AIBU to take my son into the female changing room?

[JustKeepSwimmingAlong]

I’ve taken my kids swimming tonight, both have separate swimming lessons and I swam with one while the other had theirs. Eldest is male, 9 and has multiple additional needs including ADHD, ASD and some physical disabilities which means he struggles to change himself. Youngest is in nursery so can dress herself but does need supervision. We got out the pool and realised all the changing rooms were full. There were 8 classes on over multiple pools, as well as general swim on at the same time. There’s only two family/accessible changing rooms and the others are all individual. There were literal queues for the large changing rooms.
I then noticed people going out of the group change. I’ve not used it before, but there was a male and a female changing room, so we went in the females. There was no one in it so started laying out the kids clothes and getting them to shower. Got them out the showers and started to get them dressed and people started coming in. There were a couple of mums with young girls and boys, and then a teenager looking girl came in by herself. She immediately came over to tell me that we were in the female room. I explained my son needed help getting changed and the changing rooms were full, but this room had been empty so we’d used it rather than standing wet and cold waiting for a changing room.
We were nearly Finished and my son was fully dressed when she arrived. He sat next to me, facing the wall and we left within a few minutes. During this time, she did get changed, so we didn’t delay her. Now I’m wondering if I was unreasonable?
I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable, but I really don’t know what else I could have done in the situation? There’s too many classes and too few changing rooms, and we need a larger/accessible one, but they’re the only ones with baby change so they’re really
Popular. The lessons are every week so now I’m wondering what I can do next week? Would I be unreasonable to keep using the group change if there are no other options available?

@SnowflakeSparkles ....and that advice included making it clear why a male should never even have been in there.

Secondly, teaching boys that it’s acceptable to invade women’s spaces is a huge problem. One day they will be bigger and stronger, and without boundaries around women. As for telling teenage girls that they have no right to boundaries when they are undressing, I’m sickened.

This is also bollocks. The common practice of small children (and no I'm not asserting that the OP's particular child is small, I'm talking generally) does not somehow correlate to future behaviours. Absolutely lots of things do correlate to future behaviours, but you can't extrapolate anything that way because it suits your narrative.

Even children are capable of understanding (in fact I would say especially children, because they are subject to it far more often than adults are) that certain behaviours and practices are outgrown, and are based solely on the age of the child. They are more than capable of understanding this especially when it is reinforced as they grow older.

To avoid twisting of my words can I please clarify that I am specifically addressing this hyperbolic point being made that allowing mums to take small DC into female changing rooms we are creating monstrous grown men who have no boundaries towards women is ridiculous. There are plenty of theories and material on why men treat women this way, and this ain't it.

Has anyone said it is comparable? I haven’t seen any such comment. Sadly it seems due to your inappropriate childhood experiences your boundary threshold on this topic is extremely low and that obviously influences your view on this, but that isn’t the case for most people.
Agree with this.

Single sex spaces are not simply about being at risk of assault.
Single sex spaces are required for privacy and dignity as well.

Girls should not have to shut down their feelings of being uncomfortable, accept their boundaries being eroded, not complain or speak up when their gut feels off, or get changed in front of men/boys. It's not because anyone is assuming the boy is a predator. It's because he is male and the girls deserve privacy and dignity to change.

The fact some women have a low bar doesn't mean other women should stop looking out for girls.

There are implications for boys as well if the adults around them teach them that it's ok to ignore girls' boundaries. Boys need the adults in their lives to model appropriate boundaries, respect, privacy and dignity.

It's not 'bollocks' just because it doesn't fit the narrative you're trying to promote.

Males do not belong in female only spaces.

My point was it's distasteful to use arguments aimed at adult males and rooted in transphobia to also apply to young children who do not have agency over the situation.

Like loads of other people including myself, it's quite easy to give the OP advice and your opinion that it's not appropriate without even touching on those topics.

Most of us aren't doing what you describe though.

I would thoroughly disagree with that. The poster you quoted earlier was spot on with that. The one that you dismissed and gas lit which is apparently something you should not do to women. Or is it only women who agree with you who get that privilege?

Nope, no underlying narrative, just a desire to protect female only (and male only) spaces.

