Sexual predators target girls in mixed changing rooms, police data reveal

16 comments

1. ***The Telegraph reports:***

   Women and girls are being sexually assaulted in mixed changing rooms across the country.

   New police data show that at least 16 rapes, 80 [sexual assaults](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sexual-assault/) and 65 acts of voyeurism were committed in sports centres in 2023, equating to three offences a week.

   Many of the offences were in mixed-sex changing areas, according to a report by the Women’s Rights Network (WRN), which obtained the figures via freedom of information requests.

   Campaigners warned that mixed-sex changing areas were a “magnet for sexual predators”.

   Single-sex changing facilities are not mandatory, but a Supreme Court ruling in April found the word “sex” in the Equality Act referred to biological sex and not gender identity.

   The equality and human rights committee has said this means that only biological women should be able to access female changing rooms.

   However, many leisure centres are side-stepping the guidance by installing mixed-sex changing areas, with one in three failing to offer any single-sex facilities.

   **Read more:** [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/12/09/sexual-predators-target-girls-mixed-changing-rooms-wrn-uk/](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/12/09/sexual-predators-target-girls-mixed-changing-rooms-wrn-uk/)

2. But I thought sexual predators don’t need easier access? I was told it’s irrelevant and ease of access to young girls isn’t something that would increase rates of offending?

   Were all those Twitter and Reddit experts wrong? No way!

3. Concerning but I wonder why the telegraph went with ‘many’ of the reports being about incidents in mixed changing rooms rather than the number of reports compared to the total or the ratio of mixed changing rooms to seperate changing rooms

4. For context 16 rapes out of 68,387 total rapes in 2023 is about 0.02% of the total rapes in the UK.

5. I mean, it stands to reason. You are increasing opportunity and reducing risk of getting caught through plausible deniability.

6. Not trying to say such incidents don’t happen but moving from irrefutable statement of statistics for the total number of offences committed within sports centres as a whole to simply “many of them” have happened in mixed areas seems intentionally wooly. Feels like that should have been a data point that’s somewhat easily calculable unless the actual number isn’t a high enough percentage to suit the narrative of the story.

7. Well, obviously. Single-sex changing rooms provide no opportunity for such actions, it’s actually shocking that 1 in 3 leisure centres only have communal changing facilities.

8. No fucking shit Sherlock!

9. “New police data show that at least 16 rapes, 80 [sexual assaults](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sexual-assault/) and 65 acts of voyeurism were committed in sports centres in 2023, equating to three offences a week.

   Many of the offences were in mixed-sex changing areas, according to a report by the Women’s Rights Network (WRN), which obtained the figures via freedom of information requests.”

   So they havent said at what rate it has increased. So is it an issue or not ? They have legitimately said this has happened. A bunch were in mixed sex rooms. How many were in single sex. How many happened last year. How many happened the year before. Is there a increased rate that matches the increased rate of single sex rooms? Fuck me journalism is dead

10. What an utterly shocking turn of events. Nobody could have predicted this.

11. I’m skeptical, this data is a mess. This seems to be a tiny percentage of the total sexual offences being committed (which according to the ONS was about 200k) and they don’t state what percentage were in mixed changing rooms or how many were committed against women or girls. I’m also curious why they chose 2023 and not 2024 which is more recent.

    I also highly doubt that many sports centres have suddenly converted their single sex changing rooms to mixed since April, many existed before that and have done for decades.

12. Who’da thunk it?

13. No way? I thought we only had separate changing rooms and toilets because the patriarchy wants to confine us in boxes and oppress gender queen people. Im astounded that it actually has some practical and blatantly obvious uses

14. Having mixed areas where people are, arguably, at their most vulnerable is ridiculous.

15. I used to work in a Leisure Centre many years ago. We had communal changing for the leisure pool and health suite. I can confirm that inappropriate behaviour was common mainly flashing, peekers and inappropriate comments. This was before smart phones which will have only created further issues.

    Unfortunately there are a proportion of the population – mainly male who are deviants. Communal changing allows them far easier access. I witnessed this myself many times. Then you consider self-identification in single sex spaces which is an absolute minefield. I learned at a young age how awkward some people like to be. They enjoy pushing boundaries and forcing issues and conflict. I don’t doubt that many who demand access to single sex spaces are doing so for their own pleasure – they get off on it.

16. Wait so women weren’t given segregated spaces because they were being discriminated against 🫨

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