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.)

How can this be ‘inclusive’ (of who?). It excludes people of religious beliefs (both sexes), DV/SA survivors, people who are just uncomfortable undressing around the opposite sex.

id be asking ‘inclusion for who???’

Parents struggling to find suitable changing facilities for them and their opposite sex children is a legitimate need with a large group to be accommodated. Plus the needs of some with disabilities and opposite sex carers.
Apart from this, no women anywhere in the world campaigned for unknown men to be given access to women & girls when we're undressing, showering, sleeping etc.
This is a completely male dominated demand currently being facilitated by numerous hard of thinking individuals who have reinterpreted "inclusive" to mean excluding women and girls from services and spaces that are meant to be private and safe.

There are good and bad mixed facilities - I'd have a problem with the phones and the gaps.

Only one changing village I've ever encountered was like this - no phones or naked men wandering round but huge gaps - my kids hated it and I noticed most adults used the toilets to change - also found out later there had been repeated voyeuristic incidents at that location as well.

There were other swimming pools in the city we went there instead which were also mixed changing villages but so much better designed full doors and no gaps.

Having a DS and taking him swimming with me and girls - I did prefer mixed changing villages and hadn't encountered problems with any till we went to that site - ironically considered the premium site by council.

It's clear from the few posters on this thread that the phrase "it's inclusive" is just trotted out as some sort of moral 'gotcha'.

I really, REALLY want them to break this phrase down and really explain to me what this means.

I've asked the same in RL and surprise surprise, no one is able to answer.

You are not being unreasonable OP. Far from it .

My (only) local pool has changing rooms for male, female and families. Interestingly, the sign for the female room is a sheet of paper saying "female" stuck over whatever was there before - I am intrigued as to what it used to be but nobody seems to know. There is a communal area with lockers, about 6 cubicles (with gaps above and below, but that's no problem as it's single sex) and three open showers. There are three toilet cubicles beyond the showers. I have never seen a man in the female room.

I haven't been in the family ones but I notice that for the baby and toddler swimming lessons, many mothers change their little ones in the female room - which is absolutely fine - not complaining, love seeing the babies - but it makes me wonder why they don't want to go in the family room.

I absolutely agree, but to give @Rosesanddaisies1 the benefit of the doubt, maybe she just hasn't thought it through properly yet. I really hope she does after this thread.

@Rosesanddaisies1 - when you think of allowing transwomen in to female changing rooms, I'm sure you think you're being kind. You're being sympathetic and empathetic of their feelings of their identifying as a woman, and feel sorry for them that they're not comfortable in the men's.

That's great. So. Where does this sympathy, empathy and kindness go to, when you hear many women say they are not comfortable with biological males in the female change?

Why are the women not given your sympathy to be comfortable but the men are? It might be that you are an internal misogynist but haven't even particularly realised it.

And we're only talking about comfort here. Which comes second to safety. It has been pointed out above, and this is a great stat for the op to quote in her letter - 90% of sexual assaults committed in changing rooms are in mixed sex facilities, despite the fact that mixed sex facilities are only 50% of the available facilities.

I honestly don't under how anybody can genuinely think trans peoples feelings come before women's safety.

I stayed at Bluestone in Wales for the 1st time post covid and found they had changed their separate male/female/family facilities to one whole unisex area. The first visit we saw one man stark naked in a mixed changing area and another weeing in full sight in the "ladies "toilet with the door open. Needless to say I wasn't then happy to send my pre teen and teen girls in by themselves when normally I would be happy to let them go unescorted!

OMG the phones under cubicles thing is urghhhhhhh gross.

Think I would change into my swimming cossie at home before turning up. Then be extra careful when getting dressed again.

Theres' weirdos and missfits every where.

That’s a family holiday destination most suitable for families with young kids and the only provision they’ve got is a mixed sex changing room? And a man thinks that gives him the entitlement to parade around stark naked in front of women and children.

Did you complain to the staff?

I have been swimming for years and have swum competitively for clubs in the past.

Changing Villages started appearing as early as the 1980s, and in the past thirty years it has become the norm for facilities I've used at least.

So to answer the OP, this set-up isn't uncommon and has been around for years. I don't think it has much to do with the 'trans' phenomenon.

