Norwich Confidential: The University of East Anglia’s Wi-Spa Moment
by Corisande Pick
(Photos by Helen Dunlea and Nathalie Kail)
Reports of a naked man exposing himself to women in the female changing rooms at UEA Sportspark, a wholly-owned company belonging to the University of East Anglia, suggest that the UEA is neglecting the privacy, dignity and safety of its female staff, students & visitors.
In the face of an alarming drop in student recruitment and a financial crisis, the University has put forth a proposal to address these issues by potentially making up to a third of its teaching and research staff redundant. Despite these financial concerns, the University continues to pay an annual fee to be a Stonewall Diversity Champion. Additionally, University Departments have invited other gender identity ideologues such as Gendered Intelligence to conduct paid "diversity training" sessions.
According to the Eastern Daily Press, the staff apparently refused to intervene when women expressed distress over male individuals exposing themselves or simply being present in areas where women and girls were undressing.
The women turned to the local paper after they had seen and complained about the man walking around naked for two weeks in succession, obviously realising that staff would not challenge him.
As the case of Wayne Couzens proves, indecent exposure is a crime that tends to escalate, in his case to the brutal murder of Sarah Everard. Norwich Women’s Rights Group, a local affiliate of the Women’s Rights Network, has spoken to a Sportspark user who saw a man in the female changing rooms a few weeks earlier - obviously male, but at this point still wearing a swimsuit in the shared areas. This suggests his behaviour may be escalating.
Since local press published the story, concerned users of the swimming pool and gym have contacted SportsparkUEA to ask about their changing room policy and for assurances that the changing rooms - which are clearly marked “female” - are in fact spaces for female users only.
Despite repeated direct requests, the Marketing and Communications Manager has refused to engage with the issue and continues to ignore requests that the policy is explained.
Since the story broke, a local swimmer who realised there was a man in the female changing rooms AGAIN complained in person to Sportspark Reception and was handed this piece of paper with the same form of words.
How bad must it be when you have to keep a print-out of your feeble excuses handy to silence complaints from women?
It says, and you’ll forgive me butting in now and then…
“We want to provide some reassurance to our Sportspark Users about the current situation around the use of changing spaces at the Sportspark.
“The welfare of all our users is of paramount importance [Is it? Is it though?] and we take all aspects of privacy, decency, health and safety of the centre and its users very seriously.
“We have designated male and female changing spaces and we provide a range of changing options for our users. [That’s great! Which is the one you don’t allow males in?]
“These include separate accessible changing, self-contained changing cubicles, as well as group change spaces.”
These are the “self contained changing cubicles” - with gaps above and below and opening into the communal changing area where a naked man has been seen exposing himself on several occasions.
“We also provide self-contained shower facilities in addition to our communal areas.”
These are the showers: “self contained” with glass doors and plastic curtains.
“We fully recognise the complexities and sensitivities of balancing the rights and needs of different groups accessing public spaces [not much “balancing” if the demands of a few fetishistic men outweigh the legally-recognised need for safety, privacy and dignity of every woman and girl using the changing rooms] together with our legal responsibilities when providing appropriate facilities. [What are your legal responsibilities to not mislead users?]
“We are a facility that listens to our users’ concerns and we are actively reviewing our policies, to ensure they continue to be in line with legal and regulatory and good practice. [“Continue“?] All feedback from Sportspark users is greatly valued [citation needed] and we will be including this into the next review of our facilities.
“We aim to ensure all users can access spaces with privacy and dignity [except women and girls. If that was your aim for us, you missed] and we would ask all Sportspark users to be respectful of others and sensitive to different personal circumstances when using our facilities. [This is just “be kind” in longer words and a pathetic substitute for upholding women’s legal right to single sex spaces. Why does the “respect” and “kindness” economy always extract these qualities FROM women for the benefit of men with special feelz? How about SportsparkUEA tried respecting women, and the law?]. Users are reminded that they can report any behavioural or safeguarding concerns [women did. They reported naked men in their changing rooms. You fobbed then off with this paper and told them to “be respectful”].
Norwich Women’s Rights Group member Carole Brown commented,”Saying their policy on changing rooms is “under review” is no excuse for not revealing it. Until a new policy has been formulated and appropriate staff training and signage put in place, the current policy must still be in force. Users should be able to see what that policy is.”
Another member of NWRG pointed out that the numerous local schools and sports clubs who use SportsparkUEA have to conduct risk assessments for every visit.
These are done on the basis that when signs say “female changing rooms” the policy is that they are for females, not for males.
The apparent unstated policy that users have to respect men who want to get naked around female schoolchildren means that no visiting school or club’s risk assessment can be trusted.
Unaccompanied children can use the Sportspark from the age of 12.
Local politicians are not likely to take these concerns seriously. Norwich City Council, home of Green Cllr Alex Catt, were warned, when they passed a motion stating some men are women, that it would put single-sex changing rooms in sports facilities at risk.
The University is represented by Labour Councillor Matthew Fulton-MacAlister, whose brilliant definition of “woman” makes him well-suited to represent East Anglia’s leading educational establishment
”As a Norwich Cllr I am very happy to say that a woman is someone who self identifies as such. I do not check the genitals of anyone who informs me of their gender through verbal or non verbal presentation. Anyone who does should be put on the sex offenders register.”
Matthew is just like many other online misogynists who seem to enjoy implying that women who worry about their safety want to do "genital inspections". With the flasher at UEA, we don't even need to - he's happy to show us everything—and SportsparkUEA is letting him.
I don't understand why the clearly male flasher has not been arrested - it is against the law for a man to expose his penis to a woman or child without consent - being in a changing room should make no difference to that law. Come on women, please, stand up for yourselves and call the Police - this is clearly indecent exposure - we have to fight this head on. I would absolutely call the Police if this happened to me - no hesitation.
Well you could knock me down with a feather, who’d have thought that this would happen.
As regards the ‘justifications’ given, they sound exactly like the crap replies I get from M and S regarding their mixed sex changing rooms which have no signage.