To ask, think before you judge who is using the disabled loo!

[Highlandcooo]

I often use the disabled toilet, as even though I have a newborn baby and a toddler and I’m in my thirties I also have a stoma which requires more space and access to a sink within a toilet cubicle.

I am so sick of being judged when I’m out for using the disabled toilet! Only today when I was coming out of the toilet with my pram two people made comments about mothers using the disabled toilets and not ‘waiting their turn’. I ignored them but this happens a lot and I’m getting tempted to show them my stoma bag next time! I have a radar key which was legitimately sent to me with my stoma supplies but people presume I’ve bought it so I can use the toilet with the pram.

AIBU to ask you to think first, if you ever judge people for using an accessible toilet?

In also in exactly same position with 3 toddlers and I ignore the looks and comments about how I should use the baby change...erm it's not for them it's for me

Never feel bad and never feel the need to explain your disability .

let them huff, tut and comment. It’s their issue not yours.

hold your head up high and go along with your business

i have a ‘hidden disability’ - what it entails is my business.

I know I have it and I know that I am entitled to use a disabled loo .

I do not have to prove or justify my need to use the disabled loo to anyone.

hold your head up and ignore them - you owe them nothing and they need to learn to mind their own business.

don’t give them a moments headspace - do what you need to - where you need to and don’t feel you have to justify your existence to others.

I wish people would mind their own bloody business. Ignore them, I certainly wouldn't tell them about my stoma , it's none of their business.
I regularly see blue badge holders challenged at the supermarket too. It's definitely getting worse.

It’s not quite like that, mainly because I need to use the sink multiple times, which would probably look a bit odd if I were to use the normal loo. As others have said with a stoma it’s best to wash hands then not touch anything else before dealing with the stoma, especially a public toilet cubicle door/lock!

It’s also handy to have a shelf or somewhere to put supplies if I need to, which isn’t the floor. Accessible toilets often have these. And on occasion I have had to change clothes or deal with issues and I would much rather do that in the privacy of a disabled toilet than a cubicle.

you don’t have to share your private medical status but I would suggest you tell (or even show) people if you feel able to. It’s a lesson they’re unlikely to forget in a hurry. I know you don’t owe anyone an explanation but …they will never comment again id wager.

Fwiw I think telling people or showing them evidence of a disability can reinforce the person's perception that they're entitled to ask for proof, as well as being upsetting for the person doing so.
But certainly challenge them on their stereotyping if you feel able. Even just pointing to the posters that are often on disabled loos now, about invisible disabilities!

I have a friend who is young and likes to be glam, and she has a nerve condition that affects her bladder and sometimes her walking. She gets particularly frustrated in clubs/bars, because of people either assuming she's trying to use a disabled loo because she's drunk (they're usually closer) or because people seem to assume that she can't be disabled because she's out drinking, as if people with disabilities just have to sit at home and be quiet.

YANBU

Disability aside, the provision for parents when in public without other adults to child mind is absolutely appalling and probably sexist at heart. I got the shock of my life as a new parent with the loos being utterly inaccessible with a pram. Hardly any of the baby change cubicles have a toilet in so what are people supposed to do exactly? Terribly inadequate design.

Just to clarify I absolutely hated using disabled loos which are not designed for mothers, but often felt like I had no choice

No, it isn't. Please inform yourself.

I don't think YABU but I do think that you've been very unlucky,encountering so many judgemental people. I have a disability and use a walking stick so I haven't really experienced anything like this,but I have witnessed numerous people using the disabled toilet in shops and coffee shops,who,to look at,you wouldn't think were disabled. But I have never witnessed anyone challenging them about using the disabled toilet. Sorry you've had to go through this OP,it must be awful.

Not to mention something I didn't realise until recently, when someone pointed this out in a video - very often when baby changing facilities are put into an accessible loo to make a combined facility, they actually block the accessibility. They're added as an afterthought, but really commonly they take up space that is needed for someone with a power chair to manoeuvre, or for a person to get into the position they need to be able to transfer.

