Scottish Changing Village FOI data

[RedToothBrush]

Women's Rights Network Scotland

Leisure centre FOI data.

https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/changing-areas-have-to-change-call-for-action-as-stats-reveal-close-to-100-sex-crimes-at-leisure-centres/

Incidents occurred at venues with shared facilities. No crimes were recorded at centres with single-sex facilities but incidents were reported at pools which had mixed-sex “village-style” shared showers and changing facilities.

That's a chilling report - and no surprise to women on here. I see the useful idiot employed by Fife council is unable to acknowledge the levels of predatory behaviour - against children as well as adults. So Fife will never accept any responsibility for their dangerous decisions.

I can't say I'm surprised to see the Scotland data mirrors England and Wales.

The pressure from these WRN reports is having an effect though:

• Ukactive has issued guidance that offering only village change is likely discriminatory. That carries a lot of weight in the industry

• Sport England have categorically stated that their design guidelines are NOT best practice. They've also stated that the term "preferred option" isn't a recommendation, it's merely an observation of what councils and architects are doing. Most importantly, they've announced a review of the pool design guidelines and the Accessible and Inclusive Sports Facilities guidance that is the root cause of the proliferation of village changing.

I'm hopeful that village changing is on the way out.

Just awful

Incidents occurred at venues with shared facilities. No crimes were recorded at centres with single-sex facilities but incidents were reported at pools which had mixed-sex “village-style” shared showers and changing facilities.

This implies that every single recorded event was avoidable.

Every single one of those assaults could have been avoided.
How many lives changed? How many childhoods broken?

Just because some men want to invade women's spaces?
Because some people think the more boundaries they smash the more progressive they are?

Am I understanding the FOI correctly?

Thanks for this OP.

When I find a link to the report I shall read it. The summary sounds very grim.

Pretty much by the looks of it.

I am shocked that despite such a high number of incidents in just two years, that there seems to be no sense of urgency (or indeed expression of shock or concern) in the quotes in that article by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities or by Fife Council.

I'm sure there will be a long drawn out review and consideration...while women and girls continue to be harmed.

Sorry. The above has the links. I hope MNHQ will unhide it.

Here is one of those links

womensrightsnetwork.substack.com/p/5f9c88c9-1957-4b7a-99fe-5146a81510c7

This happened to me and my best friend at a changing village. We were getting dressed after our swim and heard a moaning sound only to look down and see a bloke had forced his head through the gap underneath and he was loudly pleasuring himself.

Luckily this was years ago so at least he wasn't filming it. We were so shocked we never made a complaint, we just instinctively wanted to get away as quickly as possible. We used to go swimming at least once a week but we never went back after that.

Obviously it's nowhere near as bad as actually being assaulted, but I wanted to mention it because I bet there are loads of women and girls who experience this and just don't say anything to anyone. I am sure that the real figures are much, much higher than the report suggests.

Well at least we have something concrete to come back with, when people on here say, "My leisure centre has mixed village changing areas and it works great, I've never had a problem with it."

Apart from anything else it's all so bloody stupid. What kind of person actually thinks that mixed sex is safer than sex segregated changing.

This relentless and arrogant reinvention of the wheel is infuriating.

And yes, I know the sorts of people pushing it through are doing it precisely because it's not safe. But there must be numerous other people who just don't think.

I see it so often on social media - women saying that they don't mind mixed sex spaces, or saying they have never had a problem with it.

It just shows that humans aren't always very good at recognising risk. It's not that long ago that people thought wearing a seatbelt was optional.

It's why we need the experts to make people aware of the risks.

I really feel like every post at the moment needs to be bigly text screaming:

'WE FUCKING KNOW'

'WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU ON'

or

'OF COURSE IT FUCKING WOULD?'

The NSPCC?

Yeah, there's something rotten in the NSPCC. Thank goodness the scrutiny is dazzling now.

I suspect the voyeurism is probably massively understated.

Apparently, according some of the headlines surrounding the article linked in the OP, It's Time. Something about reducing offences against women and girls. So it's high time to get rid of mixed sex changing villages.

Back in 2018 Andrew Gilligan in the Times was reporting on this. Yet local authorities, businesses & sports leaders have been so captured by predatory beliefs that they've all determinedly eradicated safety for women and children. I know that they're not all predators but why do they so enthusiastically dismiss safeguarding?

https://www.thetimes.com/life-style/sex-relationships/article/sex-pests-target-women-in-mixed-changing-rooms-x3vw2lnv8

archive.ph/M6Dhm

... why do they so enthusiastically dismiss safeguarding?

Money perhaps? The consensus seems to be that the village style changing is both cheaper and requires less space

That, and the fact that within any sector, fads tend to spread because organisations faced with a project often don't just work it out from first principles, they look at what other people have done in the same situation.

Also they're more acutely aware of the downsides of whatever system they are currently running than of the problems of an unfamiliar system. Greener grass on the other side of the fence.

And of course, there's always what CS Lewis dubbed "chronological snobbery" - the idea that anything new and fashionable must by definition be more advanced, efficient and progressive.

It's like the architectural fad for flat roofs. People relearned, the hard way, exactly why they weren't ideal in a wet climate.

Yowser

seems pretty unequivocal that mixed sex changing and showers puts women at increased risk doesn’t it?

I suppose village-style changing avoids the old question of what age child of the opposite sex you can take into the facilities of your own sex, and the rather newer question of whether men should take young daughters into the women's facilities or the men's. Even with older children, they are useful as you can have adjacent cubicles and you can help when someone has forgotten to bring a towel or whatever. They also give better facilities than are usually available for opposite-sex carers. So maybe the answer is to have some village-style and some single-sex, with only families and disabled people and their carers allowed in the village-style.

some village-style and some single-sex

that’s what they used to have at my local pool, pre refurb and it worked fine

no need to police the mixed sex area particularly. If you needed it, you used it, otherwise you headed to the women’s or the men’s

One of the crimes listed in the report specifies that it was a carer who committed the offence. Whether the carer of the 2 young girls being spied on or of someone else is unclear. So a 'families, carers and disabled people' village is still unsafe.

I note there wasn't a single crime reported against an adult man. All the male victims were minors - 2 aged between 13 and 15, and the rest under 13. Men are safe in men's changing rooms - or any other changing rooms. Women are safe only in single-sex changing rooms.

https://www.sportengland.org/guidance-and-support/facilities-and-planning/design-and-cost-guidance/accessible-inclusive

Big red banner saying they're under review.

https://sportscotland.org.uk/facilities/design-guidance/guidance-by-facility-type/accessible-inclusive

Fuck all.