Are unisex changing rooms and toilets really common across Europe?

[saynotofondant]

Often when there is a new ruling or clarification about single-sex spaces in the UK, I read comments (not here) like “Unisex changing rooms are normal in Europe, it’s just Brits being prudish”.

I lived in Central Europe for a long, long time - Germany mainly - and to be honest I never came across unisex changing rooms or toilets.

What are your experiences? Have you been to many (or any?) places in Europe where unisex changing rooms and toilets are the norm?

Germany does have a very progressive law on self-ID* (including for prisoners) but in daily life, changing rooms and toilets in my experience were always sex-segregated. I did once witness an argument in the ladies’ communal showers after swimming as a woman had brought all her children into the showers with her and one of them was a boy of about 12. (It’s considered hygienic to shower naked after swimming so the women were especially sensitive to overage males).

Sometimes there were slightly ridiculous situations - “textile free” evenings at the local swimming pool where those partaking changed separately and then met naked on the poolside, or stripping off separately and then getting into the same sauna… And of course the lakes often had a naked bank, where everyone stripped off together. But places were designed with separate changing rooms, and there were often allocated “ladies’ days”, “men’s days” and “mixed days” at saunas or naked sections of thermal baths. So people could choose to be naked in front of the other sex or not.

*I guess that means that nowadays men can go into women’s places if they identify as such, and vice versa. But only if they say the magic words.

I cannot believe it is a legal requirement to have unisex facilities.

I've used mix-sex loos in Europe. They were busy and bustling and I didn't feel under threat at all but it was unpleasant because the men using a toilet cubicle for a standup wee mostly thought that because their back was to the crowds they didn't feel the need to shut and lock the door - and whilst yes sure they didn't wave their willy at me, it was no less uncivilised than doing the same action against a building drainpipe in the street.

This what AI says:

No, it is not a legal requirement to have unisex toilets in every venue in France. In fact, traditional gender-segregated facilities remain the standard for most public establishments (établissements recevant du publicor ERP).
However, the legal framework is more nuanced regarding how bathrooms must be structured:
Workplaces: For businesses in France, the French Labour |code explicitly requires employers with a mixed workforce to provide separate toilets and washing facilities for male and female staff.
Public Venues & Restaurants: While larger venues are expected to maintain separate men’s and women’s restrooms, local building codes allow smaller businesses (such as small cafés) with very limited capacity to provide just one accessible, unisex toilet.
Single-Occupancy Rooms: Many venues utilize individual, fully enclosed, single-user toilet rooms. By default, these operate as gender-neutral or unisex facilities simply by nature of being single-occupancy.
Accessibility Requirements: Regardless of gender designation, any public venue offering sanitary facilities must comply with strict accessibility standards for People with Reduced Mobility which often requires offering at least one spacious, adapted toilet.

Over the past thirty years, my wife and I have travelled all over Europe - France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and Spain and we have never seen mixed toilets, they have always been Male or Female. Even in spa towns, like Bad Ems, there were individual changing facilities for Male and Female.

I'm in the UK and my local swimming pool has had mixed changing rooms since I was a toddler. Been camping in France and to theme parks etc, plenty of places with mixed toilets, never had an issue. Been to nightclubs in the UK and Europe with mixed toilets too, never had an issue in them either.
None of this was an issue till someone could make money from it.

Central Europe, not Germany.

We don't have single sex fitting rooms at shops, and we never had. When I go shopping with my male partner, he is bring me other sizes and options to try, and I'm bringing stuff for him.

We do have single sex changing rooms for sports and single sex toilets (from some size of the establishment)
Even with the changing islands with individual cubicles it typically continues with single sex communal showers and people are expected to shower naked there.

Yes, swimming suit free sauna and nude outdoor swimming is a thing here as well and yes, in bigger/public places changing room/showers would be single sex around it. It feels logical to me - underwear and it's undressing is a private moment, the same as proper showering.

Once you are attired as you wish (for sauna it can mean naked or wrapped in a clean towel/sheet), you go to the shared space and just use it.