They definitely need to get better at consulting those who use these facilities when designing them.

Are you fucking serious ?

It’s bad isn’t it? I actually was going to contact the RIBA to point out these issues in the hope they’d update their guidelines for public spaces but then got lost in motherhood. Maybe I’ll have another crack at it. It’s a massive oversight IMO. Too busy trying to figure out how to accommodate people with special feelings in single sex loos I imagine.

Absolutely amazing turn of phrase “not the arse police”!

I think it's a shame you've encountered these people several times as I've been using disabled (accessible?) toilets for years and have never been made to feel bad for it!

I've used them when I had a big pushchair, when my son was potty training and we needed floor space to use his potty, when I was having a miscarriage, and when I sneezed and needed new knickers!

They're for whoever needs them as far as I'm concerned. I wouldn't even make eye contact with people waiting if I was you. You are entitled to use them, their opinions are not your problem.

I’ve had a few comments when with the pram, but I’d always apologise and always let others go first if there was a queue. I used to get really anxious about it, to the point where it would stop me going places. I would rather be able to support disabled people by not using their loos!

When you say RIBA, do you mean architects? My DP is one, and the modern buildings that they design have to meet standards in the DDA - the architects will be the ones pushing back that they can't/won't cut corners and break the law to make it cheaper for the client. There is lots of detail about minimum space requirements around fixtures and fittings, door openings etc.
The issue is once the building is signed off, they can't control what the owners/managers do with it, including adding baby changing tables (and the other common issue, using it as a space to store mop buckets and the like)

I think in general people are becoming less tolerant/more full of self importance. Ive seen full on rows erupting over disabled parking spaces! I also think a few people like to hate on parents/mums especially when alone.

Also @peanutbuttertoasty modern facilities are usually where possible designed to have self contained loos - regular are small but with a mini sink - because they're better and safer for the majority of the population, and fuck all to do with 'people with special feelings'. Disabled people aren't losing out because of trans people.

There's a lot of nasty rhetoric in the media, and on socials - often pushed by certain political groups - that is incredibly nasty about hidden disabilities. In fact disability in general. Needing minor accomodations (blue badge parking, bus passes, disabled loo access, flexible working) is being polices in the court of public opinion based on perceived worthiness. If you seem to outwardly be doing well/ have a family or job you do not deserve help. On the other side, those struggling to work because of disability are being painted as workshy.

It's emboldening behaviour in public and open nastiness that was less common 10-15 years ago.

YANBU - infact- i'll use the disabled toilet for any emergency poo! Theres no way im going to stand and shit myself whilst a toilet is sat free!

Worse case scenario - a disabled person comes along whilst I am using it... why is me shitting myself less of an issue of them shitting themselves. We're all equal when we're THAT desperate tbh.

@Verytallfloor to ceiling cubicles with sinks are not safer for everyone. It’s amazing you think absolutely no thought went into planning and design for the last 130 years. When people feel ill they seek a toilet, someone collapsed will be discovered and awful lot quicker in a public toilet with gaps than a closed cubicle.

I had a similar issue in a disabled changing room recently. Someone kept trying to open the curtain and I popped my head out. Three women and one older told me that I shouldn’t be in there with my teenage daughter. We both have legitimate reasons for using it, both have invisible disabilities. Teen daughter was mortified and has a lot of social anxiety. People can be twats

Well a very basic one might be that depending on the disability, someone who is disabled might have a lot more difficulty trying to clean themselves up than you. Or it could be that someone who is disabled living in a world that hasn't been designed for them is made to feel small in a multitude of ways every single day, and that adding to this for them by using their facility isn't helpful? There are usually more 'regular' loos, and people who use them tend to be quicker, so chances are they'll become free pretty quickly whereas the person with a disability might not have any other option.

My teen DS was tutted at the one time he used a disabled toilet. He got quite upset. The tutter, of course, couldn't tell he was in an IBD flare and was passing bloody diarrhoea.