Andrew Gilligan in The Times - sex pests target unisex change rooms

[CAAKE]

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sex-pests-target-women-in-mixed-changing-rooms-x3vw2lnv8

I don't know how to do a share token, sorry, but Andrew has nailed it again 👏

"The majority of alleged sexual attacks at Britain’s public swimming pools and sports centres occur in unisex changing rooms, according to data obtained by The Sunday Times.
Nine out of ten changing-room sexual complaints relate to incidents in unisex facilities — although they make up less than half of all provision.
Gender-neutral changing is growing as councils seek to cut staff costs and cater to transgender people. But one MP said it was a “magnet” for sex offenders and increased the risk to women and girls."

Another excellent article by Andrew Gilligan.

Wow, who could have imagined that there would be more cases of voyeurism, sexual harassment and assault in a unisex changing room? I’m gobsmacked, because I thought this never happened.

Personally I won’t use unisex facilities unless they have floor-to-ceiling cubicles, because I can’t see if someone is poking a smart phone around the partition. Someone could be filming me the whole time and I’d never know, and that’s scary as fuck.

Thank you Andrew and David Davies, too.

But this has nothing to do with trans. Men are doing these things, not transwomen. See? Changing the GRA won't make any difference.

And this is why I have taken out a subscription to the Times. Excellent reporting yet again!

I was warned by staff at some unisex changing areas for an outdoor pool/fountains type facility not to let DD change there without me keeping a close eye as they had perpetual problems with men using phones to try and take pictures under the doors.

Good to see this reported now, ahead of decision time for the GRA. Maybe it will give the parties the publicity they need to draw back from the position they've got themselves into, practically promising to allow self ID.

Well, who would have thought that easy access to vulnerable and undressed women would be irresistible for predators?

I'm shocked, shocked I tell you.
They told us this never happened

I remember a few years ago using a family toilet in the baby section of a department store and there was an official police note on the wall saying something along the lines of the toilet being regularly checked for hidden equipment that was an eye opener.

But it never happens. Of course.

Jelly - you've been on FWR long enough, surely, to know that women are repeatedly told that unisex facilities are perfectly safe, and there's no need for single sex facilities. Even when women point out that men will take extraordinary risks to perve on them, and self-ID will allow any man to access hitherto single sex spaces for both legitimate and nefarious purposes, we are told that we are scaremongering and this never happens

One thing that has struck me throughout this is how difficult it has been to report the obvious.

We have seen such a cultural stranglehold over normal communication. I really hope this is a sign of it breaking.

Well done everyone who is on the case. (The Times has a lot of other good stuff too )

Of course! Totally sarcastic.

Look at this comment on the article, posted within minutes of my sarcastic response in this thread:

Josephine O'Carroll1 HOUR AGO

I am not quite sure the transgender debate was added into this article - except, yet again, to cast slurs on the transgender community by certain Times reporters.
^
Yes - most sexual molestation will take place in unisex changing rooms and toilets - and 99.99% will be made by heterosexual males and females, not those who are transgender. Those who are transgender are as likely to be suffer assault - and far, far less likely to initiate it.

	The fact is, of course, that those who are MtF transgender use female only facilities and the proliferation of unisex only facilities is an arbitrary artefact of the PC establishment.^

Do you think this person is being sarcastic?

If I was an insurance company, I would be seriously raising premiums for anyone with unisex facilities after reading this

The game's up for gender neutral. It DOES put WOMEN at risk.

So - when are they going to listen to us?

Thank you Andrew Gilligan.

Ah, sorry jelly. I'm a bit hot and bothered today, brain not working properly

Councils said the vast majority of changing rooms for “dryside” activities, such as fitness training and court or pitch sports, were still single-sex. About half of “wetside” changing rooms, for swimming pools, were mixed.

Why?

The relevance to the trans debate is that if self ID goes through, male bodied individuals - any male bodied individuals, not just the ones who are genuinely trans - will be able to self-ID into women's spaces. So we will be left with a choice between up-front, out in the open mixed sex facilities, or supposedly-all-female-but-actually-mixed-sex facilities. There will be men in both. And this report shows that men in changing rooms massively ups the rate of sex offences taking place within them. Remember the figure - 9 out of 10 reported crimes takes place in mixed facilities, even though only 1/3 of them are mixed.

Let's crunch some numbers here.

990 changing rooms. 330 of them mixed.
X offences in the 660 that are women only.
9X offences in the 330 that are mixed.
rate in women's changing rooms = X/660
rate in mixed changing rooms = 9X/330

increased likelihood of an offence in a mixed changing room
9X/330 . 660/X = 9/1 . 2 = 18 times more likely.

Single sex spaces make women much less likely to be on the receiving end of a sexual offence, but only if they are genuinely single sex, not pretend single sex.

From Edward Lord's web-site
"Edward was chair of the Group Board of the Amateur Swimming Association (now Swim England), England’s national governing body for swimming, diving, water polo and synchronised swimming, from 2013 to 2015 .."

I love you Fermat.

And that Lord guy doesn't look like he swims for fitness to me. So maybe he just oversees stuff so that he can dismantle sex segregation because he's a dick?

Thank you again Andrew Gilligan. And thank you again David T C Davies.

Datun we've had two new pools built here in the last ten years, both unisex changing. It's always been billed as "family changing" - we're an area with frankly terrible health outcomes, near the bottom nationally, and it's supposed to encourage families to come and swim together. I do think it works, actually, certainly the one I use the most is always teaming with kids and their grown-ups. Lots of dads and daughters, which couldn't happen otherwise. It's bright and light with staff walking through every 5-10mins.

Staffing is usually fine even during the later hours - ironically it was the older pool, with split-sex changing rooms that I felt the least safe in, because all the staff were men at 10pm.

I am always suspicious of cubicles with gaps underneath, though, and we try to aim for cubicles which are empty either side. I have been to a mega-pool in a nearby city which is unisex changing, and felt horribly unsafe there as it was much darker and narrower with blind spots, and no staff cleaning or patrolling. Ironically the "serious training pools" downstairs were single sex, open plan, and much nicer.

In sum I think they can work, but only if they're well-planned with a strong staff presence.

One of the commenters below the line is making me wish I had a log in so I could reply - "134 complaints is pretty much zero. That should be the real story". WTF??? Would he be ok about it if it were men who were usually the victims of this?

Well quite. And of course it's only 134 who were both noticed and reported. Anyone with half a brain cell knows that the actual incidence of voyeurism is going to be much higher. Minimising douche bag (the commenter, not you Lysistrata).