Dads using female communal changing room

[Strawberrryfields]

Not sure how I feel about this so looking for opinions and whether I should do anything.

A couple of times recently I’ve been changing my child after swimming and a dad has come in to change his child in the communal female changing room. It’s after lessons so only children changing. There are communal female, communal male and a number of individual cubicles. It gets very busy at peak times so at times you may need to wait for an individual cubicle.

It feels weird to me a grown man being in there and my instinct is that he should use the private cubicles, though he is clearly there with his child helping them get ready. I also understand him not wanting to take his child into the men’s communal changing rooms with random men in there but to me, he is a random man.

Should I say something? Would you? Chances are it’s just a normal dad changing his kid but I don’t feel entirely comfortable with it but not sure if IABU?

At what level? Equivalent to Sir Robert Winston?

X post @spannasaurus 🤣🤣🤣

People are so quick to judge - I had 4 kids , all 4 swam, I mostly took them to lessons.
kids are changed in the changing room of their sex - my son was always changed in the men’s my 3 girls always changed in the ladies, regardless of which parent was changing them. Our first swimming club was predominately mums changing - so there were always mums changing boys in the men’s room.

Definitely not - but I do know the difference between public engagement of science and actual scientific work. Lord Winston has made it very clear that this subject is rather complicated - see e.g. his evidence in HoL:

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200304/ldhansrd/vo040203/text/40203-18.htm#:~:text=Most%20practising%20doctors%20in%20the,only%20genes%20that%20define%20sex.

So sad that Prof Winston never said this

I will say this categorically, that you cannot change your sex. Your sex actually is there in every single cell in the body

sad times.

There's always one on threads like this. It's been a pattern on this site for years. The dogged persistence tells you as much as you need to know.

They simply cannot resist it and will not leave women the hell alone. Especially if it means they get to spend days at a time admonishing them.

Personally I have better uses for my precious time, but each to their own as they say.

"I will say this categorically, that you cannot change your sex. Your sex actually is there in every single cell in the body"

What does this have to do with anything? No-one talks about changing sex. You claimed that everyone who is not female must be male - and I disagree, there are instances where this is not correct.

So the question is: how do you define sex? What criteria does someone have to fulfil to be considered male? Is genetic sex sufficient? And if so - which criteria?

Sex is considerably more complicated - the HoL evidence explains this very well.

Incidentally - your claim about every single cell is also wrong.

In that case I will continue to take Prof Winstons words over yours.

Hmmm. 🤔

Did you read his HoL evidence?

And obviously I would do the same - he is a renowned expert after all.

Red blood cells

It’s not my claim. Its prof winstons claim.

you just said he was wrong.

oops.

He is. Red blood cells are a very good example.

No, because I need to leave enough time to read the quote from your linked article that states intersex people are neither male nor female

Read it - it's much better - and written clearly by someone you respect.

No, I wait for yours thanks

Could you please tell us the name of this third sex?

You should have asked him to leave & use a cubicle. If he doesn't want his Daughter seeing other men in the male changing room explain you don't want your child to see a random male in the female changing rooms. Report it to Reception so they're aware of it & ask them to keep an eye. It's their job to stop these kind of things happening.

Those who believe that I contradict Lord Winston should really pay a bit more attention to what he says. The full quote is - and it is bit more complicated, but does not provide any clear definition of what is "male" and what is "female".

"I will say this categorically - that you cannot change your sex, your sex actually is there in every single cell in the body you have a chromosomal sex you have genetic sex you have hormonal sex, you have all sorts of psychological brain sex, they're all different. And we are very confused about this, unfortunately."

One could also argue that it is a simplification - the difference between male and female red blood cells (cells of the body after all) is not measurable. It's a bit different for platelets (which also don't have genomic material).

The funny thing is though: it doesn't really answer the question how you define male. Clearly a Y-chromosome is not sufficient, SRY expression is not sufficient - so where draw the line? And does one have to draw the line?

The existence of ICD-10 Q56 makes it very clear that claims that everyone who is not male must be female is a very simplistic approach that might be a work-around for every day life, but is still not correct.

@oldtiredcyclist - please look at ICD-10 Q56 - it will give you plenty of names and explanations.

Exactly. In this sort of situation there aren't adults of the opposite sex getting changed in front of each other.

I don’t want my ten (nearly eleven year old) and the slightly older adolescent girls to have to get changed in front of non-related adult males. Especially as they’re at an age where they may well be without their mum in the changing room and unlikely to be confident enough to voice their concerns. Can you seriously not see a problem with this?

...well that's a completely different scenario to this one, where there aren't many cubicles then, isn't it? 🙄

So pretty much as irrelevant as me saying 'I don't see an issue with this, I live near a nudist beach and everyone just gets naked all the time.'

Wait, what? You have read this thread and you (surely?) agree that the man should not have been in the changing room with OP, and you are literally asking if it’s okay for an adult woman to go in the men’s in the exact reverse scenario?

And this is because you are worried about a little child seeing another little child naked?

Hopefully I’ve misunderstood.

I definitely see a problem with that. I'm not sure but the OP might have been referring to very young children(toddler, preschooler age) not older children. If it's only very small children that's one thing.

But it is much better if the father simply takes them into the men's changing room if they're young enough. Then there is no possibility of older girls or women being present.

So if sex is so complicated and no one can really really tell who is male or female ,how do trans people know they’re the wrong sex? So if there are other sexes as you appear to be claiming, what are they called, what gametes do they produce and what role do they have in reproduction. I am assuming you’re not going to be so crass and ignorant as to refer to those people with VSD to claim sex is complicated.