Kids in changing room at gym

[Snowypony]

Yesterday I was running late for my aqua gym class

i already had my swimming costume on under my clothes

i I ran in the changing rooms and there was a boy in there who was taller than me

i didn’t have time to question the Mum - he had clearly started puberty. He watched me get changed which left me very uncomfortable

i I got in the pool and my friend saw I was a bit upset and asked why. I explained and said the boy was about 12. There are no changing rooms at my gym - it’s just benches so you have to get naked when changing

my friend went over and spoke to the Mun who got really angry and said he’s entitled to be in there he’s only 11

when I got out they’re left but I still went and complained to the gym staff.

I don’t have a ds only dd so I’ve never had this issue. But is it reasonable to expect an 11 year old to use their own sex changing room?

I know it ‘isn’t about my needs’- it’s about ‘women’s needs’- except I am a woman and my disability is intrinsic to ALL my experiences as a woman. So while the needs of disabled people are not relevant to every conversation, they are always relevant to me.

Unless I don’t take part or don’t call on my own experiences (like the Muslim lady did, like the women who have experienced boys in inappropriate situations are), then I’m posting about the experience of a disabled person.

you ask that the male one can be cleared so your son can access it.

I can ask definitely- but it doesn’t mean I’ll get. I’ll get what the staff wants, and that’s the quietest space (and sometimes one or other of the sexed toilets is more wheelchair accessible- at MOSI this week for example the female toilets were down 2 flights of stairs, so the males would have been the only option then- sometimes it’s the other way round)

you can access the female space

I can access the female space (if it isn’t down two flights of stairs!) but not if I have my son with me because he is 10, but I also can’t leave him to wait alone (I did once at the shopping centre I mentioned earlier- he wandered off to roll around the floor of the car park)- and I always have him with me because he’s home educated.

Im not saying ‘this he should come in the ladies’-he shouldn’t and doesn’t - i’m saying that there are a lot of women like me and feminists discourse needs to include us if it is to be truly feminist- ‘its not about disabled people’ doesn’t cut it.

Do you always accuse people of saying things they didn't say?

As for 'which planet?' - I'm on a planet that should respect female only spaces by not allowing males in there.

Disability is not an excuse for males to be in women's spaces.

But then you could argue @MyMotherThouArt, don’t men deserve their designated single sex space? Why are men’s rights less than women’s rights?

Could it not be argued that because women’s changing rooms are constantly clogged with children <8 that this is why they are seen as the default space for children older than this, and because females are usually the main carer.

Only when we deconstruct the entire set up and have male, female and family changing is there equality because then there is the expectation that fathers will step up and do their bit too, as there is space for them to do so… while kids can go in the men’s generally they don’t due to the vast majority of sexual assault being carried out by men.

We really need to be culturing an environment where fathers are just as likely to be carers for children but that would mean restructuring employment law, abolishing the pay gap, deconstructing much of our patriarchal society, and moving mothers away from what they are biologically inclined to do which may then impact child development… all of which is a subject for another thread.

I agree with you, able people do just expect you to get what you are given and be grateful that they are willing to consider you at all…. Frankly having grown up without support for disability, I am quite ferocious about getting support for my som because I know how much of a struggle and how at risk he will be without it. I’m very willing to point out what a venue is obligated to provide.

But then you could argue @MyMotherThouArt, don’t men deserve their designated single sex space? Why are men’s rights less than women’s rights?

Yes, you could. I was reading some very recent case law last night (earlier this year or back of last)- it was about toilets not changing rooms-

but interestingly the conclusion was that 2 positions can be legally true at the same time:

So the women in question won the case re inappropriate provision of toilets and having to use the mens (it was a complicated saga but that’s the gist) although there was a mechanism in place which was supposed to close it to males when she did- it was found to be less favourable treatment, and the distress of seeing blokes with their tackle out was taken into account.

However they also maintained that the men involved were entitled to bring a case themselves because of the distress of a woman seeing their tackle.

I agree with you, able people do just expect you to get what you are given and be grateful that they are willing to consider you at all…. Frankly having grown up without support for disability, I am quite ferocious about getting support for my som because I know how much of a struggle and how at risk he will be without it. I’m very willing to point out what a venue is obligated to provide.

Yes they do. They also expect us to keep our disability out of their ‘feminist’ discourse because it complicates matters for them. Its more complex even when you remove the boys in women’s spaces issue completely-

for example I’ve yet to meet an able bodied mother who on principle refuses to use a changing table if it’s put in an accessible toilet- why should they? Unfair to women because they are the primary baby changers and it would mean women are unable to access lots of venues with their children without a lot of inconvenience- but I’m a woman who NEEDS that space for me, I don’t have another option and they are blocking my access.

So, are we mothers first? Disabled first? or women first? Who is obligated to make space? In the end it comes down to ‘the rules’ or ‘the law’, and disabled women come bottom because we are lesser beings twice over!

I think most people are just oblivious to the needs of others. For example... wheelchair spaces on buses. In my four years of taking a pram on a bus, I encountered 10 maybe wheelchair users. It would be extremely easy to think it was not a big problem. However those 10 wheelchair users probably had the problem with pushchairs on the bus nearly everytime. (I always folded incidentally).

I have personally never encountered a changing room issue with a disabled person... so its only on threads like this I find the struggles of women with disabled sons. Naively, I thought there would always be access to a disabled changing room.

I know you shouldn't have to... but thank you for trying to explain the difficulties you face.

They also expect us to keep our disability out of their ‘feminist’ discourse because it complicates matters for them

It's interesting that you keep ignoring the disabled women who are participating in the discourse. It seems you're fine with dismissing disabled people's opinions when they don't agree with you.

