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?

I’ve got no idea if that would work for this child, but I’d assume if it was that straight forward that’s what OP would have done. I don’t think you have to minimise the difficulties he and that face to suggest that her solution wasn’t good and needs a rethink. After all that’s what the poor woman said herself.

The majority of autistic people have learning difficulties or disabilities and many more have other comorbids. OP has indicated her son does. I don’t think it’s logical to assume because you know a HFA who can do something this child is at all likely to be able to do the same.

Where is the outrage then @sollenwir ?

Where is the activism?

The placards?

The indignition?

Oh that’s right, it’s nowhere, because people - men and women - are too motivated by their own self interest to give a shit about supporting and including disabled people.

?

@TomeTome

I’ve just read this three times.

I’m so so sorry you and your son have had to ensure such lack of understanding and compassion from people.

It has shocked me reading this thread that people could be so venomous regarding a disabled child.

And that I will be facing more difficult situations trying to accommodate my child (potentially) in the near future with regard to toilets and changing areas…

I genuinely hadn’t clocked it.

@Thedm

No one is suggesting that women’s spaces should be for boys.

This is a once off event. There was no where else for the child to change safely for his disability.

He is 2months beyond 8 years of age and this boundary that everyone is ranting on about.

To come down on the mother like a tonne of bricks in this completely hostile manner devoid of compassion is unwarranted and extreme.

I would have been interested to hear how @JustKeepSwimmingAlong gets on with advocating for her son at the leisure centre.

I’d like to know what the leisure centre’s position is on this unacceptable situation where a disabled boy was not accommodated and a teenage girl did not have access to privacy as a result.

It would be great to hear all these updates from OP regarding the resolution of the situation and how the leisure centre will seek to make amends to all parties involved.

But we won’t hear any of that because a bunch of extreme feminists devoid of common sense relating to real life scenarios have decided to be a broken record over the thread. And another bunch of equally intense people decided to derail the thread with a TERFs and trans chat completely irrelevant.

I hope you are all pleased with yourselves.

This could have been a thread showing lessons in how to resolve these situations to ensure the rights of women and disabled people are protected…..

But all we’ve had is a bun fight going round in circles.

@Thedm

It is not a matter of “liking” accommodations around queues.

It is that this is an accommodation set up to specifically help disabled people, including autistics.

Just like extra time in exams, reasonable adjustments at work, or a free carer ticket at events.

I am not trying to force anything on anyone. But I haven’t the foggiest why a disabled person wouldn’t avail of all the support available to ensure equality.

If the amount of passion that went into this thread was put into changing the law on having more spaces available for parents with kids it would be sorted very quickly. Until it is changed, I will continue to occasionally bring my boys into female spaces on occasions when it’s necessary. Because assaults happen. Toilets and change rooms have a lot of incidents. If others want to put their kids at risk that’s fine. But I’m not.

And if your child is obviously not a young boy and approaching puberty, I will be sure to challenge you on it. Your embarrassed son will feel so awkward he will refuse to go into a women's changing room after someone confronts you, surely? Go to the family rooms.

It's difficult. He is really too old but as you say he needs help.

Which child has the earlier lesson? If it is your son then could you get out of the pool earlier, get him dressed and then collect your younger one?

You could request a 'reasonable adjustment' from the venue where an accessible changing room is reserved for you for 20 mins? Or one of the group changing rooms? A notice on the door saying 'Currently in use by a family, this will be single sex in 20 mins'. Although I would say that if they will clear a room for you ask for the men's, children are usually accompanied by mum so this would inconvenience fewer people.

Get bath robes for you all to wear while waiting for the changing rooms.

Do you travel by car? Onesies and shower at home?

@itsdark I would use a family room if available. Challenging me won’t make a difference, I wouldn’t acknowledge someone asking me to put my kid at risk, except maybe to blow them a kiss once we are done and on my way out. Busy change rooms at swimming are less of a risk, he goes into the men’s. But side of road toilets or beach change rooms not a chance. He already cracks it if I take him into the women’s. My 6 year old will be accompanying me for years to come. 💋

No-one is going to worry about a six year old. Your six year old is going to have his own opinion and won't be following you for years to come. He will develop his own feelings and be horribly embarrassed being taken into the womens for too much longer. You'll see. I'll give it a couple of years before he kicks up a fuss and feels the shame.

