Aibu feeling uneasy about men taking little girls to the toilet in the womens toilet?

Women campaigned for their own spaces. If a bloke wants to avoid taking daughter into the gents, he needs to campaign for separate facilities.

But men won’t because they are so used to having precedence in the world that it doesn’t occur to them. Instead they trample over the hard won rights of women.

I entirely agree, there isn't a work around that works for all. So the best we can do is be respectful and accept someone else's actions won't always align with what we feel is right or how we would like things to be done.

That’s exactly my point I think you may have misunderstood me . I went to the men’s with my dad as a child and it did me absolutely no harm whatsoever. I bring my little boy to the women’s. I don’t see the big deal when an adult is supervising.

They take them to the men’s and they shield them while they get changed or they don’t go swimming at that particular venue. No one has a human right to have swimming lessons at any venue they choose.

Equally, what if MY female child isn’t comfortable with some other female child’s dad in the ladies loo?
Who trumps who then?
In an ideal world, there would be ‘family’ loos, but most places don’t have these. There is no solution that everyone will be happy with.

The women at my office staged a mass complaint at our office at the state the men were leaving the toilets in. We absolutely hated it. Desperate for them to put men’s and women’s back in.

No man should ever go into the women’s toilet unless and emergency. Girls can be taken in the men’s. It is for the dad to manage the situation. My dad took me into the men’s when I was younger and I don’t recall any dangerous childhood trauma

a few years ago I was taking my DD to a swimming lesson and there was an open plan changing room. There was a dad who walked in and started dealing with his DD and honestly I was so angry. There were women and girls getting changed in there but he honestly thought that was the best solution to the problem of where to change his daughter.

I don't think I'm following all this - why would a mixed gender design mean that ventilation wouldn't work the same, or cleaning, or supervision? There isn't any supervision in most public bathrooms anyway?

When an adult has to take a child of the opposite gender into a public toilet, they should go into the correct toilet for the adult, not the child.

Have a look at my previous posts. I make it a general rule not to mention individual incidents but you can see how and why I think this.

How would all unisex toilets work practically? Scrap all urinals and create massive public corridors all lined with individual toilet rooms? The queues and cost would be enormous. In British Standards, calculations show you need 25% more toilets if you use unisex toilets because people are waiting longer for the occupant to finish washing and drying their hands. How does ventilation work? What about cleaning? How can they be supervised? If someone is misusing them, how would you know? How does that work for emergency building evacuations or being worried about a child/colleague who has gone missing? At what point do you bang on the door? Do you have cctv on every toilet with people watching if you go in and out?

Your preferred design is creating private mixed sex rooms in public spaces. Why do you think they are required to open in public spaces? Do you think that will work in not such public spaces or when those public spaces are quieter?

Toilets are such vulnerable spaces to misuse they have their own section in the Sexual Offences Act. How do you think making them all mixed sex and private it going to impact on safety?

There’s also health. Because the toilet plume flush covers up to 1.5m unless something stops it, you are washing and drying your hands using objects covered in everyone else’s flushes. In fact, unless the warm air hand dryer filter is thoroughly cleaned, studies have shown you can end up with more microbes on your hands than you started with. Unisex toilets are worst for pathogens.

I spotted a young woman had stopped breathing (choked on vomit in a nightclub cubicle) straight away, as soon as I walked into the ladies. We got her out and breathing again. In contrast, people have been left for hours and even days in this country in toilets in private designs you are preferring. People have died in toilets in very public workplaces and venues but no one knew until it was too late. I have many recent examples of this.

I research actual incidents, police reports, coroner reports, foi’s for data and statistics. I wanted to know why toilets designs were becoming more enclosed and what happens when they do. I now have a books-worth of information from across the world, but focusing on the U.K.

There are a variety of things that people have tried to do to make your preferred completely private design safer:
Put heat sensors in the room to monitor how many people are in there, put alarms in that activate to send text messages to ‘help me’ or ‘stop it’ prompts, weight sensors in the floor so the door won’t close if it thinks there are too many people in the room, various things such as coloured lights to try and stop people injecting drugs and overdosing in their preferred private design, cctv fixed so it’s looking at the door, making the toilets very small so two people can’t fit in, making the doors open automatically after a set time, create a one way mirror the occupant can see people outside their toilet cubicle/room (this one I don’t think was ever used - this very influential toilet designer wanted to see others when he was seated), have glass doors and walls that frost up when the door is locked, only open toilets up when an attendant can watch everyone going in….

All of the above is retrospective and not as effective as a single sex toilet in a single sex environment that has a 15cm floor to door gap. Single sex design safeguards against misuse happening in the first place.

These things are also true: Most men are good men who wouldn’t want to cause distress to women or children in toilets. Despite various alarmist people discussing some may being killed, it is extremely rare to be killed in a toilet.

