Boys in girls changing at swimming

[TonksInPurple]

This is not a trans issue!

my daughter 11 attends swimming lessons at a hotel pool there are several parents who insist on helping there boys age 9/10/11 in the girls open plan changing room. The hotel’s suggestion is that my daughter and her friend change in the disabled changing room.
So the girls should be pushed out there own space. The boys have no additional needs but surely if they did they should use the disabled changing room.

@ILoveMyLifeToday I have no issue if an older boy needs help and uses a cubicle in the female changing room. I think few people would have any objections in those circumstances.
I can't remember what we did once DS hit 8. I'm pretty sure he just used the mens changing room, but he was generally with a pal and I can't remember ever being concerned about it. Maybe I should have been, but he would have been mortified to have to change in the Ladies.

Thank you for this thread op. I have a 4 yr old girl and a 6 yr old boy. I take them to a swim class weekly at a hotel/ gym. It’s really busy and I have been changing both in the ladies but there are lots of teenage girls and I wondered if I was in the wrong. I knew I would need to start sending my boy into the mens soon and dreaded it. My boy is tall and is often mistaken for 8/9. So I’m going to stop. I have just bought two lovely long hooded towels and will change both pool side from now on.

My daughter goes in on her own but complains about it when she comes out!

Thanks for all the answers and replies I didn’t expect so many, I’m really sorry so many people feel their sons are in such danger in mens changing rooms.

It's not a question of 'feeling'. In a world where up to 1 in 35 men have paedophilic tendencies, young boys who are unsupervised in a vulnerable situation where they are undressed just are in a certain degree of danger unless they're clued up and capable of dealing with predatory males, because sooner or later the probability is that they're going to come across one. A 14 year old might be capable, a 7 year old probably not (regardless of whether they can get themselves sorted without help). That doesn't mean that older boys should change with girls and women, but it is a very real danger which parents need to take into account and which shouldn't be minimised.

My husband takes my five year old to her swimming lesson on a Saturday morning. Obviously he takes her into the mens changing room to get changed. No cubicles, open plan room. It’s at 8am though so it’s usually very very quiet.

Recently he took her in and as he was drying her off, an older man came in. Husband said he stripped off and wandered around, bollock naked, for a good 5 minutes before my husband became uncomfortable and left. For no discernible reason. Just looking in the mirror, slowly putting his stuff in the locker before putting his trunks on etc. Penis adangle. Pretty much level with my four year olds face. How lovely.

Now obviously there are going to be naked men in there. Obviously. Husband usually just chats away to 4 to keep her distracted. But my husband felt that this was deliberate.

Whether the man was simply oblivious, making a point (like the poster above with her breasts out to scare the 11 year old), or whether his intentions were more sinister, we shall never know, but my husband became very uncomfortable and he pretty much chucked 4’s dress over her head and finished drying off her hair in the corridor (she was furious about not getting to dry her costume in the spinner, so then that was a whole thing…).

I think I might need to take her from now on because that makes me feel quite sick. I can understand the concerns of the boy-mums on here (although again it’s not the problem of the girls to solve).

It might say a lot about men, both in terms of the threat they pose and their awareness of that that would make them step back, not help etc, but as I didn't raise them, that's not on me. My concern is my 10 yo. Saying we'll it's ok for male 10 yos to be at risk cos the risk is from men so it's on men isn't really helpful.

yeah, fuck girls and their dignity, right?
You are the mother of a boy: fight their bloody corner then, don't just assume your son is welcome where we and our girls are changing, FFS. We have to fight enough bloody battles about this without you mothers of precious boys taking away our rights. I'd walk round naked too just to piss them off.

Except I've repeatedly said I'm my posts that I agree lads over 8 or so shouldn't be in the girls either, I just don't think it's as simple as "send them in the men's, whats the worst thaw t can happen" so yeah, you're talking nonsense.

YANBU...but childrens swimming lessons seem to be a free for all. My DS 7 goes once per week, it is extremely busy when we're there, Full of swimming lessons and closed to the public, and every week men come into the womans changing rooms with their children, doesn't seem to matter the gender of the child and quite often a couple will bring their child into the womans changing room and sit and chat while naked children are getting changed.

you mothers of precious boys

How unpleasant. It's not precious to not want your child (male or female) to be at risk.

And most people on here (including me) have said that it's not a problem for girls and women to solve. And have suggested alternatives to having boys in girls' spaces. Thereby 'fighting their corner' without inconveniencing girls.

But 'just send them into the men's and who cares if they're assaulted' is not a pleasant narrative in relation to 8 year old children.

And it's interesting that it's often women (in this case, mothers of boys) who are having to fight their corner. Men mostly get off with a free pass once again while women get the blame.

Except I've repeatedly said I'm my posts that I agree lads over 8 or so shouldn't be in the girls either, I just don't think it's as simple as "send them in the men's, whats the worst thaw t can happen" so yeah, you're talking nonsense.

No, I'm not. I am saying that the girls - lucky ones - and women - have their own space and boys are not required there, thanks. And if you are worried about your son going into the mens's changing - you are the one who is going to have to push to get somewhere for the boys to change. The girls already have one and it has been a long struggle, and still is, to allow women to do sport and have their own spaces. I'm not unsympathetic, but fight the flipping battle and leave the girls to their space.

Frankly I think that individual cubicles, and some family rooms, are the answer and that is what we have where i live. But if i were in a girls/womens room and boys were in - mums or not - and giggling and pointing? I would ask their mum to remove then and request of the management that girls don't have boys encroaching in their space. It is not a difficult concept to grasp that maybe the parents of boys could get active on the boys behalfs instead of just barging into where the girls are, is it?

you're talking nonsense.

No, I'm not
Yes you are.

