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.

This!!!!!

A lot of people have spoken about their experience during swimming lessons. In our local pool / hotels, there is nobody else in the pool only those getting lessons. Sessions are scheduled with a short break between each to allow for dressing room use, so why on earth are there naked men lounging around in your dressing rooms? 🙈

I agree with all those saying it is not fair to make females feel uncomfortable in their own dressing facilities. Ideally all swimming pools should have family changing areas, or cubicles for everyone, no open plan changing area. Thankfully the only ones with the open plan gender specific ones around here are older swimming pools, although now that I think about it the hotels actually have this set up.

Oh fuck no idea what that just did.

I DON'T WANT MY SONS IN YOUR DAUGHTERS SPACES!!

I DON'T THINK IT'S OK FOR GIRLS TO NOT HAVE A SAFE SPACE

I THINK THE ISSUE THAT MY SON DOESN'T HAVE A SAFE SPACE DOESN'T MEAN I CAN TAKE SOMEONE ELSES

I've said all this and you persist in going on about how I'm taking your kids space and how I want my precious boys there.

Quote me once where I've suggested anything along the lines of

yeah, fuck girls and their dignity, right?

just assume your son is welcome where we and our girls are changing, FFS

you mothers of precious boys taking away our rights

Where have I once suggested that it's the jobs of girl-Mom's to fight for safe spaces for boys?

You have a bug up your arse but I didn't put it there so stop having a go at me about things you've imagined I've said.

And my kids are 6 and 2, so perfectly entitled to use the women's changing room / toilets and actually the disabled changing facilities too

And the fact your response to a kid being made to come into the changing room with Mom would be to expose your naked body to him says all I need to know about you, frankly.

I'd walk round naked too just to piss them off.

Except it isn't because men are also entitled to privacy toom. I appreciate they're only men and its MN BUT how is ok for me to sit in there whilst teenage lads, young men etc are getting dressed?

I'm quite shocked at a grown woman who would WANT to go into a men's changing room on a regular basis. That's literally the worst solution. Why not change your som pool-side with a long towel? Surely it's better than going into a men's changing room 😖

your son*

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. so your answer is to violate mens spaces because they're less important. Good lesson for your son eh, one way to work towards equality. Make it clear that men should not be entitled to privacy from women if it's suits women because men did it first so fairs fair.

It honestly would never cross my mind to go into a men's changing room as a solution to any problem. 🙈

I understand if there wasn’t any available but I’ve yet to go to a public swimming pool and not see cubicles for people to use.

It's very common in private gyms and hotels. I've tried load of places for swim lessons some times only a couple of lanes are reserved for lessons. The rest open for the gym members, hotel guests. Or the changing room may also be used by people using the gym rather then the swimming pool. Hence adults changing at the same time as kids.

The best answer is the communal changing villages with mix sex cubicles. Which tend to be found in council pools. But council swimming lessons tend to have far too many kids and my experience was far too little progress.

Children in with opposite sex parents has been an issue for years my DMum now in her 70s stopped swimming with her Dad because he wasn't comfortable letting her go into the ladies alone and she didn't want to go into the men's. In MN world the issue is always boys in the ladies but girls in the boys with dad is an issue too and mums going into the boys.

They have one male & one female open plan change room each. They're very small, max 4 people. There's an individual, lockable bathroom (also disabled but not badged so ok to use). Also two large unisex change rooms. They have no doors & are mostly used by parents to change babies & very young children. It's a very old complex. Desperately needs updating but that costs money & owner is a tightwad.

I agree with PP - dads taking girls into the boys changing rooms is also a problem, causing real embarrassment to my sons. There isn't a solution for pools that are stuck with 2 changing rooms, at least not one that doesn't involve parents sacrificing a bit of peace of mind, speed or convenience.

We have my pre-teen sons having 8 year old girls watching them try to cover up in the open boys' changing rooms and also my daughter having young boys watch her in open girls' changing rooms. We do our best to help them navigate this, but the lack of awareness of some parents of the privacy many children prefer is just stunning.

