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.)

I wouldn't use mixed sex facilities. There should be a choice to cater to parents with opposite sex children, but fully enclosed, not the half door you've described. There is no way that I'd undress myself or a child in an area where men had their phones out. They must be losing so much business over this - how can they possibly think it's inclusive?!

The gym I use has several signs both in and out of the locker rooms; 'Any males over 8 years old in the Ladies facilities must be reported to management immediately.' I'm comfortable with my teenage daughters using it, for that reason.

Thinking of the local pools in my area, all the ones I can remember are single sex, including pools built in the last 15 years. There was one that was a mixed sex changing village but it closed several years ago. It had single sex and family rooms too though.

We do quite a few festivals and usually the portaloos at least in the main arenas are all separate male and female, granted the general campsite portaloo blocks and showers are unisex which is why we sold the tent and bought a camper van! I don’t want me or my partner to have to deal with a, more than likely drunk random male on a late night toilet run. Same for showers, I want a female only space and now we have that in our van. So no you can enjoy festivals and still retain the safety and dignity women want and need, it just means women have to pay more to guarantee their safety, while men get to do what the fuck they like for free!

I don't have an issue with mixed sex change rooms, in fact I prefer as it takes away the whole argument about allowing trans women (men) in women only spaces.

The issue is the cubicle height the OP mentioned. Cubicles should be fully enclosed or at least have high enough doors and bars over the top to prevent people being able to see over.

Not sure why it's so difficult for people to understand why the OP has an issue with cubicles where people can see over the door!!

My local council run pool has a changing village. It's made very clear through signage and layout that there is no nudity allowed outside the cubicles. The whole set up is row of cubicles, row of locker, row of cubicles..l.l there is no space where you could feasibly get changed outside of the cubicles. At the end there are 3 large family rooms. Everything is floor to ceiling walls and lockable doors.

So even though it is mixed sex, it feels safe. If the cubicles could be seen over or under then I wouldn't use it.

This still excludes Muslims and many other religious groups and others who can't used mixed sex. Is that ok? Why can't they have single sex spaces to include these people too?

I'm not sure how all these pools get away with the religious discrimination? Because that's very much what they're doing.

Left wing progressives at least pretend to care about that (even if they don't give a shit about sexual assault of women and children).

I’m a 6ft tall woman and I have to be careful in some changing rooms because I can easily peer down into the next cubicle. Plus my chest is often level with the top of the door so I have to change in this weird knees bent position.

When I was 16 and swimming alone with mixed sex changing someone put a mirror under the cubicle (thankfully before smart phones). When I spoke to reception they said it happened all the time and that some men brought drills in to make holes in the side panels.

When I was 21 I asked a man in his 70s for help to work the lockers in a different mixed changing room. He then swam up and down with me talking. Once I was in the deep end he grabbed me and pushed his tongue in my mouth. I swam off and proceeded to have the longest swim of my life whilst he watched from the showers waiting for me to get out. I thought about telling a life guard but I was self conscious and didn't want to stand nearly naked talking to a young man about what had happened. Eventually he got bored and left. It makes me so cross that I can't encourage my daughters to go swimming by themselves as they become older and more independent.

And don't get me started on the Butlins changing village with mixed sex toilets "designed with Mumsnet" the sign says. Not with the members of this board I always think!

So let's not be dismissive about safety concerns in mixed changing. We know it is risky for women and children.

All our local pools have become mixed changing areas. When the kids were small and we went as a family it worked as we could use a family cubicle and me and husband could get changed while the other looked after the kids. But I still believe there should also be separate single sex spaces for changing and showering. At one leisure centre there had to be rules displayed saying not to be naked in any communal areas. There had been instances of men showering naked in the communal showers while families/children/women were also showering.

At my local pool (not in the UK) all the changing facilities, toilets and showers are mixed sex, with the exception of a small number of enclosed shower cubicles.

Men have to wear Speedo type swimwear so obviously it doesn't leave much to the imagination, but I haven't witnessed any inappropriate behaviour. In the showers people just have a quick lather with soap (with their swimwear on) and then leave. Everyone minds their own business.

But the changing cubicles are pretty much floor to ceiling. There are small gaps under the doors and someone who was really motivated could stick a phone underneath, but you certainly can't see over the tops of the doors and walls, and you wouldn't be able to see anything underneath unless you lay on the floor and stuck your head under the door, which would be very obvious and attract the attention of staff and other swimmers. I think it would be better if there was some single sex changing space available but I probably wouldn't use it personally. If it feels safe enough to use the mixed space when I am with my children, I can't imagine I'd feel differently if I were on my own and there was a women only space available.

What sounds really inappropriate about your setup is being able to see into the cubicles. I wouldn't like that at all.

This sort of facility has been the norm in local authority leisure centres for at least 40 years.

What, being able to look over the top of cubicles, even as a small woman?

Not in any local authority leisure centre I have ever seen.

If you were a devout enough Muslim to care about gender segregation in the changing room, you'd be a devout enough Muslim to care even more about mixed-sex swimming, and wouldn't do it. A single sex changing room would make no difference.

Don't suddenly pretend you care about this issue to make your point, because I don't think you properly understand it at all.

It's impossible to look over the top of the cubicles in every changing room I've been in.

This is one of the reasons why, not so long ago, many swimming pools and leisure centres had women only slots. All of that has gone by the wayside now, of course. The "women only" slots might still exist, but they are now open to anyone who identifies as a woman, making them essentially useless to the women they were originally intended for.

I use the women only sessions in East London - always very busy with those from a religious background.

Well, I appreciate that's an issue, but it's a different one to that being discussed here.

I just find it grossly hypocritical of feminists to suddenly care about the religious angle here when (a) they haven't really thought it through and (b) in doing so they're propping up an ideology which is gruesomely, disgustingly patriarchal. What's excluding women the most here? The men in charge of religion. It certainly ain't the layout of changing rooms.

That’s not true. I live in an area with a lot of women who wear the hijab and pre lockdown there were more and more coming to the pool - more girls joining in school swim lessons. Mums taking little kids to the pool and joining in Aqua aerobics classes.

I expect there are some particularly religious types who would be be working a hundred miles of men they aren’t related to but they aren’t the majority.

Were they using mixed changing facilities?

Sorry, what patriarchal ideology do you believe feminists are propping up? I'm not sure I understand your point.

I'm saying it's a bit ridiculous for feminists to care about the more extreme elements of Islam when it's such a brutally anti-women ideology.

How many women do you think get to go swimming in Afghanistan?

A man once lay on the floor in order to push his head under the side of my cubicle to spy on me changing out of my swim suit.

I won’t use unisex change areas since then.

Thankfully my nearest pool has men/women/family so mothers can change with their sons AND women who are swimming alone are not subjected to male voyeurs.

So women who are living under the patriarchy of Islam should just be thrown under the bus by feminists and forced out of public life?

No.