I am in Madrid and haven´t seen any mixed sex facilities. Only in small establishments with one rest room that anyone can use. My daughter went to swimming classes and the changing rooms were clearly marked female, male and kids groups. We used the kids one when she was small but now she is 7 she prefers the girls only. There is a small number of mums who bring small boys in with them. But apart from that it is respected.

One interesting factoid is when men have committed sexual crimes against women in toilets, sometimes part of the sentence is they get SHPOs which ban them from women’s (and crucially it sometimes also mentions) unisex toilets. This can be for lengthy times like 10 or 15 years.

@Nn9011 it is an issue. It’s just you don’t know about it.

edit: sometimes they are recorded differently, so edit for clarification.

I was really put off Stockholm by the mixed sex loos in several tourist attractions and the unhelpful staff.

I was travelling with a sizeable family group one of which was unfortunate to be a menopausal woman dealing with flooding and another a mum with toddler and babe in arms.

A particular low point was a royal palace in Stockholm which cost a fair amount to get in. The only loo we could find had a long queue of men and women coming right out the door down a corridor. The loos had a large gap under the door and you were centimetres away from queuing men outside. Not that clean either. Very unpleasant for blood soaked aunty. We had to go back to hotel for any privacy. Likewise young mum commented if we hadn’t been there she couldn’t have used the facility as when alone she had to wedge loo door open with pram to help toddler and keep eye on baby.

Staff at the venue were unsmiling and ignored us when we asked if they had family loo/ baby changing. Never again.

Likewise young mum commented if we hadn’t been there she couldn’t have used the facility as when alone she had to wedge loo door open with pram to help toddler and keep eye on baby.

Not an uncommon situation when you have small children. But I guess it's one that the people who design these places either have no experience of or don't care about.

McDonald’s in Monaco is a room with washbasins and mixed cubicles off it. I met a french speaking woman in there who thought it was gross so it wasn’t normal for her but idk where she was from specifically.

I was in Belgium and Netherlands recently, and no mixed-sex facilities (barring very small restaurants, which had single-user space). In one 'hip' cafe in The Netherlands, there was a semi-communal sink area (ie you could see through to the gents' sinks), which felt a little 'exposing', but definitely NOT mixed in terms of the two sides/stalls.

You mean you have never had an issue.

That does not mean there has never been an issue.

In fact, I would be astonished if mixed sex toilets in an environment where there is alcohol being consumed have never “been an issue”.

I would say it is asking for trouble from men who have no idea of boundaries when sober, never mind when drunk.

I have lived in France for 35 years and counting, and a few years in Germany. Toilets are definitely single sex unless there's not enough space (say only one or max two cubicles). It's true everywhere : restaurants, theatres, highway stations, schools, bars, you name it. Right now the only exception I can honestly think of is some public swimming pools, the older ones.

To add to my previous message, trying rooms (is that what it's called?) in clothes stores are mixed and oftentimes open directly onto the floor. If you're unhappy with showing yourself in the clothes you're trying on, you're expected to stay in the cubicle and use the mirror in there. You can invite your partner (mother, friend...) in there.
Although it would be considered pretty bad taste for a man to try his clothes in the cubicles located in the lingerie section.

I’ve travelled extensively in Europe. Only unisex toilets I’ve encountered were both in london.

Coal Drops Yard - shudder at their mixed sex loos, and Camden market

Really? I’ve never seen a communal changing room but I’ve seen plenty of mixed sex toilets often in restaurants. Usually it’s one or two cubicles, with a urinal on the wall outside and a sink. The lock is on the cubicle, not the door. There have been a couple of times where I’ve been using the toilet and come out to find a man peeing in the urinal.

I can’t remember exactly where but remember mixed loos at a museum in Belgium (or possibly the Netherlands) that we used to stop at with students en route to Amsterdam (I think it may have been the design museum in Gent). I wasn’t exactly keen on queuing for the loo alongside a row of urinals some being used by my students.