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

His behaviour was atrocious - definitely report him. He has utterly no business being there.

I don't see why two little girls of their ages cannot go into a women's changing room on their own, presumably they know how to dress, they must get changed for PE at school. They are not babies. Their dad shouldn't have been in there so you were right.

I would complain first about the lack of private cubicles! It's outrageous that there's no private facilities to get changed full stop.

There should be family rooms, or just a communal room but with private cubicles, a set up that exists in many swimming pools.

No one should have to strip in front of a stranger, whatever the gender.

Even if they did require supervision, surely he could send the older one to check that everyone was prepared for a man to enter? It is the complete lack of thought and entitlement that is the worst part of this, I think.

There should definitely be at least a few family changing rooms. And he sounds like a self-obsessed dickhead with no consideration, but he might have been shocked into an impolite response, too, if he wasn't expecting there to be anyone there.

Thank god he wasn’t planning on changing there too.

I just don’t understand his logic at all. If all the dads go in to help their daughters get changed then they might as well have taken them into the boys’ changing room in the first place! Both rooms are going to end up full of men.

An 8 and 10-year-old would be fine on their own in a women's only changing room - especially if it is a small school pool. He should not have gone in with them.

Our local pool is family/mixed sex but is made up of lots of little cubicles and larger cubicles. However, if it is specifically male and female without cubicles then he is going to find naked women and he should know that surely. But sounds like he needs to have it explained. He probably went home and told his wife that he was shocked that there was a naked women in the changing room and she probably told him he was an idiot.

How many men are really likely to even be in the men’s during the day whilst a mother and baby class is going on?!

This needs to be reported!
A man walked into our “ladies only steam & sauna” morning ten minutes before it ended, then tried to insist it would be “ok” for him to just stay, whilst I repeatedly told him to get out. Not much bother for me, but the Muslim ladies in the jacuzzi with me were practically underwater so that a strange man didn’t see them in their swimmers, let alone without their hair covered.

YANBU!

Tableclothing

Well then you want to come up north.

Our local pool has two mixed sex changing rooms on different levels for four pools. The top one with baby pool and 25 m pool has some single and some family changing rooms or you can just strip off whatever takes your fancy.
He should ask a member of staff to check if it was alright with those using it first.

YANBU.

The pool needs to provide family change areas, completely separate to the women’s communal.

I’d be fucking livid.

Hi OP

I get the set up you are talking about. In DS swim lessons they have a rule about the child being 8 or over getting changed in their genders changing rooms, in our case its the swimming lesson people.

However, not much might come of it, if its the same one as mine, since there seems to be an uproar over children of 8 not being supervised in the changing rooms.

You are righter than a very right thing.

Definitely email the school / swim school. He needs to be told this is not ok. That could have been very embarrassing for all concerned.

His girls can change themselves, or he needs to make special arrangements with the swim school for some sort of family changing provision.

DP takes dd swimming and, once she decided she wasn't comfortable in the boys' (similar set up to yours but no baby classes), even shielded by a towel, she went into the women's alone. This was at an age a bit younger than these girls. She was slow and not great at washing her hair but she did ok (I've been in and watched her a few times). Especially with two of them to help each other out, they should be fine.

A ten year old girl shouldn't be changing in front of her dad anyway - she should have privacy at that age. For an 8 year old it might be OK - but certainly not necessary.
A 7 year old can go in the men's with dad - especially as there would be no men changing in there by the sound of it.
If it happens again I suggest screaming and whipping him with your wet towel until he leaves

I used to go to swimming with my Dad in the era before family changing areas.

Can remember going in the men's with him and giving up when it got embarrassing so going into the women's by myself and my Dad meeting me outside. No reason why he couldn't have done that.

At 8-10 they can get changed for PE by themselves so can easily manage a towel dry and getting into dry clothes. Plus they have each other to help.

Whew, nice to get near-unanimous confirmation that IWNBU - I was expecting a lot of 'don't you have anything better to worry about?'!

It is unfortunate that there aren't any family changing facilities, and there really is no capacity to add any - the changing rooms are literally small rooms with some benches in them (there are no lockers or anything like that, and the showers are poolside), so there's no possible space to borrow from them, and I doubt a school wants to start spending money on redoing the changing rooms for a pool that it hires out for a couple of hours a day.

I hadn't actually realised prior to today that they had classes for older children (and so that this would arise) - in my normal class the ones either side are also baby/toddler classes, so obviously the children can just go in whatever changing room is most convenient for the adults with them.

A ten year old girl shouldn't be changing in front of her dad anyway
let's not get carried away!

YANBU
Contact the swim school and ask them where you should direct your complaint.

surely he could send the older one to check that everyone was prepared for a man to enter?

No, would be the short answer to that. Men should not be in the women’s changing rooms, no matter how they try to justify it.

YWDNBU.

I remember my dad started taking me and my younger brother swimming when I was 6 or 7. I always went in the women's on my own - it was cubicles and lockers and I managed. It would never have occurred to him to take me into the men's, and I would have been horrified to have had to go in there.

Kids are much more capable than parents these days believe. More parents really need to give their kids opportunities for independence, not mollycoddle them and make it uncomfortable for others.

Just wondering-do you think If he'd walked in on a young teenage girl undressed he could have been arrested if she reported him.