that many changing rooms not have any cubicles? I don’t think I’ve ever seen one.

I must say I hate it when you’re in a changing room with a communal area and cubicles and people are ignoring the cubicles and changing in the open. I don’t particularly want to be confronted with a fanny in the face at 7.30 in the morning, but some people seem to feel the need to be exhibitionists! My husband says it’s the same in the men’s, some people just don’t care about privacy (theirs or others).

I think whats needed is female, male and a mixed sex family changing room. It would be important that only families be allowed in the mixed sex or it would be a magnet for perverts.

If there are cubicles with ceiling to floor doors then I wouldn't have an issue. Anything else and I would refuse to use the facilities.

When I think back to my teenage days and some of the antics the teenage boys used to get up to and I would genuinely fear for girls' privacy if this kind of set-up existed then.

Could those who say it wouldn’t bother you explain why?

Because I used changing rooms like that from primary school age at a swimming centre we used to go to at the weekend. I don't remember being bothered then. Can understand why others wouldn't like it though.

Surely the mixed sex changing always has cubicles with solid doors? I doubt there's anywhere in the UK with open plan mixed sex changing. They would have no customers.

Of course they don't and they haven't gone out of business. The doors at the one I used to go to weren't curtains they were solid doors BUT there were gaps at the top and the bottom of the cubicle so they weren't singular rooms, just sectioned off parts.

I've used a unisex changing village for about 6 years now, I prefer it to the old single sex one because it has individual lockable showers. I would never use a communal changing room.
I've never heard of or experienced any 'incidents' in the pool I use. Unisex changing rooms have to be properly designed and staffed though, I would never use one that just had curtains.

I'm not bothered by it because in ten years plus of using them I've learned that bodies are bodies and nobody really has much of an interest in ogling anyone else while getting changed for gym/pool. I have never once felt like anyone has watched me get changed or felt unsafe. It's fine. Once it's normal and standard nobody is really that excitable about it.

I like the changing villages - it makes swimming as a family much easier and I’ve never felt unsafe in them and I’d rather have a cubicle in unisex than get changed without one in the women’s. I think well designed unisex facilities are much better than poorly designed segregated ones. As an example, we were at a hotel that had women’s, men’s and a small family/disabled changing room. We were in the family with my daughter and a carer with a disabled teenage girl came in. my Husband immediately left as he didn’t want the lady and girl to feel unfomfortable. That was a bad design because it wasn’t lockable and only really allowed for one family group to use it at once. That sort of set-up has far more potential to make someone feel awkward than changing villages.

Surely the mixed sex changing always has cubicles with solid doors? I doubt there's anywhere in the UK with open plan mixed sex changing. They would have no customers.

There are lots of places in the UK where the women's changing room is open plan.

If you allow untransitioned transwomen to use these spaces (combined with self ID so no one can challenge the person as to whether they are genuinely a transwoman or actually a man) then you effectively end up with mixed sex changing rooms.

That's what we're talking about here - not the unisex changing villages which are entirely cubicles.

To be clear, I have no problem with unisex changing villages. But I do have a problem with open plan mixed sex changing rooms, especially where young girls are concerned.

Nope. I won't let my teen DD use them either.

1. I've PTSD partly down to horrific DV. I'm not comfortable around men I don't know.

1. I was on a mixed psychiatric ward (sectioned so unable to leave) I woke one night to a person placed on the female wing wanking next to my face.

These attack's that will never happen do indeed happen.

www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/wokings-pool-park-voyeurism-incidents-10354245

This was my local. I had stopped going long before - I hated the changing village

As long as there are private cubicles, I can't see the problem, they are actually better that way.

I hate communal and open plan changing room of any kind, I want privacy and I wouldn't use facilities that don't provide it. The gender of the people around me is completely irrelevant.

Enough family cubicles in the swimming pool areas should be a given too, some people have more than 1 child to change!

Probably not but I'd get used to it if forced to use it.

I have to agree Cadbury. I went to a school that had only just accepted girls when I was a kid so there were very few females, I then went on to have two careers in very male dominated industries so I have often been treated like ones of the boys and heard things that I wish I could unhear. It's naive to assume that because when you are going for a morning swim, everyone else is doing just the same and is not interested in ogling other people. Many many of the men I have worked with have expressed sentiments about their visual appreciation of women's bodies especially in places like the gym or pool. I've had one man tell me he would always try and sit behind one specific woman so he could watch her bum in spin class and imagine having sex with her. I've had a marathon runner tell me he picks a pretty girl of about the same pace so he can watch her 'jiggle' as he runs. I've had another tell me that women only gyms aren't fair because the fun of going to the gym is spoiled if he can't look at women in Lycra. Particularly startling was a man in his mid 60s telling me how wonderful life is at his age because everyone assumes he's a nice old grandad, but how he still has sexual thoughts about 16 year old girls. Another older colleague then joined in laughing and said 'if only women knew what we are really thinking all of the time'. These are just a few comments in years and years of hearing men objectify, devalue and deride women.

Now I'm not saying that all men are the same but I do know from experience and hearing about it repeatedly that a large number of them spend their days ogling women and thinking sexually about them. I guess one can argue that's their problem, but I'd rather not give them more opportunity to think about my body in that way, I'd much rather have privacy and peace of mind.

I am happy with mixed sex changing rooms - changing village style - provided their are cubicles with doors, not just curtains.

In fact am much happier with that arrangement than I would be with separate Male and Female open plan facilities where self identifying trans women have the right to access female facilities.

I’ve been to swimming baths with mixed sex changing rooms but it’s all cubicles so not curtains or no privacy whatsoever. Didn’t bother me one bit but without cubicles I wouldn’t be impressed.

Doesn't bother me in the slightest

that a large number of them spend their days ogling women and thinking sexually about them.

and vice-versa anyway

As long as there are private cubicles, it makes absolutely no difference anyway.

Absolutely Not- I stopped using my local pool due after a supposed £3 million refurb where the only thing they seem to have done is give it "gender neutral" changing rooms, without sufficient cubicles, and mostly half height at that- no private shower cubicles either.

note also- the loos are disgusting and I wouldn't go pee in them now, let alone get changed (theses are the only real full height solid cubicles in there now!!!

where the rest of that money for the refurb went I have no idea- swear they still have the same grimy looking 80's tiles on the floor!