Mixed changing room - is this considered ok these days?

[Scirocco]

Today I took my toddler swimming. Or rather, tried to.

We walked in to a giant changing area, with rows of cubicles with partial height walls and doors (gaps above and below them, doors low enough that you could see the heads of people changing). No single sex changing option. Men walking around mid-change (a towel round a waist, for example). The aisle in between the cubicles had quite a few people (all men or boys) standing looking at their phones.

Maybe it's me, maybe I'm just being prudish, but it felt really inappropriate and unsafe, with an absence of privacy.

When I asked the receptionist if there was single-sex changing available, I was told no, because it's more inclusive this way...

Is this the normal now?

(We went to the park instead.)

Our local pool has mixed sex changing rooms as well as single sex. The mixed sex are for families and each cubicle is huge. They are (almost) floor to ceiling with no gaps at the doors. They are also lockable.

They should not be on their phones in the changing room, there is usually a rule about that

My local pool has a unisex changing village..I believe they've also had multiple incidents of phones under doors etc. I haven't been for a while but have encountered naked men strolling around.
It's a bit grim.

I like mixed changing rooms because I can bring in my boy with us. I can’t believe you took your child out because there were men with towels around them and people could see the top of your head changing. Seems like a bit of an over reaction.

I have no issue with unisex changing being available, especially for families for whom it might make things easier (e.g. father taking daughters to the pool) but there should still be single sex options too.

Inclusivity never seems to include women who don’t want to share with men, does it?

If I, as a relatively short woman, could see people's heads, I did have to wonder what the 6 ft tall guy behind me could see...

If someone does not feel comfortable changing around men then a) that is their prerogative and b) it’s not for anyone else to tell them that feeling is wrong.

You have no idea what might have happened to someone in the past which means they don’t feel comfortable being in a relatively vulnerable position around men. And even if nothing has happened, it’s still absolutely fine to want a single sex provision. You have no right whatsoever to be so patronising and dismissive.

“Maybe it's me, maybe I'm just being prudish, but it felt really inappropriate and unsafe, with an absence of privacy.”

It’s not you being prudish.

There’s been loads of incidents of inappropriate behaviour by males in mixed sex changing rooms.

This is awful. Single sex facilities should be a legal requirement

There are a lot of women who do not consider this OK. Me, for one.

Maybe it's culturally normal here now, but I'd not encountered it before. Hence asking if it's considered normal. If it is, DH can take our toddler there if he wants, and I'll just go back to the pool we went to before, which has single-sex changing available.

They have this in Todmorden and there have been repeated problems of filming under and over cubicles. They deny it thou. I have joined a private gym with safe facilities.

I used to think the phones under doors was an urban myth, but I was chatting to someone recently who used to be a pool attendant and he quit because he said he wasn't paid enough to deal with the number of times it had happened - perverts putting a camera in a shoe and pushing it under a door for example.

This was at Cardiff International Pool for anyone who lives in the city.

Until you realise someone is filming your naked child under the partition or a man has exposed himself to them. Things that happen constantly in mixed changing rooms, until then it's fine 🤦

There is a new pool near us with mixed sex changing cubicles, gaps under & over and nothing to prevent you standing on the bench and looking over either. There are regular articles in the local paper about voyeurism and exposure. The only showers are poolside facing the kids’ pool area and even the ‘decent’ men have no qualms about sticking their hands down their shorts for a quick jiggle when they are showering. 😬

Our Leisure centre has one changing rooms for everyone, has done for years, it’s nothing new. The cubicles are private. I cannot see why it’s an issue. It’s far more inclusive, and much easier for parents taking kids.

Thanks everyone, this has helped reassure me that I'm not being weird. Toddler and I won't be going back there, and I'm going to write a letter to their management to highlight the safeguarding and privacy issues.

really? Don’t even do anything fun like go to a festival. It’s a free for all toilets wise there. Who cares once you’re in a cubicle

I care if I'm about to take off my clothes and my child's clothes, whether someone can easily see over or under the partitions.

I think my festival-going days are probably behind me, but I do remember there were portaloos at the ones I went to.

For this very reason I no longer go swimming, or to the gym, or anywhere else which has mixed sex changing/showering facilities and I certainly wouldn't want to take my grand daughters to such a place. What about Muslim/Jewish women and girls, who cannot use mixed sex facilities, what about women and girls who have suffered sexual assault at the hands of men/boys, what about women and girls who simply want some privacy and not to see men and boys lurking about with phones in their hands, however dressed or undressed they may be. But, oh yes, how wonderfully inclusive.

This has been the norm at council run facilities since forever - I remember it from the 70s. Private gyms and pools usually have segregated locker rooms, bus these tend to be communal rather than cubicles which a lot of people who maybe didn’t grow up doing sport also have issues with.

I think maybe it is. In the last 10-15 years new pools here (I’m in Ireland) have been designed very open plan with cubicles and showers open to the pool. Sometimes they do have separate female and male rooms separate to this.

i think the open plan space works well and feels safer as it’s more visible to the staff.

There's a 'changing village ' at our local pool which is for all, but you get decent privacy in the cubicles where doors are a good size and there are also single sex loos to hand if you don't fancy the trek to the separate male and female changing areas. I will say that the staff are very good at enforcing the absolutely no phones out rule and there always seem to be staff about at busy kid times.

There's no doubt it's much higher risk for kids in mixed changing areas so I assume that's why they staff heavily. Don't know what cutbacks will do to that though going forward.

It's absolutely fine to take male toddlers in the women's single sex changing. This has always been the way - boys until about 8ish (? Don't have boys myself) go in with their Mums and the reasons are the same as why we want single sex spaces in the first place - it's safer for women and children (and privacy, dignity, ability to access services and participate in public life etc)

There are more assaults and perving in unisex. By men.

It also means that men and women of certain religious groups that require single sex spaces can't use that pool. It's Islamophobic for a start, hardly inclusive.

I hope you told the receptionist that the unisex changing had excluded you on your way out!

Mixed-sex "changing villages" are not compatible with current technological developments, i.e. everyone having camera-phones.

Most of our local pools are ancient, with separate male and female areas, but one of them has a mixed-sex changing village. That was fine when I first went there, because no-one had a phone more advanced than a Nokia 3210. Now everyone and his dog can spy under partitions with smartphones that would have seemed implausibly advanced in a James Bond film in the 90s.

I don't go there any more.