There is a very real problem with voyeurism, made worse by the advent of smart phones and tiny cameras. A lot of pools have tried to ban camera phones, but policing is ineffective.

It would be good and more inclusive for pools to provide single-sex options as well, but personally I prefer a private cubicle and it was much easier when I had small children.

That's grim - in fact would put me off booking there ever again.

The ideal is choice male/female/mixed for families but I still think with good design mixed changed villages - often visible to pool and visible to staff there work well but poor design makes them downright dangerous and small camera are now an additional risk.

It's a while since I've been to a pool, so I don't know what the norm is round here, but the setup described in the OP is really not OK. All the posters who think it's fine should read the posts describing harassment, nakedness in front of the opposite sex, filming - not theoretical, not a worry-that-won't-happen, but things that actually do happen.

It's great to have large, unisex cubicles available for families, but they should be more enclosed and private than these ones, and single-sex changing areas should be available as well.

I started taking DS swimming when he was tiny - so back in 2004 and there was open changing ‘villages’ but also single sex changing areas.

Later on when he was taking lessons I remember chatting to a coach who had said that she had quite a few girls who were eventually getting into swimming because they were able to wear hijabi swimming costumes. She was so happy that these girls were able to exercise and swim with the rest of the class. One day one of the girls was sitting by the side in tears because she had forgotten her hair covering and couldn’t go swimming.

How exactly could women and girls who can’t be seen without their hair covered change in a mixed sex changing area ffs?

If we can’t have single sex changing and even women I my gym sessions are we just expected to stay at home?

I love it when they say ‘noone complains’. Because those who would complain don’t come because they know they can’t use the facilities and might get into a row, get told off by some numpty at the front desk for being ‘not inclusive n’ or a ‘hateful bigot’?

Due to my faith I'm unable to walk from the shower to the cubicle in just a towel so avoid mixed sex facilities.

Due to the fact I’m as blind as a bat and can’t bloody well see particularly far I prefer to be confident that I’m not showing/changing next to men.

I love it when they say ‘noone complains’. Because those who would complain don’t come because they know they can’t use the facilities

Exactly I avoid and go elsewhere or do something else - and in time they wander why their numbers are down.

The poorly design changing village had numerous complaints and police incidents with prosecutions and local media reporting and nothing was done - even closing another pool hasn't increased traffic to that one - regulars seemed use sex segregated toilets to change despite notices saying don't.

Same, I am really baffled that OP hasn’t encountered this before. Totally normal in every pool I’ve ever been in.

When I went swimming when I was younger, it was in a place that had single sex changing.

More recently, toddler and I have gone to swimming lessons and activities at a place with single sex changing.

I don't have much experience of swimming pools, so I wasn't sure if this was just normal or not, given my adult experience of n=2 for swimming pools.

Because of my job and hobby (swimming) I have visited about 20 pools this past year. Just working through the changing facilities now in my head, about 10 are single sex, 10 are changing villages.

I can't believe you have such a lack of empathy.

I would absolutely hate this. In fact I don’t think I could use such a changing facility.

My local pool has a large mixed sex changing room and showers but it’s all lockable cubicles including large family changing rooms. There’s no reason for anyone to not be appropriately dressed. in four years going twice a week there’s never been an issue and I am hyper vigilant - I’ve had to report inappropriate males in the teaching pool.
that being said, if your not comfortable then don’t use this pool and email management and tell them there’s absolutely no reason to have such open cubicles in a mixed sex space. They won’t change unless they know it’s an issue

Thanks, that's helpful to know. I'm enjoying helping my child learn to swim and was thinking about starting going swimming as a hobby (previously it was something I only really kept in mind as a life-saving thing for if I fell off a boat or into a body of water - we go hill-walking and out on boats, but until I had a child I'd not set foot in a swimming pool since I was about 14). Today put me off that venue and if that's how most changing areas would be then it wouldn't be the hobby for me.

Of the ones I know, so this is anecdotal to my area of England, all the pools that are part of a school and then used outside of school time for the public, these all have single sex facilities. So maybe try one of those. Good luck, swimming is great for you, so worth finding one.