Parent taking teenage boy into women's changing room

I have campaigned for years for women's rights. I will join in any campaign for rights for others. But women and girls come first for me. I will never apologize for that.

If you are a carer for a 6'4" male and you want to go out where changing facilities are needed - you need to check in advance. A PITA but a fact of life. It shouldn't be such a fight and I'm happy to support campaigns.

Again: women and girls deserve single sex spaces. Everyone deserves privacy & dignity which is why I suggest taking boys (as in the OP) into the men's with tongue in cheek. Or en masse as a protest (with warning). If men would be inconvenienced there would be a faster, better response.

My DD does swimming lessons at a school, there is a female changing room and a 'unisex' one. Open plan changing room with about 2 cubicles. Regularly have dads bringing their daughters in, older boys in there. Friends DD has asked to stop going as they are uncomfortable showering/changing. When asking the venue they say there's no policy, it's just whatever you're comfortable doing. No concern for how comfortable the girls/females are!

The thing that people also seem to forget is that it's not just the females we're trying to safeguard. Should this teenager be expected to get undressed in front of women/ girls? If you asked an NT teenage boy to do that he'd rightly say no as he'd not want to get undressed in front of women. Boys with additional needs have exactly the same right to dignity even if they're not able to articulate it.

It's shit that there are not the facilities for everyone at every leisure centre and this needs to change. While that isn't happening people need to choose the place where they can access without compromising single sex spaces.

I am sorry but I totally disagree. If you can't use the family changing rooms then don't go swimming. Why should an autistic child's wants trump another autistic child's needs.

Unfortunately some women are so shortsighted that they’re creating the next generation of entitled men who don’t respect women’s spaces and think they can do whatever the hell they want because mummy said her ickle prince can 🙄

There is no need to take him into a female only area.

Actually, legally that seems to be an ambiguous issue.

The case law I know of relates to toilets rather than changing rooms, but it holds that men are as legally entitled to not have a woman in their space as women are not to have a man in theirs.

Not to mention the flippant tone of ‘well THAT woman can just go in the men’s (because they have a disabled son/husband/brother they have to care for)-

female carers are still women, they are just as entitled not to have to change in front of men as any other woman and should not be treated as collateral in these situations.

Yes- males should never be in a woman’s changing room past 7/8 or whatever the venue has decided- but a passing nod to the fact that venues failing to provide accessibility is yet again disproportionately affecting women (since, let’s face it, it’s mostly women who have caring responsibilities) and our ability to move through the world would be good.

YANBU at all.

And if this boy was capable enough to use the gym equipment alone, he was capable enough to change alone, surely?

My 10 yo has ADHD but doesn’t mean I take him into women’s changing rooms - we wait for the one and only accessible/ family changing room (it is billed as both), we don’t just charge into the first women’s. Or he just has to change in the men’s.

I agree a changing village option is a good idea

Did you get a call back from the manager OP?

Our local leisure centre has a policy of from age 8 they have to be in their own sex changing rooms. There is a family changing room with one small cubicle, which is always in use or locked because someone pooped in it. No showers and it is also on the men’s side and the men have to walk through it to get to their changing room.

There is a disabled girl who needs at least two carers to change her and she has to use the family room and I always feel that she has no privacy at all.

For me, DS1 9, has sensory processing disorder and fine motor issues and has to shower in the men’s which takes forever with varying success. I often wait outside the men’s worried if he is ok but I wouldn’t at that age take him into the women’s as his individual need doesn’t trump all the mums and daughters right to a safe space.

Important to speak up, especially where mothers can only see their adolescent sons as 'little boys'. Infantilising attitudes can be harmful.

When I was a child, I used to love the regular 'Mummy's Boy' comic strip in Buster comic - about an overprotective mum who dressed her 'little' boy up in baby clothes and a frilly bonnet and pushed him around everywhere in a pram, calling him 'Choochikins', even though he was probably about 13!

