Non Binary Gym Changing Rooms

[NevermindNelson]

I’ve just had an email from a gym I use explaining that their changing rooms are going to become gender neutral. I don’t even know where to start to reply. The email states that they’re proud to do this.

I want to reply with the reasons that I’m cancelling my membership, but all I’ve got so far is, “What, seriously?”

Maybe I should just send this - Just under 90 per cent of complaints regarding changing room sexual assaults, voyeurism and harassment are about incidents in unisex facilities. Because they have made the changing rooms unisex, haven’t they?

Edited to correct the term as ‘gender neutral’

@Nn9011 you know you dont need to be raped or sexually assaulted to nit want to get undressed in front of the opposite sex…..

As fir the narrative…
I suppose that the high level of sexual assault women experience probably drives women’s reaction. We don’t need to have someone telling us what to think (like the media according to you). We can think on our own and make decisions based in our experiences.

I was horrifed to read about it a couple of years ago. Particularly how young women are treated regarding their assaults. But as I say, there seems to be no country’s on the top of my mind who do have a stellar record.

But yes, that rape case where the defense was that the child ‘wanted’ it was repulsive! No wonder the law of consent was quickly changed back up at last.

I am going to report your posts soon for being anti trans. This quite literally has nothing to do with being trans.

It is about the end of both male and female changing rooms without cubicles in them ... replaced with a mixed sex big room where you get changed in front of each other.

What has that got to do with trans anything?

Of course I'm not advocating for one big open room where everyone gets their bits out. I'm talking about areas with cubicles.
I mean take Haven holiday parks for example. Last time we went to one of their water park areas the changing rooms were cubicles but non gendered and absolutely no one had a problem.

Not having single sex facilities (alongside gender neutral / mixed sex) is racist.

It's as simple as that. It excludes Jewish and Muslim men and women from using those facilities.

And that's before you get to the women that self exclude for other reasons.

It's fine to be ok with mixed sex spaces for yourself, but if you're arguing other people should just have to put up with them, that makes you racist.

Funny how people like you always need to build up a strawman argument that's solely about safety. Women and girls in your mind don't deserve privacy and dignity vis-a vis the opposite sex then? I wouldn't want to undress and shower in front of random men. I'm German and comfortable with mixed saunas but even in that setting nobody, ever, makes the changing rooms mixed-sex. Not to mention it all depends on a great deal of social control and social contract AND there's usually still days/evenings set aside for single sex.

And @Nn9011 You are perfectly entitled to think ‘bodies are bodies’ and, if you are female, walk naked through a prison rodeo camp if you want to, to make your point. What are not entitled to do is to tell other women who gets to see them naked, and how they must feel about that.

That’s the sort of boundary eroding that makes women and girls unsafe.

It's interesting @Nn9011 because I see the media doing something very different to you.

The media is trying to get women to lower their boundaries in favour of the complete removal of women's rights.

There is no evidence that mixed sex changing rooms benefit women. They benefit males.

You are so desperate to see this as transphobia, it isn't. It's basic safeguarding.

Then maybe read the OP’s posts!!

She is referring to a space like that:
They’re small spaces with a small area for changing, three or four showers and one toilet at the end.

So yes they are expecting people to get strip naked in front of the opposite sex….

Would you be happy to ‘get your bits out’ in front of a man. What if it’s your teenage daughter. Still ok?

And finally @Nn9011 , these fears were a ‘thing’, that is why we have single sex spaces. It’s just dishonest to pretend they weren’t to fake your case.

No. It is not ‘anti trans’! ffs.

It is ‘anti male’ if anything! The same as it was. A legal discrimination against male people for the purposes of safeguarding.

It is actually not that hard to understand when you remove the false narrative you seem to be ‘pushing’ yourself.

And how enlightening to see you then claim that ‘sure there had been a few increased abuses, assaults etc’. Nothing to see here!

Your dismissal of these incidents are misogynistic and you are indeed showing your dismissal of violence and harm of women and girls.

You even are now telling us to just don’t worry about ‘those‘ incidents- focus on these other more important incidents. Do tell us, how many incidents have to happen before you allow us to discuss our concerns without trying to shame us or frame the discussion as ‘anti trans’?

How many extra women or girls being harmed and abused or assaulted are acceptable collateral before we can make the policy, guidelines and law changes to ensure that safeguarding is robust enough?

someone told us 100 per year in an established trend the other day. Would that be about your figure too?

So you launched into the debate without reading what the post was about?

Willing to bet that your entire fantasy about ‘right wing’. and ‘scare mongering’ is based on a similar misinformation about what ‘our side’ are saying. I’ve never yet spoken to someone from the gender ideology side who understand what our argument is. They usually agree once they realise what we actually say.

And actually @Nn9011 , if you are saying ‘ of course you are not advocating for one big room where everyone gets their bits out’ then you are actually gender critical too.

It's all so incredibly STUPID isn't it. Everyone would be fine with three spaces - single sex (M & F) for all the people who want that, including those whose culture or religion demands it, and one lovely gender neutral / mixed sex space where everyone who enjoys stripping naked in front of the other sex can have at it.

It's very interesting how this common sense solution doesn't just stop debate dead within 30 seconds. It's almost as if it's not really about changing rooms / facilities at all but really all about destroying women's (and in this case particular religious / cultural minority groups) rights.

And mixed sex spaces with cubicles have been proven to be unsafe for women and girls. Do some research before telling posters that they are influenced by ‘anti trans’ political agendas. You seem to be remarkably hypocritical in that you are here telling us all what we should be activating for without seeming to have done any research into the topic.