If your way of debating is to ask people, patronisingly, if they're 'doing ok' and to keep making assumptions, then our interaction is futile.

Males do not belong in female only spaces.

Again, you not agreeing with me does not mean I am gaslighting.

Why are some people determined to derail a thread that has nothing to do with the gender debate into a thread about the gender debate?

The situation in this thread is an older male child in communal female changing and a situation where a girl felt uncomfortable in what should be a single sex space.

There are many reasons for single sex spaces being important for women and girls, including safety, privacy and dignity.

If we choose to take our sons swimming with us then we have a responsibility not to tell other girls not to budge up to accommodate our sons. It is not the job of teenage girls to deal with the problems occuring in male changing spaces, nor is it their job to deal with the problems of queues for family changing facilities, nor is it their job to deal with a situation that occurs when a parent chooses to go somewhere that doesn't have appropriate changing facilities for their family's mixed sex changing requirements.

I haven't posted on any 'trans threads' on here so I have no idea what you're on about. You also don't seem to know what 'gaslighting' means. Some posters are bringing loads of random 'whatabouteries' into this and the trans thing was one of them, I haven't even seen it mentioned until the post I responded to. Try learning to read

I just wish more people were advocating the line "males do not belong in female only spaces" because they actually cared about the women in those spaces, and not just because they think trans women are gross.

And when I say care about women, I mean all women, not just women in the same demographic as them and with the same views as them.

I see you haven't addressed your treatment of the poster you were engaging with earlier but I hope that behind the keyboard you are feeling ashamed of yourself and doing some reflecting.

Oh give it a rest, nobody saying OP was wrong has even brought up trans stuff! You and one other person have made this thread about trans stuff. I'm not ashamed and have nothing to reflect on, the only people doing that should be OP (which it seems she has) and you coming on here trying to derail a thread with gender issues that aren't relevant in the slightest

"The accessible rooms should be just that."

Yes they shouldn't have a shared use as family rooms.

Thank you.
I find it fascinating how some posters are denying that they're applying their opinions on transgenders in women's spaces to this situation when what they're saying is almost copy and paste word to word what you hear on Mumsnet transgender threads.

I mean really why even deny it

It absolutely is what could be considered gas lighting to diminish someone's opinion by implying that the reason they are holding that opinion is because they are not of sound mind or capable of judging the situation correctly.

That is actually quite exactly what gas lighting is, and insinuating somebody's opinion is not correct or valid due to their childhood experience, is exactly what you did.

You are actually the first person to make this about trans people.
The male in question here is a biological male, who identifies as male (as far as we know).
There is a debate to be had about safe spaces for trans people, but that isn't the debate here.

Nobody has suggested anyone else wasn't 'of sound mind' though.

There's nothing to deny, even if you imagine there is.

I didn't say anyone wasn't of sound mind, I said the person I responded to has had quite an unfortunate upbringing in the sense that she was exposed to naked men when she shouldn't have been, and therefore it is likely she has a lower threshold of what is and isn't appropriate bodily boundaries for a child. The fact that you seem to think that is gaslighting rather than understanding how formative childhood experiences influence adulthood is your problem, not mine

I am not the first poster to say that at all. In fact it was another poster pointing this out that caught my attention.

I had been thinking it the whole time of course because as @Leah5678 , it you have spent any time on the FWR boards it absolutely is word for word the same lines.

I didn't say my position on those types of discussions at all either btw, just pointed out that it seems extremely distasteful and creepy to feel the need to repeat such rhetoric on a thread about a young disabled child. As I said, it feels like it lacks nuance to the point of being irrelevant to the situation, and people were really piling on the mum of a young kid with SEN, it was like watching her actual life become collateral damage in displaced tirades that have nothing to do with her.

And if she like plenty of people are not entrenched in such conversations, she may have no idea why some posters are being so disproportionately harsh to her.

Why are you hellbent on making this about transgender people when nobody else has brought it up? The boy in question is 9 year old boy, OP hasn't said he is trans, seems like you're the one obsessed with trans stuff bringing into a totally irrelevant thread

.

So tiring when people throw around words they don't understand the meaning of at all