WIBU - man in women's changing rooms (NOT A TRANS THREAD)

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This occurred earlier today and I have been stewing since. I am aware that it is very trivial.

I took DS (nearly one) to a baby swim class earlier. It wasn't our usual one as that was cancelled due to another baby pooing in the pool and so they offered us this one as a replacement class.

Today, after the class, a man with two little girls (I would say aged 8 and 10-ish - they were both wearing brownie uniforms so - IRC from my own brownie days - I guess that pins it down to upper primary?) WALKED INTO THE WOMEN'S CHANGING ROOM, just as I was finishing dressing and pulling my top over my head. The changing rooms are completely communal with no cubicles (the pool is a school one) and moments earlier I had been topless. I was quite taken aback by his presence.

I said, 'This is the women's!', he said 'I have to come in with them, they can't go in the men's', I said 'I was getting changed!', he said 'can't you go in the loo?'. Now, at this point I fully intended to explain eloquently and convincingly that I could hardly let DS crawl all around the loo floor while I got dressed, but what I actually did was get flustered, point to DS and say 'on the floor!', which I think confused matters as he was indeed, at that point, on the changing room floor and I think the man thought I had just begun saying things at random. So I left with all the dignity I could muster (not much, given that I'd just babbled incoherently at a stranger who had seen me in my bra).

ANYWAY, I was in the right, wasn't I? My sense of when children can do things isn't great, but you can send two brownie-aged ones to get changed, can't you? And if you can't then a man wandering into the women's changing room can't be the answer, can it?!

NB. I am a bit worried that this title will set off a klaxon somewhere so PLEASE don't turn this into a trans thread - it is nothing to do with that

No, it is not ok at all. You should have reported it to management - he needs to be firmly told that he cannot do this.

I wouldn't send an 8 and 10 yr old into a changing room on their own. And I wouldn't want my DDs in a male changing room which only had open communal space. I guess the only solution would have been to get them changed in a toilet (if there was a toilet that didn't necessitate walking through either changing room).

You should report it to the management. Of course he can't just go wandering into a communal women's changing room

You were right (barring the possibility that both girls had additional needs, of course). But even if he did have sufficient reason to go in there, (which I doubt) he should have banged very loudly on the door, made it clear he was coming in and allowed everyone present time to make themselves decent.

I think he got off very lightly with your response. Have you contacted management?

No family changing rooms??

Fuck him telling you to use the toilet, entitled prick.

No that’s not on at all. By 8 and 10 I would expect them to get themselves changed. The only thing I can think of is maybe one/both had some kind of hidden needs. But it’s probably unlikely given his response.

And I find his response the most shocking thing. Surely he should have been abjectly apologetic? Not to tell you you should get changed in the loo - in the WOMEN’s changing room!

I’d be fuming too but also would have most likely turned into a flustered mess like you

YANBU

It wouldn't bother me at all.

Changing rooms are often communal anyway.

YANBU. You shouldn't have to go into the loo when it is the women's changing rooms and, therefore, he shouldn't be in there imo. However, I'm surprised that there isn't somewhere for families- my local swimming pool has family cubicles.

He could have definitely sent them in on their own - barring sen if course.. I'm surprised there isn't any family changing room available though. Even the grottiest places local to us have those options. He should have spoken to a manager and not just barged in like that.

Did you report it ?
I would have hated that

Changing rooms are often communal anyway.

I have yet to see a mixed sex communal changing room in the UK.

Jemima, surely you understand that a significant majority of women are absolutely not comfortable with a man walking into the female changing rooms? You can’t imagine that your feelings about it reflect most women’s?

Changing rooms are often communal anyway

Not mixed sex and open they aren't.

At 8 and 10 and together they should have been fine, and if not then it's a rare pool without a family section or a disabled loo. I'd report him.

I would have been really angry about that. What a twit. I can only hope he got an earful from his other half when he got home and bleated about being shooed out of the ladies changing rooms.

So he isn’t ok with his kids being around naked men but it’s ok for him to be in with naked women and girls?

If course you were in the right.

He had no business to be in the women's changing area.

he said 'can't you go in the loo?'. Couldn't he?

I think the rule is that it's the supervising adult whose sex determined which changing room to go into. If the children are too old to go into the opposite sex changing room, they're old enough to change themselves.

YANBU this is the whole point of segregated changing rooms. I would have been livid. Definitely report it.

I didn't report it - I was thinking of sending an email, but wanted to check that I was in the right first! No, no family changing rooms and also no toilets you can get to without going through a changing room - as I said, it's a school pool so the set up is a lot smaller and more basic than at a big public one. Perhaps relevantly, perhaps not, that also means there are no unaccompanied adults as the only people there are there for children's swimming lessons.

In his defence/mitigation, I'm the only one who goes to the baby class on my own (everyone else is either a couple or a mum who brings a grandparent) and that means I'm quite a lot slower/always last to leave because I have to dress both me and DS and also slather him with eczema cream (not excessively though - it takes me 20 minutes) - and, as I said, this wasn't my normal class. So he might well do this every week and normally the changing room is empty by the time he arrives so that's what he expected. Not in his defence, IT'S THE WOMEN'S CHANGING ROOM.

Did he expect you to get changed in the toilet on the off-chance he was going to wander in?!?

At my gym, children over seven have to be in the correct sex changing rooms. If they need to be with an adult over the age of seven, they use the family changing rooms.

At my previous gym, there was a communal family changing village - the key is that it was all separate cubicles with locking doors and floor to ceiling walls plus the option of separate single sex changing rooms for those uncomfortable with the communal option. Nowhere in the UK has cubicle-free mixed sex changing facilities. This bloke was massively in the wrong and needs a severe reprimand.

I wouldn't send an 8 and 10 yr old into a changing room on their own.

Why on earth not? They’ve been at school, changing independently due swimming and sports, for YEARS. It’s a single sex space for changing. Barring additional needs, it is denying them independence in a pretty contained safe way.

OP, complain. Most leisure facilities are quite clear - opposite sex only up to age 8, after that children are expected to independently use the changing room for their sex ignore family changing isn’t available.

He was well out of order not to be the one making the accommodations himself, rather than expecting you to!

Isn't it a shame that you feel like you had to check first before complaining?

Complain. Shit like that can make you feel vulnerable, whether they have kids with them or not.

You work around it. If you don’t want to send them in alone you use a loo or find another space to change. Or you don’t go. Tough luck. Like the rest of us. You aren’t special or extra entitles.

@LillithsFamiliar.
So would you be happy with 10 year old boys getting changed in the ladies’, supervised by their mother then?