Do you support swimming venues maintaining single-sex or private changing facilities

[ChristinaXYZ]

If you were interested in indicating your support over this: 'Require swimming venues to maintain single-sex or private changing facilities'. Then one can do so in the usual way.

The government has to respond at 10,000 supporters and the list is around 240 people short of that at the moment.

Thank you Christina

Thanks for the heads up, signed.

It would be "introducing single-sex facilities" rather than "maintaining "them.

Currently, transgender people have the right to use the facilities which match their gender identity. If they are to be introduced, it would be under the legitimate and proportionate exemption in the EA2010.

To the best of my knowledge, no public gym or swimming pool has excluded transgender people in this way, though I'm happy to be corrected.

ohrh.law.ox.ac.uk/gym-use-and-changing-rooms-the-illegality-and-chilling-effect-of-transgender-segregation/

Interesting article, @DadJoke It's always good to see all sides and know how people are thinking, in my opinion.

Second to last paragraph:
DLL, like many other service providers in the sector, provide gender neutral changing rooms. However, many people prefer not to use gender neutral facilities and they should not be compelled to do so. Indeed, enforced usage of all-gender or gender-neutral spaces has historically been used to undermine the lived-gender experiences of trans people and to marginalise trans communities as ‘others’. And, of course, and importantly, many women (cis and trans) may feel unsafe having to share changing rooms with men

Link, I hope, to MN petition thread, there are at least two. Hope that's okay

www.mumsnet.com/talk/petitions_noticeboard/4622036-petition-to-maintain-single-sex-spaces-at-swimming-venues

There are no provisions in the Equality act to allow segregation of services based on gender or gender identity.

If sex segregation is damaging, presumably your argument is that changing rooms, prisons, hospital wards, sports etc. should not be segregated at all - all should be entirely mixed sex?

Thank you - it is about 160 to go now. If you can share IRL please do.

I actually have no issues with mixed sex changing facilities at swimming pools. But there should be an alternative for people who do not wish to use them.

But as a mother of a son, I prefer to be in the same changing space as him even if he is not in the same cubicle. I would not like to see those spaces go.

However, I do believe that single sex spaces should be for that sex only.

@Live4weekend it’s so dependent on the actual site isn’t it? I really like the ones with a single changing area (no nudity) and individual cubicles, with larger ones for families. No problem. One of the pools I use has sex-segregated changing areas, but no cubicles at all. I really want that one to be single sex!

Those would be covered under the family changing rooms.

@waterwitch how does a swimming pool changing room with no nudity work? Do you keep your knickers on under your costume?

Thanl you for the heads up. I have signed.

I go to a swimming pool which has been developed in the last few years. It's one large space with one shower area and individual and family sized cubicles. I hate the shower SO much. Showering next to random men is just horribly intimate. One was even putting his hand down his trunks to wash his nob. Disgusting. I'll be signing.

@Krakinou, she means only individual cubicles, no places for changing in the open. Most of the time, if it's split into single sex, you have an open changing area and only a very small number (like 3-6) cubicles. If it's mixed sex, it's been cubicles only.

I think ideally you want male, female and family changing areas. It's handy to have a bigger family cubicle but they need to be private! I'd feel weird changing with my husband in a room full of others though just me and other women is different? Not sure why

This. Most of my local pools have mixed showers and changing. You have to use soap to remove chlorine from skin - rinsing alone doesn't work. In a mixed communal shower I wouldn't even feel comfortable soaping the parts of my body not under a cossie.

I also have sons and agree that family changing is important too.

A man was busted filming teenagers by sliding his phone under the cubicle wall at one of my local pools. Afterwards it turned out staff had actually noticed his pattern of using the communal showers at the same time as school groups but not acted on this. I expect they told themselves to ignore those feelings of discomfort because men's feelings be kind blah blah.

I signed today - and forwarded to 4 other people (including my mum) who also signed 🙂

The place I used to go swimming had mixed changing with individual cubicles. Gaps to and bottom and a bench you could stand on to see into adjacent cubicles! If you couldn't be bothered though some helpful perverts had drilled small holes through the partitions.

The management belatedly tried to make it male/female but it was two blocks of cubicles in one big room, there was little they could do. Repairing the holes wasn't something.

I never complained, but it's one of the reasons I stopped going. I might go back and see what the set up is now.

The pool I swim at has unisex changing facilities. There are individual cubicles for changing and individual shower cubicles. It works ok but what is really frustrating is often the locks on the cubicles don't work very well. And I would prefer more staff wandering around than there are. I have seen naked men who I assumed (given the look of shock on their faces when they saw me) didn't realize it was mixed sex. I really wish they would make it very clear through signage.

Currently, transgender people are admitted to the changing rooms which match their gender identity. Do you dispute this?

This petition wants to change that, so it's not "maintaining."

Do you know of any public gym or swimming pool which excludes transgender people in this way?

Signed, thanks OP.

Currently, transgender people are admitted to the changing rooms which match their gender identity. Do you dispute this?

This happens because people are scared to challenge males who demand access to women’s spaces. Gender self-ID isn’t legal, but those in authority are often too gutless to uphold the law. Some places do, correctly, uphold the law and keep women’s spaces single-sex.

I don't know where you get your information from, but transgender people don't automatically have the right to access women's facilities and you are spreading disinformation.

A person with a GRC may have the right in certain circumstances but a man can't simply declare himself a woman and expect to walk into women's single-sex facilities.

Both DH and I have signed.
Neither of us are comfortable sharing mixed sex changing, showering or toilet facilities.
Personally both I and my granddaughters prefer a single sex swimming session as well.

One of our local pools had a mixed sex area with individual cubicles. I remember seeing a story in the local paper that a man had been arrested for filming people changing (some time in early 00s). It's made me wary of anywhere with mixed sex changing rooms that don't have floor to ceiling cubicles since then.