If you ignore me saying something I will turn to your son and ask him, aren't you too old to be in the womens? That will be the end of him willingly following you.

I've seen a woman banned from a pool for bringing in her twelve year old sons. Good for the pool.

@LolaSmiles

Look the reason women’s spaces are the go to in these sorts of emergency situations is that

a) Mainly it is mothers taking care of the children or bringing them to swimming

b) Women are much less likely to be rapists, paedophiles, violent and so forth

Therefore women’s spaces are deemed to be safe for children.

OP’s son is 2 months older than this 8yo cut off point for boys. She didn’t bring a 24yo disabled man in there, I think some of the reactions on this thread are out of their tree bonkers

The situation in the OP wasn't an emergency, but I do agree that in emergencies those things apply.

My question was why the default response to any issues with facilities is to just use the women's:

The pertinent question at the root of it is why some people's default reaction to facilities not being as they want is to tell women and girls to fix it or budge up and accept a mixed sex space, rather than either parents choosing somewhere that has changing facilities that meet their needs or advocating for better management of facilities to meet their requirements. It feels awfully like telling women and girls to budge up, accept boundaries being eroded and be kind.

There are places I won't take an older boy because the changing isn't appropriate. I wouldn't send him to the men's, for the reasons you outline, but I'd also not expect his female peers to lose their single sex space. This means that we need to either choose places to swim with a family changing village or somewhere that has appropriate family changing in addition to single sex communal changing.

I don't think the fact women take children swimming more means that by the women's space becomes unisex by default because people don't want to choose a different venue/the venue doesn't see the need to provide appropriate changing facilities to preserve the privacy and dignity of everyone.

They don't what? Get naked in changing rooms. Well I must be seeing things the 5 days a week I go to the gym then - my bad 🙄

You were mocking any woman who is naked/partly naked in an ALL FEMALE changing area - women do this ALL the time, not to 'get their baps out', but just to do a normal thing like changing.
@Thedm added that she has a disability which makes it more effort/not possible to cover up to change, so while you weren't initially aware of or mocking her disability directly, you were mocking something she cannot change.

A female only space is just that, males are not allowed.

It's equally unreasonable to take males in a female only communal changing area though.

Hidden under the placard of assumptions you're holding up in front of me, maybe?
You have NO idea what I do with my time.

So females are always less important than males?

Agreed, the 6 year old isn't really an issue, it's the assertion of 'years to come' - other females can and will complain, and if the frontline facility staff do nothing they'll take it higher until something happens. Don't be that selfish person who cannot follow simple rules, and who gives lots of other people extra work.

Not to mention the message it sends the son that who cares about other people, it's all about what I want. And the message that who cares about women's privacy and comfort if it doesn't suit me. Then we wonder why some men struggle with consent issues while the parents say they just don't know what happened for them to be that way.

Blow them a kiss? Deliberately provocative to other pool users then.

Why not just accompany your DS into the men's changing room?

Speak to the pool managers - there will be lots of other people in similar situations.

Yes. I was one of them as a child.

I remember being out with my dad aged about 5 and refusing to go in the men's toilets with him because 'I'm not a man, I'm not allowed to.' On the verge of meltdown about it because I really needed to go.

He didn't drag me into the men's despite my distress. He also didn't go into the women's. He asked a woman going in there with her own daughter if she'd mind keeping an eye out for me.

(For the avoidance of any doubt, I'm not trying to claim this is analogous to OP's situation - I didn't need any assistance with toileting, for a start. I'm reflecting on autistic children and rule-following re: spaces.)

Please don't make sweeping statements about autistic people like they're all the same.

My autistic DD is quite capable of queuing and does so by herself on a daily basis - to get on the bus, to get lunch, at checkouts.

And what on earth are you talking about, autistic people can't comprehend the passage of time?!

The child in question though is described by the OP as

9 and has multiple additional needs including ADHD, ASD and some physical disabilities which means he struggles to change himself.

And isn’t “quite capable of queuing”. Generalising doesn’t help really whichever way you spin it. The majority of autistic people aren’t able to do a lot of things that able verbal autistics can they aren’t very visible. Some of that is because nobody prioritises their access to the world.

If anything ds understands the passage of time too well which creates its own issues at times!

sweeping generalisations don’t help anyone. As ds reception teacher said to me “when you have met one person with autism you have met one person with autism”

sterotypes and generalisations lead to one size fits all support which helps very few.