Let me return to the way this thread started.
I have used and observed women's shower rooms, with the intent of doing the same thing as the cis found within. I and talking about what I have usually found, private showers but communal changing rooms.
To me,the drill seems to be the following.
Enter with bathing suit one (one piece or bikini)
Enter shower with bathing suit on.
Remove suit inside shower.
Wash body
Wash bathing suite (to remove salt or chlorine)
Emerge from shower wearing bath towel wrapped around boobs and covering to upper thighs.
Move to personal locker
Put on panties under towel
Face away from others and put on on bra
Put on top
Put on bottoms (leggings or jeans, never a dress or skirts)
Put on thongs or sandals
exit changing room with wet bathing suit wrapped in towel.
There is very little, if any , casual chatting among swimmers. It is a zone of silence, until exiting. At that point, people with whom you exchanged eye contact inside the changing room might find it appropriate to talk to each other in the usual chatty feminine manner.
Lessons learned: women's changing rooms are private space, but they are checking you out, not for gender identity, but for gossip partners "on the outside,"possibly leading to a social relationship.
Observations: It is all about boobs. Unless you have something to fill your bra, suspicion will come down upon you unless you weigh less than 120 pounds. Because hair is all slicked down from the shower water, and no one has makeup on, it is unadulterated body shape that makes you pass. If body shape is not typically female, boobs are trumps. Lacking typical body shape and lacking boobs, be prepared for a challenge.
Hope this helps.