I found it hilarious, because it was so obviously absurd and would clearly never happen in real life. Nowadays, I'm not so sure...

If the boy can't get changed without mummy's assistance, surely getting changed at home is the best option?

Important to speak up, especially where mothers can only see their adolescent sons as 'little boys'. Infantilising attitudes can be harmful.

Another great reason for third space.

I went to an art exhibition in a synagogue and was really impressed to see ladies, gents and mixed space provided, each one with a changing places facilities. Somewhere for everyone.

The thing in, given that the boy seems to have been in the gym unsupervised, there's no reason his mum couldn't have taken him to get change in the men's, then gotten him to wait somewhere whilst she went into the women's to get herself changed. No one needs to have exposed themselves unnecessarily in this situation.

Many leisure centres and pools now have 'changing villages', rather than single sex changing rooms. To be honest I prefer them - all proper cubicles in varying sizes for individuals or families, no one permitted to walk about naked, plenty of lockers, still have single sex toilets in separate side rooms.
When our local leisure centre changed when we were about 12 we were aghast at the idea, as there'd previously been large single sex communal changing spaces, with about 6 cubicles in each with curtains that didn't close 100%, so we were used to having to get changed on a bench in front of everyone and absolutely didn't want boys around for that, but when we saw what they had done, we were all allotted far more privacy in the 'changing village' due to the set up. It also makes it so easy to preserve privacy and dignity in these types of scenarios. Think lots of leisure centres are now moving that way, and I'm definitely in support, in this day and age I don't feel like communal changing (eg non-cubicals) should be a thing for swimming baths.

Agreed ,,we can all agree that the mother was in the wrong
But I'm finding many comments frustrating and ignorant of just disabling autism can be to some and also how it impacts everyone differently.

His mother should have taken him to the mens changing room.

I would have gone over and asked the mother to take the teen boy out of the women's changing rooms. If she'd refused I'd have asked the person at the front desk to ask her to get him out of the women's changing room immediately. It is never acceptable for a male over 7 to be in woman's spaces. I'd be complaining to the manager.

Unisex changing villages put women at risk of assault

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/women/sexual-assault-unisex-changing-rooms-sunday-times-women-risk-a8519086.html

Not necessarily- we have no idea how his disability affects him.

Make the point that he shouldn’t be in the female space- you don’t need to be ablist to do it.

She should go in the family changing room!. There is no excuse. I also have a child diagnosed with asd.

I used to me a member of an eye-wateringly expensive gym in Battersea (came with a work package) and even there female lock rooms only had two cubicles, the rest was two open plan areas separated by the lockers. They definitely had the space for remodelling. Not sure about the layout in the men's.
So it's not just the cost issue, it is conscious choice by some gyms too.

I don’t take my son into female spaces either.

But it isn’t as simple as ‘planning ahead’- there are all sorts of reasons why what should be an accessible space suddenly isn’t, leaving disabled people and their carers in difficult situations.

The answer isn’t to take a male into a female space- but neither is it to minimise the impact of shit accessibility on the disabled community (and everyone else- if accessible spaces were plentiful far fewer people would behave like this woman).

Over 8 I can understand but absolutely not under 5/6 😳

Asking permission once the boy is already there implies that the permission is expected. And it can be seen as "unkind" to refuse it as has been demonstrated on this thread alone. It is not fair to put other women and girls in the situation where they are expected to oblige, may not feel strong enough to say no and will just resort to letting the mother and the boy do what they want, at the expense of their own comfort.
We all know how we have been socialised.
So no, not OK.

YANBU for having an issue with a 16 year old boy being in the female changing room but YABU to let your daughter change whilst he was in there. How uncomfortable for her.

I would have wrapped her in a towel over her swimsuit and waited until he left before getting her changed. I wouldn’t have waited for the mum to speak to me, I would have asked her son to leave and said that obviously my daughter cannot change until he has left.