AIBU to take my son into the female changing room?

It's not "turned sexual" - this rule of no over 7s in the opposite sex changing has been in existence forever. Plenty of 9 year olds have started puberty and don't want boys their own age staring at them. It's only becoming an issue because parents infantilise their children to the extent that an 8 year old can't change without mummy supervising.

YABU, he's too old. While I feel for you, I wouldn't have liked it and I wouldn't expect my DD to have to change in front of a child of this age and opposite sex (theoretically, she's still a toddler).

Your child's disabilities do not trump the right of females to change in a male free space.

It's nothing to do with 'everything (being) turned sexual', it's about respecting that this is a female space, meant only for females (and boys only up to a fairly young age).

Behave yourself OP.

Not quite the same, but my son is 9 with similar disabilities that you have mentioned, plus others. He is also incontinent and non verbal The 1 and only disabled toilet was out of service at a restaurant the other day and I had to take him into the female loo to change him.

The cubicle is too small for 2 people so I had to change him with the cubicle door open and me kneeling in the gangway, trying my best to preserve his dignity whilst ensuring no one else felt uncomfortable. So, effectively it was an open plan situation!

Any teenage girl (or woman for that matter) walking in, seeing it, then feeling uncomfortable whilst I'm doing all that, sorry - they can wait outside.

Whilst I agree that women and girls deserve privacy changing, so do boys and men. If there's nowhere suitable for all involved, someone has to wait. And that person should be the one who enters second into the room.

Before anyone shoots me - So far as age being an issue and sexualising body parts / pointing out puberty, my 9 yr old doesn't even know what his own belly button is never mind anyone's anything else.... Neurological teenagers or adults however, do. So the onus should be on them not to point out penises or boobs or whatever else and making it a big deal.

Special needs parents can't do right for doing wrong in circumstances like yours. It makes me mad and sad at the same time. I genuinely feel for you. 💐

IMO, YANBU.

I think the use of mixed, group, open, large and other words in the OP is confusing.

If I understand correctly:

• family/accessible/baby change x 2
• male group open changing space
• female group open changing space
• individual cubicles too small for OP with DC

So if I've read it correctly, females still have the options of individual cubicles? In which case YANBU. If a class of school girls were getting changed at that time it would be different but it sounds like due to the lack of family cubicles, quite a few families were doing the same as the OP.

If I'd been the teen, I wouldn't have been happy. But I would have had to option of using an individual? Good her for for speaking up though.

If you have to do the same again next week, it's probably ok, but continue to be considerate as you have been with him facing the wall etc.

Like more and more people nowadays, I had early puberty (9). I stopped swimming for years not long after. It's a difficult age.

9 is too old sorry OP and there was an alternative, you just needed to wait for it which I appreciate isn't ideal.

I would use an individual cubicle in that situation. Sit one child on the bench while you dress the other. Then swap. Or get 2 adjacent cubicles and put a child in each. Go in with the one who needs more help or get one to just wait in their hooded towel. Nine is much too old for a girls changing room.

I'd call that sexual. Isn't the discomfort from body parts on display?

Pootle, I don’t think it’s turned sexual, it’s just about the discomfort experienced by females when there’s a male in the changing rooms?

I (a grown woman) would not be bothered. However, my 12 and 9yo DDs would be mortified and have been previously.

Nowadays, they won't use the changing rooms at the pool due to similar circumstances so we bung a big toweling poncho over them, whizz home and then they can shower in privacy. This would be an option for you OP.

I sympathise with you OP. Stressful situation and as you can see from this thread everything is turned sexual - even for a 9 year old boy. We have similar at our lessons-very limited family changing and sometimes they are taken by a family when they are all the same sex (ie dad and two boys) and they should be using the men's to give priority to mixed families for exactly this reason.

I've been there. My eldest is a boy with SEND.
I wouldn't queue for ages, because queues are hard with him.
They'd shower with their costumes on.
I'd have taken both kids to individual changing rooms, put one in each adjacent with the doors open. They have changing towels so put them on, have them strip under there and dry as much as possible, while darting between the two giving assistance. Then when they're dressed, sit them both in the same cubicle, while I go in the other and get dressed. It's a faff, but more desirable than taking the eldest in a female group change.
This is why it drives me up the wall when people say 'Just use the disabled' Like there isn't any actual disabled people who need to use it!

You wouldn’t take an adult man with care needs into that area so the same goes for a 9 year old boy. He’s too old.

You could have used 2 single changing rooms if you needed more space, or waited for the large changing room or changed them under a robe in the space outside the changing cubicles. I don’t think for one minute that he is a predator but he is too old to be in female communal changing spaces. Nobody likes to be stared at and I expect that’s what the girl was concerned about. She wanted a female only space that’s why she was in there.

Personally, I don’t use the female only changing rooms unless there is no other option because I find myself staring - I don’t mean to, I don’t want to but it happens, very embarrassing!

The ones at my local swimming pool are just a larger than usual cubicle.

So how does family change work? Is it an area with lots of cubicles?

No one has said 9yo boys, or even 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 yo boys are predators.

They make preteen and teenage girls uncomfortable, even accidentally. Hence why schools have separate changing rooms for example.

Why is there so much emphasis on the age of the girl?

It really doesn't matter. It happened to be a teenage girl but could have been a grown woman or an elderly woman. It doesn't make it more or less acceptable and it just seems a bit weird and white knight-y to respond to every single poster saying they generally find it okay with "BUT ARE YOU 14 THOUGH".

OP I would do the other suggestions now your son is getting older. I get it, I have the same quandary, my 8yo DD and 6yo DS do swimming. I'm currently still taking DS into the ladies group changing room but there is another mum who does the same with her lad who looks 3 - 4 years older than mine and it does make me pause for thought. I will probably start using the family change for them soon instead.

9 is too old for the opposite sex changing room.

If there’s no family changing rooms available, I would get him changed under a towel or changing robe.

It’s always difficult trying to balance everyone’s needs.

I agree, some 9-10 year old girls are growing breast and starting periods, to se a boy their age in there when changing would be v uncomfortable. Sorry there wasn't space in the family change place which is what you need x

So does that mean 9 year old boys can go in the ladies toilets then? Or is it still a female space end of?

SEN or not, the over 8 years old male does not take priority over ANY female in the female changing area.