It is not rare to collapse in a toilet. Building regs state non domestic toilet doors should be able to open outwards from the outside or taken off their hinges precisely because people collapse against the door and you can’t open them. Once collapsed the time taken for rescue is vital.

I am aware my posts can get long, if you want links to the above info, I can post more.

I think you need to consider the unique environment of toilets and why the default has been and is single sex. We need toilets for safe and hygienic sanitation and single sex design is best in non domestic situations. That, of course, gives exemptions for a man bringing a girl into the men’s toilets, and a woman bringing a boy into the women’s toilets, because it is for the safety of the child.

The fact is, unless it’s a small venue, if you want all unisex toilets, it’s not permitted anyway. Single sex provision has to be prioritised.

Genuine question for any of the men on here: do you feel uncomfortable if you're using a urinal and a little girl walks in with her father?

Cleaners are different. They are necessary, put a sign up and leave if a woman enters, to wait outside.

Fathers are not necessary in there, they have their own toilets to use and if those spaces are disgusting or unsafe, that's on men to sort out. Not encroach on women's spaces.

Finally, and I'll put it in capitals because apparently you didn't read it the first 20 times it was said, YOU DO NOT GET TO CONSENT ON BEHALF OF OTHER WOMEN. if you don't mind, great. Plenty of other women clearly do mind and one person saying no is enough. He has no right to be there.

But they don’t see the genitals they go straight to the cubicle . If anything it’s absolute hysteria that a girl would be traumatised by seeing a man pee at a urinal. Little boys shoudnt be subjected to it either if that’s the case. If this was commonplace you would often see men in the toilet with little children. And I’ve never ever seen that in my whole life

The hysteria about toilets just baffles me. No one complains about male cleaners (which are generally very common - I’m forever seeing signs saying ‘this toilet is cleaned by male and female staff’). Where I live in central London, so many restaurants/cafes/office blocks have cubicles toilets that are used by both sexes. My local gym has fully mixed changing room (obviously with cubicles for showers, changing etc). I wouldn’t bat an eyelid with a man helping his little girl in the women’s toilets. What’s the alternative? Going into the men’s & potentially seeing random male genitals at the urinals?

Sometimes you just don’t have a choice that’s just life and I’ve yet to meet a small child who actually gives a shit about this sort of thing until they are able to use the toilet on their own

No, I don't think the poll is "skewed ". How weird. i just think it's not that important.

if 5 women and girls are in the toilets, then a man comes in with his daughter, then it's fairly obvious that her comfort is taking precedence over the 5 already there. I don't care what a poll says

men should not be in women's spaces. There is no need for the man to be in there. If the child is old enough to object to going with her dad, then she's old
enoubh to
go to the women's on her own

I despair at how easily some
women give away our rights.

The person who needs to use the toilet is the girl, not the man. So primarily it's her right we're talking about. She has just as much right to use the women's toilet as any other female. She just happens to need assistance from an adult who happens to be a male. The male is perfectly within his legal right to assist the girl in a woman's toilet. If anyone needs to campaign it's the people that feel comfortable with this.

It’s very entitled for people to use the (usually one) disabled toilet without a disability. What if someone has to wait behind all the people who think it’s ok, with a physical or invisible disability?
I have two pre teen disabled DS who I wouldn’t dream of taking in the women’s toilets they are too old. I can’t go in the men’s. Loads of people seem to think it’s ok to use the one toilet avaible to us. My 10 year old is still in nappies.

This comes up often. For me, and I appreciate it’s not for everyone, I have no issue with a Man providing care for a young girl or indeed a Woman who requires toileting care. Men on their own (no matter what they’re wearing) absolutely not.

Does a young girl really get no say as to what their preference is? As I've previously said the poll is 50/50 so it really isn't a case of the rights of the majority of girls/women are being overlooked. 50% of voters feel a girl has the right to be accompanied to a womens toilet by a male that is assisting her.

Disabled toilets are often locked. I can't say i love this but im.not sure theres an alternative.

I totally agree that random solitary men don't / shouldn't go into women's toilets. Men accompanying a female minor is in my view an entirely different matter.

I meant the societal "rule" that men don't go in women's toilets.

So, what you think the poll is skewed by the the fact that the people that were able to vote are disproportionately of the opinion that men can take their daughter's into the women's toilet?

That makes absolutely no sense at all.

The poll supports the fact that people are equally divided as to whether a man can or can not take his daughter into a woman's toilet. Therefore no one child's needs is taking precedence over any woman's wishes.

Edited for typo

If you want your husband to take your daughter into the toilets without disregarding the rights and dignity of women, campaign for family toilets or whatever. Disabled people had to do it, women had to do it, but of course men have decided that their wants trump the rights of women and girls.