Advice please!

[Flowersonthewall]

Hi

So our local leisure centre announced last night that they were changing the female changing rooms jnto family changing rooms - great! However they are keeping the mens as men only and no space for women to change on their own! There are a few people following the post on fb who think it's a positive thing, which for families swimming it is. But what about the women swimming on their own?! Where is their space? What can we (there are a fair few of us against it!) do to change this happening? What if any laws are their to prevent it happening? Any advice?!

That is so sexist.
I'm sure there's some sort of discrimination case if you can be bothered to put one forward?
I'm not a lawyer though sorry.

Flowers there was a thread on changing rooms at pools

Maybe rowan will know or do advanced search

So men have 2 changing rooms and women have to share with men

Could ask them why is that ?

Very sexist - both in depriving women of a single sex space, and also conveying the message that the norm is for mums rather than dads to take their kids swimming.

I think I'd contact the management and ask why men are getting preferential treatment and additional facilities that women do not have. See what they will commit themselves to saying in writing. Then go from there.

That is unbelievable. So women’s spaces have to make way for family spaces, but men get to keep theirs? What the actual fuck. Complain. Please.

Yes will definitely be complaining!

Are the men allowed to use the family rooms as well?

What they are doing is illegal. Giving one sex preferential treatment over another like this breaches The Equality Act. They should have men's, women's and a family room for people with children.

Don't just complain, OP. Challenge it. Demand that you have access to single sex changing.

Thanks for all your support. There is a lot of anger on local fb pages about this so I think we have a good group going forward to demand this doesn't happen. Can't quite believe they've been so short sighted and dim witted to think it wouldn't be an issue!

Glad to hear the local fb page is against rather than supporting this decision.

OP you've definitely got good grounds to challenge and complain. And agree with previous posters suggestion to pose it as questions and see what they say.

Have they specifically confirmed that there will be no single female changing? It seems a strange move.

I use a changing village and there is about 5 family change cubicles and then the rest (maybe 40) are single cubicles. Is it not going to be a combination like that?

If it does happen it will just cause carnage, a mixed session and stents will be holding screaming babies whilst a single person is in the cubicle or in adult swim sessions there will be so few cubicles that people will get really annoyed.

Seems to be the norm with the way everything is headed

Womens spaces repurposed as for everyone
Men stay mens

Toilets at our station same. Signs moved so
1 toilet accessible, and male or female
1 set of toilets for men only, not accessible, presumably featuring urinals plus at least 1 cubicle (original configuration from when it was built victorian).

You should probably prepare to counter 'logic' which amounts to:

We have 2 sets of facilities.
We need to accommodate

1. men 2)women
2. families with opposite sex children.

Women and children are safe with each other (er... boys up to what age?)
Daddies with daughters, yeah, we reckon they'll be ok.

So it's only men without families who need segregating, so we'll have
1)men
2) women and 3) families combined.

This of course totally ignores women's need for privacy, effects on religious and ethnic minorities, abuse victims etc.

They need to find a way to redesign their space.

Hi - I have been involved in last night/today's FB conversations and one of our local Councillors has just announced that there will be no change to the current arrangements until after a consultation has taken place.

It's been hard to get people to separate the two issues (family changing = good, loss of Womens space as a consequence = not good) but the support from women today has been fantastic.

It's been a crazy 24 hours but just goes to show what can be achieved when we stop being afraid of standing up for our own rights. I don't post here. Like many (I suspect) I'm too much 'in awe' of the knowledge and intellectual capability of FWR posters, but it's always good to lurk and take courage from other people's activism.

I think it was this thread Flowersonthewall: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3473965-Bath-Leisure-Centre-naked-men-in-changing-village. I think they got the decision reversed - or at least there is a review going on.

There was also this if it helps
www.independent.co.uk/life-style/women/sexual-assault-unisex-changing-rooms-sunday-times-women-risk-a8519086.html

I think it was also in the Times but I don't have a share token.

I've only just seen this thread - I'm hoping that the full consultation they're promising will come up with a suitable solution. I'm not going to let it drop until it does!

Our local swimming pool, (so far) has changing rooms for women, men and families. No males over 5 allowed in the female changing room. I assume Dads with daughters would use the family changing room. I think there would be a huge outcry from the swimming public if this changed in anyway to disadvantage women and girl. Councils have to look at the needs of women of different faiths in their community before making these decisions. As usual though women's spaces are put second to men's.

Trafford - That's good news! It's great that women like you put themselves out there on the front lines to influence these decisions. Please keep up the good work, keep us informed and let us know if we can help with the consultation.

Don't put yourself down. If you are out there advocating directly for women's spaces your experience is going to invaluable to the rest of us on here.

I'd visit the other local pools and see what they do, that is fair, e.g. three spaces. My local two pools both do shares changing with cubicals but seperate loos. But another has a a female space, a male space and mixed. If they can do it, why not others?

In my local pool ( not in UK) they have managed to provide a space for men, then one for men with children, then one for women with children, then for women. The notices are absolutely clear. I get annoyed if a woman thinks it is ok to bring her over 8 years boy into the women only space, but after a chat , she usually agrees not to do that again. Otherwise the system works just fine... However I guess the signs saying mujeres femeninas could be misinterpreted...but there are cubicles ...though not floor to ceiling.

The Manchester evening news has picked up on this, even though the leisure centre has backtracked hopefully this will make it clear to anyone else that changing female only space into family space is not acceptable to the majority of the public.

Trafford - many FWR 'regulars' are in awe of practical activism such as yours.