@PuttingDownRoots some of us really do understand the issues folk with disabilities face, but the point is that allowing males into female spaces cannot ever be a default solution to this.

Indeed. If a gym/leisure centre doesn't have facilities to accommodate an opposite sex adult with a disabled child (or just someone they are caring for who is disabled, regardless of age - could be a son and disabled mother) then they need to sort something out.

The answer is not to take a male into a female space (or indeed the other way round). The answer is to tell (not ask) your gym to make reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act. Or, if available, use one that has different facilities.

They also expect us to keep our disability out of their ‘feminist’ discourse because it complicates matters for them. Its more complex even when you remove the boys in women’s spaces issue completely-

Codswallop!

Disabled women & girls are the group which feminists recognise need more access to safe spaces, privacy & dignity and male free spaces.

You don’t agree with me that boys 8 and over shouldn’t be in women’s spaces?

or that disabled people should check provisions before they go to places?

or that sometimes you do check/go somewhere you have been before but the accessible spaces are suddenly out of order at some point during the visit?

or that when that happens sometimes you have to ask staff for a space to toilet/change where you can meet your needs and also not upset women by taking a boy in with them?

and that it’s reasonable in that situation to accept the space that the staff tell you to use (unless they tell you to go in the men’s with men in it, or to take the boy into the women’s while women are in it)?

or that you as an individual can’t dictate whether they clear the mens or women’s space? You can request that they clear the mens so no other woman are inconvenienced- but sometimes it isn’t practical (because one or other spaces is crammed, or up steps, or whatever else the managers consider important in the venue they have control of) so it’s “use this space or nothing”?

and that choosing nothing means humiliation/public nudity and dealing with intimate care in an unclean environment (and making it more unclean in the process)?

or that disabled women are women, and our experience is relevant to feminism all the time?

or that the needs of disabled women are misunderstood or ignored frequently by society as a whole- because we are women, we are in the minority, access for us is inconvenient and expensive to the public and successive governments have managed to create a narrative that we are all lazy entitled scroungers anyway?

If none of that rings true to you then that’s great for you. It probably means our accessibility needs and life circumstances are very different.

@MyMotherThouArt

The issue with baby change is INFURIATING. They always have baby change in the disabled loo. It should not be there. There is nothing wrong with the babies or children brought in there, except that they need privacy and space - fine, put it in the ladies and men’s in a separate cubicle, or have a baby room, job done.

Also infuriating, some wheelchair users and their family members who think they are the only people on the planet with disability, suffered verbal abuse and bullying due to this.

MyMotherThouArt Why not ask a genuine question instead of attempting to put words in my mouth? Is that your idea of inclusive discourse?

This poster has a habit of claiming you have said things you haven't on a regular basis.

Also bear in mind that the disabled space is not just for wheelchair users but all with disability. For instance some apparently ambulant people who need to be up the front for more room or to get off quicker, are then bullied by mothers with prams who tell them they aren’t disabled and to move because they have a baby and take priority…

@KeinLiebeslied54321

in our local museum there are three disabled spaces, one is massive and allows for adult changing on a bed, the next is a typical disabled bathroom, the third is an oversized cubicle in the women’s toilet…..

If the disabled space is put in the women’s space the disabled are entitled to be there.

The answer is to tell (not ask) your gym to make reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act.

@enchantedsquirrelwood

We do, and I speak for my friends and where I’ve seen this happen, very often the reasonable adaptation is to “go and change him in the ladies, ask the ladies if they mind” or “we’ll clear the ladies for you”

😀 that would be lovely if it were true.

I guess you are in the vanishingly small minority of women that have never

used a changing table in an accessible loo?

Always folded your pram on the bus as soon as you got on so people in wheelchairs don’t have to ask to use the space/wait while you do it?

stopped in the Bb space ‘because you are only nipping to the cash point’?

complained about carers getting a reduction in entry fee to places?

nipped into the accessible loo because “you will only be a minute”, or “there is a queue and I’m busy”

complained about disabled people using the exit to get on rides at theme parks because your kids moan?

complained about someone in a wheelchair with disabilities pointing out that you can wait to change your baby or change them somewhere else (unless you yourself are disabled in which case first come first served)

complained that disabled children take up too much of teachers time and it isn’t fair?

thought ‘they don’t look disabled’

wondered why someone has a bb if it looks like they can walk

smacked a wheelchair user in the face with a bag because you aren’t looking where you are going?

allowed your children to point and stare at disabled people

presumed to tell a disabled person what they can/cant do? Ie- your chair will fit there (it won’t), you are allowed to drive?! (I am)

considered that disabled people should not have had kids, or that parents of disabled kids should have aborted them?

etc etc etc

By complain I mean in your head/to your mate- not officially complained.

If so, congratulations! You are in the minority of people who are actually truly inclusive and my comment about feminist discourse side lining disabled people doesn’t apply to you.

I don’t, and I’m not the one who is currently on another thread claiming male rapists should be in women’s spaces if they put a frock on.

If anyone is in bad faith it ain’t me.

If you have missed what I’ve said go and advance search my name- you will get every post I’ve written on here and you will see that I have consistently said

no boys over 8 in women’s spaces- I have never done this

HOWEVER if management insist that they close the women’s space for us (for reasons of accessibility/crowdedness/their own personal beliefs) then that is the space I’m forced to use.

Ok, what don’t you agree with?!

Thankfully this thread is coming to a close

Then the derailers can go off and argue in an empty room and give the rest of us a break

That's why I already informed her I'd no longer be interacting with her.
Despite this she's quoted me again recently.

Then you make it clear that isn't a reasonable adaption, if not atcthe time, then officially (in writing) later.