A child’s age is not always obvious- my 5 year old son gets mistaken for an 8 year old as he’s off the centile growth charts for his age. I’ve had looks before from other mums when I take him to the ladies with me. I also have a very real fear of abuse if he was alone in the mens (this is because a close relative experiencing childhood abuse while in a mens toilet). So the solution isn’t obvious. At the moment we are trying out changing poolside under big robe towels- my boys don’t love it but I do feel judged using the ladies changing facilities as a mum of young boys.

No that's fine because small boys are only going to grow into disgusting men who want nothing more than to rape women and girls.

And disabled people can clearly just go fuck themselves, why would they need the facilities they fought for the provision of?

Parents - if you are not comfortable with the changing arrangements provided - you can refuse to allow your child to use them, and you can make a big noise with the facility and the club/school/whatever.

What you can't do, is trample over everyone elses provision or rights to make lives easier for yourselves.

Parents - if you are not comfortable with the changing arrangements provided - you can refuse to allow your child to use them, and you can make a big noise with the facility and the club/school/whatever.

Other than voting with feet and taking business elsewhere (easier said than done) how much clout do you really think parents of kids doing swimming lessons with a private company who rent a couple of lanes in a private pool really have?

The facility owner is making most of their money from hotel guests / gym members.
The swimming company are probably just glad to have been able to find a pool they can rent and operate out of.

I've spent the last year travelling 15 miles at rush hour to get to swimming lessons in a private pool. Does my head in but needs must. Council lessons have crazy waiting lists and far too many kids in the group.

@IrishMama2015 Um, if a boy above 8 shouldn't be in the women's change room then a woman definitely has no business being in the men's.

I agree but then what do I do? I won't leave him alone at this age. You have to go through one of the two changing rooms to get to the pool. We arrive ready. But you are not allowed to change poolside or take towels past the changing rooms for health and safety. Do I change him in the carpeted hall outside the changing rooms? It's a hotel facility and the only one available to us.

Again this is managements suggestion as I will not leave him alone in a changing room

@IrishMama2015 I wouldn't be happy sending an 8yo into a changing room on their own either.
And if that's the hotels answer I'd go with it. They might actually do something if the men complain.

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.

Yeah, i don't really know why i said that apart from to get a rise. But i would continue to use the changing room as i do now. Which involves me walking around naked. And i won't change my behaviour just because your boys are in there.

So you’ve just admitted you’re willing to expose yourself infront of a child which goes against every thing you apparently stand for

Does not and that is an odd thing to say. I have consistently said that girls should have their own spaces, with no boys in them and that boys deserve to feel safe too but not in girls' spaces. If boys come into a women's space where i am and their behaviour makes me uncomfortable - i will have words with first the mother (a polite request for them to go elsewhere) and if that brings no resolution (that they leave) i will speak to management. And if they persist in letting boys into girls spaces - then i will vote with my feet.

Our swim school has a policy of no adults of the opposite sex in each changing room and boys are only allowed in the boys, girls in the girls - to be fair its a very small swim school, but it works!
My 6yo DD has just started getting changed on her own in the changing room with the big girls (used to get changed poolside like the rest of the little ones) at her insistance!
Funnily enough, none of the boys use the changing rooms, they all get changed on the poolside with Mummy doing everything for them - even the oldest boys!

I can't imagine having to be in the changing room with a child at 9/10/11, what sort of lesson is that teaching these children?! (additional needs aside of course!)

@Heckythump1 so what's your issue?

Your DD gets her privacy and the boys are changing in a place deemed safe by their DM and avoiding any of the potential issues noted here.What's it to you that they do that?

This 100%! I don't understand why people should be fighting over inadequate Services. No parents should have to send their child to strip in front of a bunch of strange men.

@Heckythump1 can I ask what the age span would be of the people in the changing rooms at swim lesson time?

I’d assume that most 11yr olds who can’t change independently have additional needs of some sort, wouldn’t you?

To be honest I would have been pissed off with you for inflicting your naked breasts on ME just to prove some kind of weird point. I'm a woman and I don't really want to see that.

I would prefer to have a discreet 10 year old boy quietly changing in with me, than some grown woman parading her naked breasts about.