After outcry, German swimming pools start to let women to go topless

People may think Germans are stuffy and fussy, but when it comes to bathing culture, they are surprisingly relaxed. Most of the time.

Head to a German sauna and you might be surprised to learn that generally, swimwear is not allowed.

From the north to the south, beaches usually have an area dedicated to FKK - meaning "Freikörperkultur," which loosely translates as nudism.

But the rules are usually different at public swimming pools, where the primary sexual organs - penis and vulva - and the secondary sexual organs - women's breasts - must be covered.

That is changing after women started campaigning, saying they are being treated differently than men who may go topless at public pools and parks.

In Berlin, security officials made a woman leave a pool in a park for sunbathing topless, with the police also reportedly involved in the incident.

In Göttigen, Mia Berger (not her real name) drew similar outrage when she took her top off at an indoor pool last summer.

"It felt nice to realize: I just feel more comfortable without this top sticking to my body," Berger, who wishes to remain anonymous, told dpa.

Berger is non-binary, not identifying as a man or woman, but the pool asked her to leave and not come back, saying she had broken the rules.

That set more people wondering why women have to cover their breasts at pools while men can go topless? Activists across Germany are questioning the double standard, demanding that if men can go topless, everyone else should be able to as well.

It is about gender justice and the desexualization of the female body, they say, of a movement some are calling "topfreedom."

In August 2021, activists in Berlin held a bike demonstration under the banner "No nipple is free until all nipples are free!" to protest the incident at the pool.

The rules telling women how to dress while bathing go back a long way in Germany. Under a 1932 decree, women were only allowed to swim in public if they wore a swimming costume that completely covered the front of their upper body, including their breasts, and was tight under the arms.

In the 1950s and 60s, bikinis were banned in many pools or on beaches, restrictions that were only lifted during the 1968 movement in West Germany that saw mass protests against the establishment and sexual liberation.

Some 90 years later, at least in Göttingen's pools, people are taking more of their clothes off, thanks to Berger and a local movement Gleiche Brust für alle, which translates as "Equal breast for all."

All can go topless at the city's four public pools on Saturdays and Sundays, in a change introduced in May. .

"An unusually large number of bathers" came to the pools on the first day that the new rules were implemented, says Andreas Gruber, who heads the pools' operator.

There was a lot of positive feedback and a lot of guests were taking up the opportunity, he said.

The Berlin pool has also changed its rules, now requiring guests of "all genders" to cover only their primary sexual organs, according to Tagesspiegel newspaper.

Some questions remain. One social media user asked whether men in Göttingen must now wear bikini tops and bathing suits during the week?

The Göttingen committee that adopted the new rule said some had asked for consideration for people who come from different cultures, Equal Opportunities Officer Christine Müller says.

However, Mia Berger says going topless in public could be the standard for everyone one day, regardless of gender, age or origin.

It's the gaze that's the problem, she says, not the nudity.

The Göttingen rule only applies until the end of August but activists are now campaigning for "topfreedom" beyond that date.