While the Quebec government and certain Quebec cities are putting forward inclusive facilities such as universal – therefore non-gendered – changing rooms, three complaints made in one month by women at the University of Montreal swimming pool illustrate the difficulties that this type of room can lift.
The situation was reported in the student newspaper Free time.
A major renovation is underway at the CEPSUM swimming pool, the sports complex of the University of Montreal, at a cost of 12 million.
Before the work as after, there will be three types of changing rooms: one for women, one for men and another, universal, which aims to accommodate both families who use the swimming pool – mainly on weekends – that trans or non-binary people are uncomfortable with a gendered locker room.
As Julie Cordeau-Gazaille, press officer at the University of Montreal, explains, during the work, “access to the women’s locker room had to be rearranged, which meant that women were forced to leave the swimming pool enclosure, to cross an entire corridor where the student community lockers are located. Most women have therefore stopped using it and fallen back on the universal wardrobe.
And it didn’t go very well. The University of Montreal confirms that the CEPSUM management received “a few complaints” from “women who had a feeling of unease”, as reported Free time.
The UdeM student newspaper describes a situation of intimidation felt by a woman when she was alone with a group of men in the universal locker room. The student newspaper also talks about complaints about insistent stares.
“It is to respond to this issue that the CEPSUM management made the decision that the universal locker room would only be accessible to women during the week until the end of the work,” indicates M.me Cordeau-Gazaille.
“Concern for inclusion”
Universal changing rooms have been commonplace for decades in sports centers. They were first made to meet the needs of families who will play sports with young children.
Over the years, as a document from the Quebec government explains, universal locker rooms have multiplied “for the sake of inclusion.”
“Whether it’s preparing for swimming […]traditional gendered changing rooms have several disadvantages”, in particular “for trans and non-binary people, who could feel discomfort using single-sex changing rooms”, “for families, when accompanied children are not of the same sex as the accompanying parent”, “for people with reduced mobility” […] and “for school groups.” »
Conversely, according to the same document from the Quebec government on the issue, “universal locker rooms have numerous advantages: reduction of discrimination linked to gender identity or expression, improvement of the experience of families […] increased security in common areas.”
On the contrary, in the case of CEPSUM, women’s feeling of security was undermined by the temporary installations before the University of Montreal reserved the universal locker room for women only during the work (people wanting to have access to a locker room non-gendered who can request a key to have access to a small individual room).
In light of the complaints and experiences denounced by users, Alecsandre Sauvé-Lacoursière, secretary general of the Federation of student associations on the campus of the University of Montreal, concludes that there is still “a lot of sensitivity to be done on the sexual violence and incivility.
Asked to know its assessment of the current and future locker rooms, the Alternative, which explains on its internet page that it is a group for 2sLGBTQIA+ people from the University of Montreal, did not respond to our requests.