I can only think the gym have done this without thinking through the potential consequences of this - maybe they've just thought it will make them sound all progressive and that the people who imagine they're non-binary will "feel safe" and "acknowledged" whilst still actually using the changing rooms for their correct sex.

I use a swimming pool sometimes where the changing room is set up for families - big cubicles in one large space. That's the closest I've ever seen to 'unisex' facilities, and I've never seen an adult wandering around naked. Toddlers and babies, yes. The toilet set-up is not great - four standard toilet cubicles in a row, gaps at the bottom. Two of them are notionally male and two female, but in reality anyone uses any of them. I don't use those toilets, I use the separate female ones outside because I don't like it. However, these toilets are mostly used by children, often with adults helping them, and I've never felt unsafe in there. There are also no private showers, so people just wash off in their cossies, apart from the tiny ones who get stripped off by their parents. This is not an environment that is conducive to privacy and dignity for vulnerable people, but it works for families and anyone with bad intentions would stick out like a sore thumb. There are also separate male and female areas available for those who need them, so I think it works ok. I think this is typical in the uk and I would find it very odd to see adults strolling round naked in a mixed sex environment. In fact, I would not use a facility that allowed that.

So yes, it is very strange that a gym would effectively turn their single sex spaces into mixed sex. I would definitely want them to clarify what they mean by this and point out the logical consequences if they decide to go ahead.

And I am angry that women wanting privacy, dignity and safety is being called a 'phobia'. Women matter. Our physical safety and freedom from fear (ha!) are important.

A new friend opened up to me a little recently. She revealed that she was abused as a child and now as a young woman in her twenties doesn't even feel safe sitting next to a strange man on a bus. She has terrible anxiety and struggles to get out much - she is working on it but it's so hard and her life is very limited. Imagine a world for someone like her where there are no spaces that men are excluded from. So many times as a girl and woman I've used female facilities myself as a retreat from situations I've felt uncomfortable in, and it will be even more important for those who feel as vulnerable as my friend.

Nonsense.

Pervert men have ALWAYS been a problem, we just didn’t have to share pool changing rooms with them until, what, 20 years ago.

A man stuck his head under the side of my cubicle at the baths, some leisure centres have had to add chicken wire to the tops and bottoms of cubicles. The government had to create new crimes of upskirting and revenge porn because pervert men will push and push until you make the law the boundary (and even then they will risk their entire careers and families to indulge in their fetishes, including flashing and voyeurism).

Transgender doesn’t have any relevance to single sex spaces.

You must live in a very safe, middle class bubble to hold such luxurious beliefs. Lucky you!

Meanwhile, here in the real world I’d like my little girl to be able to swim without running the paedo-voyeurism gauntlet.

Are you a mind reader, you don't know if someone had a problem or not.

And as PP have said an open room with people getting their bits it exactly what it sounds like the gym is doing, cool girl.

@Nn9011 it you think mixed sex toilets and changing rooms isn’t a problem, why is it then that as soon as you get mixed anything, the cubicles doors and sides are floor to ceiling? That makes it dangerous for the occupant if something goes wrong which their health or wellbeing.

Would you have thought pupils were safe from rape on school premises too? In 2015, before the push for mixed sexed toilets in schools, parliament discussed at least one rape per school day inside a British school. Do you think private mixed sex cubicles will make things better or worse?

It is always a good day when we have posters saying ‘I have never had an issue, you all are right wing influenced / right wing / brainless / hysterical/ hateful whatever (we have have so many). Followed by ‘this is nothing to worry about, bad feminists! Look over here, there are so many other issues to fix before this nothing issue!’.

Maybe some posters don’t recognise how they come across. Maybe some posters don’t give a fuck in their own righteous bubble. Who knows?

Oh men get the fixk out of women's spaces.

I'm (half) French. Most facilities in France are single sex, unless totally enclosed cubicles. I have certainly never been to a campsite where both sexes shower in full view of each other while naked (a quick rinse-off after swimming, while still in your cossie, is different).

Facilities that are genuinely mixed sex, such as some bar toilets where you have to walk past the urinals, are generally fucking horrible, unsafe, and French women avoid them like the plague.

There is this weird myth that French/German/Scandi women are 100% OK with mixed sex nudity, and it's only uptight Brits who aren't - and that's total bollocks. There are cultural differences in when it is OK to be naked but bodily privacy is important to women everywhere.

@Nn9011 You’ve made yourself look very silly by coming onto the thread ranting about what nasty bigots we all are without actually reading what the OP has said. Her gym has open plan changing spaces without cubicles and it is these which are set to become mixed sex.

It's all very 'women know your place' isn't it?

The only way anyone can think that only mixed sex spaces are ok is if they don't think the opinions of women, mothers responsible for safeguarding children, and religious and cultural groups matter.

I'm guessing anyone who thinks like that lives in a very well off white bubble, and even then only speaks to incredibly privileged women and men. There are plenty of women who've suffered the trauma of rape and sexual assault in all demographics.

Still waiting for a response, I just wanted to thank the posters who are explaining the real issues here.

For me, the crux of it is - there are lots of men who would be appalled at the idea of going into women's spaces. My husband is one of these, he knows that just his presence could make women uncomfortable, so he stays in his own spaces. I'm not worried about men like him. I'm worried about the type of man who knows women would be uncomfortable and still goes into their changing rooms. Allowing men in would only attract the second type of man, and that's why I'm ending my membership, because I choose not to be in that environment.