To think boys shouldn’t go in to men’s toilets???

[Scotlandma]

This is hypothetical I seen another post about someone not letting their 9 year old use mens public bathrooms

what age do other people let their children go in to toilets on their own?

and how do you navigate them using the disabled toilets if not?? I’d be so worried in case someone actually disabled needed them

I don't think anyone is saying that, as a rule, 14 year old males should be using the female toilets. I can't recall seeing too many 14 year old males in the female loo myself. In fact I can't think of one time. I can also count on one hand the times I've seen small boys in the female loos with their mothers. I'm sure most mothers of sons do their best to avoid it, given the sensitivities all round. That said, it's not about biological age. It's about the individual child, their individual needs, their maturity level and the parental responsibility to safeguard.

I think you need to separate gay men from predatory men. They are not the same thing.

Rubbish!

This ↑

For all the posters saying it's OK for a little girl to go in men's toilets because men are not standing with their penis' out.

I have to do toilet checks every hour at work and even though we knock and shout toilet check there are men who will turn around towards the sinks while tucking it back in and last week there was an old man in the cubicle toilets standing at the sinks with his pants around his ankles and everything out.

One of my female colleagues was also not happy the other day because she had shouted toilet check and gone in and there was a man sat on the toilet with the cubilce door wide open.
The men's toilets are also grim and always splattered with shit so I wouldn't think it's a place that little girls should be in.

I have spent 45 years going into men's public toilets, and have never seen anything untoward! Enter, do your business, wash your hands and leave!

Doesn't sound like the sort of place little boys should be either.

Not sure many adult men would enjoy it either! They aren’t all animals.

Slightly off topic but what the fuck is wrong with people leaving toilets in that kind of state for someone else to clean up? Would they leave shit splattered in their own toilets at home? Disgusting.

I used to work for the vice squad, not an officer I did admin. One day one of the officers from the station was going off duty, later in the day he arrived back having arrested a man who propositioned him in a public toilet. Let's say it wasn't a very subtle approach. I typed up the charge sheet and file for court so I know what happened.

He'd probably been using men's public toilets for a few years less than you, maybe 30 to 35 years but it was a first for him. It can, and does, happen.

You are fortunate then.

That's very true.

So you think just because you haven't seen anything untoward, nothing untoward ever happens.

No, and my son is 10 and still really little, (some posters on MN seem to live in The Land of the Giants!) so he does go in the men's obviously but I have to say it makes me feel a bit uncomfortable.

She manages at school without Mum or Dad taking her. The first time she went to the toilet at school it would have been strange to her. Kids can do more than parents allow them sometimes. I have never met a 7 year old afraid to go to the toilet without Mum or Dad at 7. I was a teacher for 25 years so saw a lot of children.

I honestly don't know. It's a pub with a hotel and we get quite a lot of workmen staying and honestly their rooms and bathrooms are left in a disgusting state. I can never understand how they don't feel any shame!
There obviously is sometimes a mess in the women's toilets but it is much less often.

If he's with his mother I don't think he's going to be doing anything intimidating but apart from that why should it be OK for a short boy to be able to go into the toilets with his mother and not OK for a boy the same age who happens to be tall. It is a really odd way to discriminate.

Children of both sexes using the women’s toilets whilst accompanied by their mother/ female carer is a bit of a self perpetuating problem.
Once my son was old enough to use the men’s toilets by himself ( around 6-7 from memory), I often still couldn’t let him as if I needed to be in the almost inevitable queue in the women’s toilet I didn’t want him to have to wait outside alone.
This meant he sometimes had to come into the women’s, adding to the queues, and making everyone wait longer.
Family toilets would seem a good idea, or failing that planners need to recognise the issue and put in a larger number of cubicles in the women’s toilets to reflect what actually happens.

But going to the toilet alone at 7yrs, in school, which is hopefully a safe place, is one thing. Going to the toilet alone in a busy motorway service station or something, is a completely different scenario and the risks need to be assessed accordingly.

I've seen countless young boys in the ladies with their mums and can honestly say I've thought nothing of it.

Even if I were to see a teenage boy with his mum, I'd assume there was a reason. Perhaps he has learning difficulties, or has had a bad experience in the past. If he's under the supervision of his mum, I'm not going to question or lose sleep over it.

Absolutely, there is no legal reason at the moment why women can’t go into the mens.
It’s just the obvious things that @StepAwayFromTheBiscuitJar has highlighted

The issue is one of equality.
Planners/ developers/ the Govn etc think everyone should have the same.
They historically were all men so didnt take account of the additional time and need etc of women.
As an architect we ve been campaigning for years to get more provision plus larger cubicles to allow for the room needed for a sanitary bin.
Its like talking to a brick wall they don’t give a s… . In fact my male colleagues wouldn’t design in extra provision.

That’s not true, unfortunately.

My own friend was sexually assaulted in male toilets in a shopping centre on a very busy Saturday morning, when we were 7. He was never the same afterwards.

While living in England, in a local macdonalds, two brothers age 6 and 8 were both sexually assaulted in the toilets.

That's a good point. What do you do if you have two children of the opposite sex and one is too young to go in by themselves?

So older girl (let's say 7-8) and younger boy (under 5) out with their mum - easy, they go into the women's.

But older boy of 7-8 and younger girl out with their mum is much trickier - yes, you might be happy for your 7 year old to quickly use the men's while you wait outside, but probably not happy to leave a 7 year old child on his own out of your sight in a busy place for up to 15 minutes while you wait in a queue in the women,s with the younger child who can't go in by herself.

I agree that older boys should not be using the women's but what's the solution to this? It surely can't be to let a 7 year old wander about unaccompanied and unsupervised. Walkie talkies, maybe 😂!

I think at 9 they're able to use a toilet. 10+ I don't think they should be in the ladies loos tbh unless of course they has SEN or some other issue that made it difficult.

It's the male toilet. They're male. That's the loo they'll have to learn to use.