But in reference to your comments that I'd implied yeah, fuck girls and their dignity and that I assume [my] son is welcome where we and our girls are changing not in your assertion that girls deserve privacy which I'd already agreed with numerous times.

Abd as for "precious" boys, surely all parents should treat their kids that way. And I may not have daughters but I have nieces and proxy-nieces. Being surrounded by penis'at home doesn't mean that boy-moms suddenly hate girls ffs.

And as for I'm not unsympathetic, but fight the flipping battle and leave the girls to their space you do realise that I'm actually a woman too, the lack of daughters doesn't change that. So the "female spaces for females" also affects m+boy-Mom's and most of us don't want random 11, year olds pointing and giggling at our bits either. It isn't as "us lovely girl-mommies and you stupid boy-Mom's" as you'd like

@ChocolateHippo 1in 35 where does that figure come from?

NCA figures. They found that the number of men with a sexual interest in children is much higher than had previously been thought.

you do realise that I'm actually a woman too, the lack of daughters doesn't change that.

Look. You want something for your son. I want my daughters to keep their single sex changing room. I have that and so i will a) keep complaining if boys are in there and b) support you in your fight to get space for your boys, or unisex or whatever it is you want to keep them safe but not have them in the girls space

It isn't about your sex, it is about you getting the outcome you want for your boys. I don't have sons, so i don't go out of my way to think what boys might need, I'm very busy fighting for what my daughters need. But i am fully supportive of boys not being put in danger.

But boys do not belong in women and girls' spaces. I haven't mentioned boy-mommies or girl-mommies so pack it in. You want something that i actually don't need. So no, i am not going to start your campaign for you. You can start it and I'll support you. Just leave the girls their space.

So you’ve ranted and raved about girls spaces but at the very end of your post, you’ve said you’d expose your body to a young boy child to piss them off. So you’ve just admitted you’re willing to expose yourself infront of a child which goes against every thing you apparently stand for 🤔

The solution is to take your sons into the men's changing room

My experience of this is as follows. I was a keen swimmer from a young age, and good at it. My dad didn’t want to take me and my sister into the mens and my mum wouldn’t go to the pool, so I was in charge of myself and my younger sister at 7. No adult supervision, I was expected to sort myself and sister out and I did.

I started puberty at 9. Mums were bringing in boys of 11/12 at my local pool and they would be staring, giggling, or both. I couldn’t use the cubicles because the teenage girls would try to hog them to escape the boys.

It came to a head when a boy made a sexual comment about my chest and his mum pretended not to hear it. I refused to go swimming from that session onwards. I missed out on years and years of a hobby I enjoyed because the space meant for me was being used by mums of boys, on the basis that the risk to them was worth me not being able to swim at all.

It makes me sad that we’re in 2022 and young girls are still being faced with this dilemma. Parents of boys need to lobby for facilities suitable for them, not just take the ones that are for a different group and shrug the consequences off. This is absolutely part and parcel of why men are so entitled, and have little interest in respecting womens spaces.

I do this and below thread was accused of violating mens privacy.

There is a problem in some public places of no suitable space for parents with opposite gender children who still need parental supervision/ protection.

I am a woman and will not violate womens/girls spaces with my growing DS. I also won't leave my child naked and alone and vulnerable with strangers ESPECIALLY makes so I choose the best of a bad situation. A cubicle in the mens dressing room.

I don't think children should have to endure getting changed in front of other girls or boys, it's so much more common for schools and child venues than it is for adult facilities. Many girls developing don't like getting changed infront of other girls. We moved out children to a pool with individual cubicles that anyone can use and we've never had any issues since.

I wonder if you asked the gym/swimming pool/hotel whatever what their provision was for safe guarding unaccompanied children in changing rooms would their response be to just ban unaccompanied children? My ds in almost 6 and his swimming place is opening a family changing room - thank god. And I think the men's has a little separate area in it for kids already- but you've to walk through the main one to get to it. I'll also seen another local pool which has a small changing room which is more mixed before you have the main changing room. So you can have boys in there in the women's or women in the men's, but basically means you can be with your child to change before/after they walk through the main room with showers and pool access.

So if you're girls you go to the main changing room to change, your mom can come with you. If you want your dad you need to stay in the outer changing room with him and he says goodbye before you walk through the main one with showers to the pool. If you're a boy you either go into the men's solo or with dad, up to 8 you go into the women's outer changing room with mom or after 8 the men's outer changing room with mom. It's also mainly used for lessons which means the likelihood of adults changing is slim.

It's not OK for you to take your child into a men's changing room any more than it is a man to be in a cubicle in the womans. The same way as I'd report to the police a man who repeatedly did this I'd report to the police a woman who repeatedly did it, it's disgusting behaviour and you have no right. Use a normal toilet, take your child home just in a towelling gown, change pools to one with unisex cubicles, pay a male childminder to attend with you, whatever it is you have absolutely no right to be in a men's changing room.

@HiJenny35 there is no normal toilet. There is a womens and a mens and you have to go through one or the other to get to the pool and out again. There is no other pool unfortunately for us in a small rural town. Also the pool is open to all during kids swimming lessons. It is the leisure centre who had told me to do this as the best course of action.

I agree it's not ideal. It's embarrassing for all. But I won't put my son at risk. And I would never use a male childminder under any circumstances. Certainly I can't afford to pay for swim lessons and a childminder during swim lessons. My DH works during the swimming lesson hours available.

Re going around braless, it's normal for these changing rooms! When the boy came in, most of the women and all the tween girls covered up. Why the fuck should we?

I'm not doing a sex dance for the kid 🙄 I'm in and out the showers trying to get the younger ones' hair washed. Ideal world there would not be an almost teenage boy there