Is it ok for men to be in the ladies loos if they need to assist a disabled wife?

[someoneelsesshoes]

Not sure if I’m unreasonable to have felt a bit strange about this.

I went to the ladies toilets in a garden centre and there was a man standing by the sinks. I immediately went to walk out as I thought I’ve mistakenly gone into the men’s. He then said sorry and said he was waiting for his wife. He was next to a zimmer frame which I assume was his wife’s.

I felt really strange about this but went into the loo as usual. I understand maybe his wife really needed help to get on/off the loo so dismissed it. She was still in the stall when I left. But when I left the loo I checked the disabled and it was open and ready to use (though maybe it was occupied when she needed it and it was an emergency).

I haven’t come across this before so not sure if we make this concession for male carers. I know disabled people need to be supported and maybe he’s the only one who can help her.

I did not expect a female forum to body-shame a menopausal woman who had a completely unexpected flood walking along the street on her way to catch a train home from London.

What else do you think I should have done, sat on a train with blood coming through my clothes onto the seat?

She would have the zimmer?

On another point of information:

various previous posters have mentioned incontinence pads.

obviously anybody (able bodied or otherwise) can wear incontinence pads. For some disabled people however, who may have a stoma or a catheter the, er, waste, does not come out in the usual places.

if a stoma bag or a catheter bag is full they can burst and for fairly obvious reasons getting to contents all over the floor is major hygiene issue.

stoma bags in particular have a fairly complex routine which needs to be followed for changing them in order to help keep the skin and the hole through which they connect to the bowels open and free flowing. It takes about 15 minutes and that’s when you are proficient at it.

for this reason and for many other situations disabled people can be in a situation where they need access to a toilet not just to satisfy their own bodily urges but also to prevent erm, unhelpful situations arising.

it can be easy to think of disabled people as basically able bodied people just sitting down.

but the various disabilities can have different effects and that’s not really a good mental model.

I am not an expert but don’t they face a wall? Men are often peeing by the side of the road, you’re more likely to see something there.

Fathers should use their common sense and find a unisex loo or an unoccupied gents loo. Not just go into the ladies as it’s easier.

None of this justifies men in ladies toilets

Blame the autogynephiles who have forced this into an issue. I have no problem with genuine trans who just want to get in and get out quickly who you don't even notice. I'm on about those with a fetish who film , take pictures and masturbate in the women's toilets. They have caused the back lash. Now all men are suspects. Take it up with them not women who are rightly uncomfortable with biological men in the womens toilets.

If there was a disabled toilet available then the couple should have used that.

Maybe she needed help getting from the toilet to the zimmer or wouldn’t be able to walk to it.
in reality we have no idea, except there is a good chance that she needed help and found a solution

We don’t know if there was, we have to assume that there wasn’t but in reality we don’t know

I have had to help a relative with this. She needed the support of the Zimmer frame to transfer from it to the toilet. If you're disabled, entering a cubicle and then turning to sit on the toilet is a complex manoeuvre making you at risk of falling. Likewise my relative needed me to bring the Zimmer back for her to hold onto to pull herself up from the toilet.

It's mortifying enough for the disabled person, never mind having other women giving her and her husband grief, ir having to go through the process in front of men. Part of that process, because of the size of the Zimmer, would need the door to be partly open. Frankly I would far rather a man was stood by the sink, than be her, and be expected to pull my pants down with the door ajar in the men's toilets.

What the hell is the matter with so many of you? Where's your humanity?

Are you normally lacking in imagination?

Does a zimmer frame help you get off the toilet if you can't go from sitting to standing - can it put out a hand and steady you? Does it help you wipe your arse or fanny? Does it pull up your knickers? Is there room in a normal ladies toilet cubicle for a zimmer frame even if it could do all those things?

No.

The reasonable conclusion here is that the disabled facilities were busy, she couldn't wait, she needed help with clothing and lowering herself down, getting up again, possibly wiping and clothing again. Which is why he was waiting outside the cubicle door for her.

If she'd been able to whizz in there with her zimmer frame, do her doings without him, I very much suspect she would have!

Anyway I consider myself better informed and next time I can't get into the disabled facilities and need to go, instead of asking in the ladies if my DP can come in to assist/if anyone needs to leave before he does, I shall just piss on the floor outside the loos. There's usually plenty of room and no women will be traumatised.

That’s the issue here. You are wrong, men are allowed in women toilets for specific reasons and one that is listed is being a carer. So whether we like it or not he did nothing wrong

And if you're a mum of a disabled boy you'd want that support too right?

men cannot be in women’s toilets

Where’s your humanity? It’s not acceptable

I’m not body shaming you, I’m ‘wholly unnecessarily using a communal sink where you have no access to cleaning products to rinse out your pants’ shaming you.

I have unfortunately experienced the same thing on several occasions, and I have bled through my clothes on a train and in other places. It’s awful, and I sympathise. However I didn’t get off the train and find a public toilet to wash my pants in the sink, I went to a shop to buy sanitary products, new underwear and trousers. If you’ve flooded you need sanitary products and fresh underwear and possibly clothes. You surely didn’t put your rinsed pants back on? So rinsing them was entirely unnecessary as it didn’t even solve the problem.

Jesus Christ. Way to take my comment the wrong way.

What I’m saying is this lady shouldn’t have to wear incontinence pads just to make other women feel comfortable. She has as much right as everyone else to use the toilet. This was in response to all previous posters saying she should be in pads instead of having a carer with her.

If she wants to then that’s absolutely fine and not undignifying. But being forced to by posters on this thread so she doesn’t inconvenience them is disgraceful.

Why is washing period blood out in a sink worse than washing a cut?

It’s not an “inconvenience” to have a man in the ladies

Its wrong

In what world does rinsing the blood in a shared sink solve the emergency? You can’t put the wet pants back on, and you can’t seriously be drying them in the loos, it would take forever. Jeez, when we get a wax there are hygiene protocols but some of you are splashing your biohazards all over the place.

Who goes to a public toilet to wash a cut? You people are bonkers.

What about similar scenario where I'm waiting with my autistic 8 yr old son for a disabled loo and he is bursting. Do I let him wet himself or take him in the ladies?

Or should I take him in the gents? I also have my 4 yr old daughter with me. Should she be exposed to the gents because her brother is autistic? Even though so many argue her dad could take her in the ladies if he had her out alone?

So an autistic 8 yr old boy in the ladies id a bigger issue than a grown man?

Errr… if you cut your finger when you’re out?

8 is the absolute cut off

Mountain and molehill spring to mind. He wasn’t being pervy, he was helping his disabled with FFS.

Well … yes . I’ve not washed my knickers in a public toilet . But I suspect public toilet are full of biohazards anyway. Which I why it is important to wash your hands…