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

[NewAccount270219]

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

At 8 and 10 you either get changed yourself, in the changing rooms appropriate to your sex or, if you have special needs, you use the disabled facilities. It would not have been any more appropriate for those girls to change in the mens than for their father to enter the womens.

An nt, non disabled 8 and a 10 year old can get ready independently. And if they can't then their parents need to pick a facility which allows for this.

Assuming no SEN, the girls could have been sent in to get changed on their own.

He should not have come in at all.

And this is the whole reason why all changing rooms should be mixed sex and cubicles.

Except when that happens, you get sharp increases in the amount of sexual assaults and voyeurism. For example:
"Just under 90 per cent of complaints regarding changing room sexual assaults, voyeurism and harassment are about incidents in unisex facilities."
www.independent.co.uk/life-style/women/sexual-assault-unisex-changing-rooms-sunday-times-women-risk-a8519086.html

Also this: "Women claim they are "uncomfortable" seeing men "parading around naked" in front of them at new unisex changing rooms in a leisure centre."
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-46862566

Not to mention the general issue of crime against women in supposedly private paces: twitter.com/fairplaywomen/status/1107216539009384448

So on the whole, I'll stick with the time-proven successful implementation of single sex facilities for the majority please. Other requirements should be argued for as well as, not instead of.

@NewAccount270219 Have you contacted the gym and if so what did they say?

Tough luck. Like the rest of us. You aren’t special or extra entitles.

The OP isn't asking for special treatment, she's asking that an adult male doesn't enter the womens' changing rooms. Can't see how you can twist that into 'entitlement'.

A man stuck his head under my cubicle the one and only time I used a mixed sex ‘changing village’.

Fuck that. Women want (and are legally entitled to) privacy.

How did you not just kick him in the face?

The OP isn't the one thinking they're special,or entitled. That's the idiot man who thought he was special enough and entitled enough to go into a female only space.

Last year my 11yo DD came home from summer camp indignant that a woman brought a BOY into the girls changing rooms at swimming. The camp is run at a private school so I couldn't understand what happened.

I complained to the camp and it turned out that they had the pool until 4pm, then there were private swimming lessons from 4.30pm.

This woman had turned up early and just come in, with her top primary aged DS.

DD and 3 other girls were on their own in the changing room, didn't expect randoms to come in and didn't know what to do.

Camp was very good and treated it as a safeguarding issue. They notified the swim school that they were not allowed on the premises until their booked time, and enforced it. The next holiday the camp had relocated to a different school.

Scary thing is that had the woman brought in a GIRL rather than a biy we might never have known.

My dad took me swimming weekly from when I was about 7 onwards and I always changed by myself in the Ladies. He would sit outside bellowing at me to hurry up .

I'm very surprised to hear that an 8 and 10 year old couldn't get into their swimming costumes without their dad to help them, I must admit, but my child is much smaller so perhaps I'm unrealistic about what kids of that age can do.

Last year my 11yo DD came home from summer camp indignant that a woman brought a BOY into the girls changing rooms at swimming.

I await all the posters ranting about how entitled this woman was, and how she must be a voyeur or such like.

I await all the posters ranting about how entitled this woman was, and how she must be a voyeur or such like.

She went into women's changing room, the one appropriate for her sex.

She went into women's changing room, the one appropriate for her sex.

With her son who was too old to be in there and at a time when she had no right to be in there. Why did she need to go in, when her son was plenty old enough, apparently, to get changed on his own? He should have been in the male changing room, getting changed unsupervised. The mum had no need to be in any changing room and certainly outside of her allocated time.

Well the woman has the right to be in women's changing room, so does not need the excuse to go there, in case she's a voyeur or suchlike. So not the same case. She should not have taken a 10-11 year old boy into women's changing room, that's another matter.

I await all the posters ranting about how entitled this woman was, and how she must be a voyeur or such like.

Don't be silly, the woman wasn't the problem, it was her yr 6 son who the girls quite reasonably objected to.

I'm very surprised to hear that an 8 and 10 year old couldn't get into their swimming costumes without their dad to help them, I must admit, but my child is much smaller so perhaps I'm unrealistic about what kids of that age can do.

No, you're not. I used to belong to a sailing club, the juniors started from 7 years. Many were brought by dads and granddads. These little girls would use the female changing room, dealing not just with swimming kit but also wetsuits. They would help each other or ask a bigger girl or woman to help if needed. A pair of sisters would certainly have been perfectly fine.

I would expect an 8 & 10 year old to be able to get changed by themselves. If he's concerned he can stand outside & wait for them.

However it's a women's changing rooms. Yes you should report to management & if this is a real issue they will need to provide a suitable alternative for lone parents of young children who are a different sex to them.

I think it’s really worrying that a dad needs to watch his 8 yo and 10 yo kids without SEN get changed. Every child I know has been changing indepedenantly for years by that point. OP you should definitely have reported.

Changing rooms are often communal anyway

I think in a communal changing room you would get dressed in some type of towel fort to hide your naked body from everyone (not that I've ever seen a communal changing room in UK).

However I get fully naked in the ladies when I'm drying and if I'm bent over drying my toes I can't say I'd appreciate a man walking in (I don't wander around naked or bend over for ages before you all think I'm odd, but for that split second when I am drying I am very vulnerable and wouldn't appreciate it at all!)

You are not being unreasonable and if he can't trust his 2 girls to get dressed without him he should go to a pool that has family changing rooms!

Of course he can’t be wandering round in the women’s. Complain.

Well the woman has the right to be in women's changing room, so does not need the excuse to go there, in case she's a voyeur or suchlike.

Was the woman getting changed then? If she wasn't, she didn't have a reason to be in the changing rooms while unaccompanied children were in there getting changed then did she? The premises were hired out to a private summer camp and the woman wasn't part of that so she really had no business being in there - as she wasn't getting changed, she wasn't part of the summer school and she wasn't accompanying a young child - so why was she there?

Primary school children have swimming lessons as part of the NC.

They have to get changed for swimming, then dry and dressed all on their own.

I would expect an 8 & 10 year old to be able to get changed by themselves.

As I've previously explained, this is a problem at the gym that I go to. The pool is open to gym members plus a club for lessons so we are often trying to change while children are in there changing for lessons - it's chaos. There's a sizeable number of children changing on their own and inevitably they muck around, throw items of clothing over into another cubicle, chuck talcum powder etc. Our gym has lockers that you have to use your own padlocks with. For some reason the children don't use them so they leave their clothes in the cubicles, meaning there's nowhere for us to change. How is that managing? It isn't. It's passing the responsibility for them onto other users of the facility. The truth is that they can't manage without adults at least keeping an eye on them. Sorry, but that's not my job. That's the job if either a parent or a member of staff.

Nanny0gg

Yes, overseen by a member of staff and with someone checking that they've taken their belongings, aren't mucking around etc. They aren't left entirely to their own devices when they go with school.

I'm a swimming teacher is it not on he needs to take his DC to the Male changing rooms due to him being, it's a safe guarding issue. It's the same as taking you're child the toilet of your sex rather than you're childs.

What an absolute arsehole. Report him to management, imagine if there'd been a group full of young girls changing for example, why do people think this would be ok? For a grown adult male to be amongst naked or semi naked women and girls.