Mixed High school changing rooms

[BorgQueen]

Lisa Keogh on twitter/X has written that a Scottish High school she visited last week has mixed Sex changing rooms for PE and swimming.
If that’s true it’s horrific, not to mention illegal - why aren’t the parents and students kicking up a huge fuss about it?
Most Girls don’t want to strip off in front of other Girls, let alone pubescent Boys.
How would they be able to stop pictures being taken ? why wouldn’t OFSTED be all over this safeguarding failure?

Even if it was an outlier, is that a bad thing? What is acceptable in one country or countries doesn’t mean it has to be acceptable in all.

I'm in Germany where nudity isn't a massive taboo in the same way it is in the UK.

I know no gym (as in fitness studio) with mixed changing or shower area. Although most of them do have a sauna with dedicated male only or female only times, the rest are mixed. And naked.

Swimming pools though? nope, all in cubicles which aren't segregated by sex. And I've never had a problem in them. Showers for before and after swimming are single sex

forgot to add - changing facilities in schools after primary were segregated by sex. Primary? all in together

Look further down the twitter thread.

Bollocks. I've lived in three European countries (NL, Sweden and Germany.) Generalized mixed-sex nudity isn't a thing in any of them. Changing rooms and showers are mostly open-plan except for swimming pools which have both communal and cubicles changing, but even those have communal showers.

Yes some countries have rigorously socially controlled areas of mixed-sex nudity such as saunas and nudist clubs. They'll still have separate-sex changing areas as well as separate single-sex days or sessions (FYI the preferred sauna option for roughly half of German women.)

@EarthyMangold
I'd be very VERY curious to know what mystical unicorn country of uninhibited mixed-sex changing you're talking about. In my personal experience, it's precisely BECAUSE we're less prudish in communal spaces (no changing under towels, most women will happily walk around in the nude) that actual single-sex become even more important.

Maybe. My SIL is Danish and hated it

They'll still have separate-sex changing areas as well as separate single-sex days or sessions

Indeed - even if "mixed-sex" exists, there's a huge gulf between it occurring and it being the only option.

And I'm going to chip in with my own Nordic (Finnish) experience - I've never come across any mixed-sex toilet or changing room situation at all.

Spaces that might be used by both sexes, yes, but not by both at the same time.

I’ve been to Portugal several times a year for last few years and that’s my experience as well

The UK really is an outlier when it comes to these things, but just doesn't realise how normal this and nudity are in most European countries.

Really? In which European countries is it normal for schoolchildren to be naked around each other?

Agree @GrumpyPanda I lived in Nordic countries for many years due to work and never in any Nordic country saw mixed sex changing rooms - not in schools, swimming pools, sports centres etc. Plenty of nudity as Scandinavians are quite comfortable about that - but always within sex-segregated settings. And maybe because of the nudity, the sex-segregation is strictly kept to even these days.

I wondered how long it would be before the 'oh the UK is so prudish about nudity' lot turned up.

Listen: I do not give a flying fuck about how they do things in Denmark, Sweden, Germany Finland or anywhere else.

We are in the UK, with our laws, social customs, behaviours and social contracts and all the rest. We are not going to change those on a sixpence because some wally comes on here and says 'ooh, why so modest?' sounding like every dirty old man I've ever met in my life.

Understood?

It's the standard emotional manipulation response to try and normalise it, much the same lines everyone was warned of as kids about being pressured to take drugs or have unwanted sex. Everyone else is doing it, all the cool kids are doing it, you're not frigid/boring are you?

It's also front and centre as a planned strategy in the paedophile's handbook incidentally. A truly ghastly but real document, intended to get paedophilia as accepted as homosexuality.

Is anyone asking the girls?

Fine for posters here to say "Well the Germans don't mind", as if Scottish teens and preteens should ignore any reservations they might have.

FWIW even well run schools will have issues with some of the alpha boys bullying quieter boys in boys changing rooms. And some of the girls will be very body conscious when going through puberty. And that those with gender dysphoria could well be even more body conscious. Putting the two groups together sounds like a toxic mix. Add in the assumption that you then need a staff member present, when you did not before. Madness. For what. To prove you are virtuous?

I'm surprised everyone is acting like mixed sex changing rooms are so unusual in the UK. The vast majority of new (as in built within the last 10 years) public leisure centres are all built on the 'changing village' model whereby there is just one big changing facility, made up of mainly cubicles (individual and family) which can be used by anyone. There have been 2 brand new leisure centres (1 council owned but now run by a private company , 1 privately built but a national centre of excellence) built in my city in the last decade and 2 of the older council ones have been refurbished, all to this model. Same in neighbouring cities I've visited. It's also the standard in, for example, centre parcs and bluestone. To be fair I think it's probably because it's easier for families rather than for gender reasons (although possibly makes it easier for both) but it's really not unusual.

The private gyms I go to (and I've been to a lot, due to moving around/travelling for work) tend to be single sex still but I think that's because a lot of them are quite old, and even when they've been taken over by different companies it's cheaper to retain the same building plan.

I appreciate that a poster has since pointed out that this incident refers to toilets but if it did mean a changing village scenario I wouldn't have a problem with it and would have probably preferred it to single sex changing all in an open space as a teen. Obviously a mixed sex open plan single changing area without cubicles would be inappropriate but there's no point in getting worked up about it if there's no evidence that's actually ever happened, anywhere.

Do schools have changing villages? Not in my experience. Just boys changing and girls changing.

It’s a school. Not a gym

there’s no way that the changing rooms should be mixed sex

why are adults keen for this to happen ?

I also wonder why anyone other than the school concerned would have an opinion on where teenagers get changed.

Highly dependent on the country.

I'm only in my thirties but when I was in school they practically acted like we would get pregnant from being in the same room as boys ! Now it's a ridiculous free for all.

There are always plenty of private cubicles

Errr….not in most UK schools. One room for girls, another for boys.

This discussion is mixing two meanings of "mixed sex changing".

Mixed sex lockers area with individual changing cubicles sounds totally fine for me, thought I understood that some in the UK see it as troublesome as well.

Mixed sex meaning one plain room without any division is bad.

Until we know which one everyone means, this discussion won't make any sense

If that's true that's awful. All schools around here do separate sex PE lessons at different times on different days nevermind changing...

Scotland - Not safe for women and girls

Sorry if off topic but how does that work in a Co-Ed school with timetabling- what do the boys in the class do in the lesson the girls are doing PE?

Primark porn passed you by?