Daisy Lanyards - anyone actually treat anyone differently for wearing one ?

[Lovetocook49]

Sat at the airport and to start , I will say I have looked after/ taught/ provided respite for people with additional needs for 35 years. I live and breathe SEND , I am friends with families of past students and clients. I absolutely understand disability.

All I am wondering is -

Do people who wear Daisy lanyards get treated differently because wearing one ? Do people get treated differently abroad if wearing one?

I get the invisible disabilities thing, I have argued with many a person using a disabled toilet because they have small children with them ( and it was always as more convenient, never once a genuine reason) whilst I waited with a soiled / distressed child who needed the facility, stood my ground when people have been rude to pupils, stood in theme park queues before a pass was a thing - but a Daisy lanyard that anyone can purchase? Does it help ?

Yes I work with people with disabilities and the lanyards all help. People just change their tune once they see it, the person they’re frustrated with just went from annoying to they can’t help it. Wearing a carers badge lanyard has the same effect if they don’t wanna wear one

Literally just got off a plane back from Greece where our group benefitted from the sunflower lanyard. My nephew has one and we got early boarding to the plane from Manchester, then fast tracked through security going out and then the same coming back from Heraklion. It made a huge difference

Dublin Airport stopped recognising the sunflower lanyard as that's the one available to everyone and it was apparently being totally abused at the airport by people. They have their own one you apply for and to be fair they were great when we travelled.

My Mum has a stoma, has done for 30 years and a man with a child in a disabled toilet is because there is no baby change facilities in s men’s toilet.

I challenge people know using disabled toilets and it’s usually because there is no queue, particularly theatres . I don’t do it aggressively, but if I’m waiting unnecessarily when someone actually needs the facilities? Its not fair.

I have never heard of a daisy lanyard, sunflower ones yes but completely devalued because you can buy them for £1 and people buy them without disabilities to try and jump queues and get special treatment (see also mobility scooters, they have had to start insisting on proper paperwork to get carers passes locally because people were choosing to buy them because they were overweight and lazy without disabilities entitling to a carer, in fact the whole point of a scooter is you don’t need someone to push you!

You absolutely do not “get” hidden disabilities.

You clearly see it as your job to police accessible facilities. It’s people like you that mean that my lovely aunt who has an autoimmune condition feels uncomfortable using disabled facilities, or the small but significant number of mums who have a birth injury. Would you like them to provide a doctors letter about their prolapse? Is a third degree tear enough or do you require them to be doubly rather than just singly incontinent?

Solidarity @hurtmyface, and your DH.

Also remember that men with female children may need to use the disabled toilet if others are segregated by sex. No way would I have my DD’s going into the gents past toddler age

@CassandraWebb

you'll be surprised just how bad people are, anything to get things for free or special treatment. And don’t think middle class people are beyond it either, trying to get ride passes for Disney seems to be a big conversation topic in the playground, and now every third kid is neurodiverse, Disney are making you jump through so many hoops the genuinely disabled can’t get them!

That's for venues to police. But it is totally unacceptable for people to assume they can tell, just from looking at someone whether they are abusing the system or not. My condition, and many like it, is profoundly disabling at times (I often can't even speak,. swallow or see) but to the casual observer it would look like there is nothing wrong with me. Indeed, even many doctors failed to spot the one outward physical sign of my condition (ptosis aka eyelid droop).

You may think you don't do it aggressively, but you will be upsetting people nonetheless. My husband would never have argued with you and would not have explained that he is entirely entitled to use a disabled loo. He would have felt awful being questioned by you though. Nobody should be questioned using a disabled toilet. Yes there are a minority that will not be entitled to use the loo and use it anyway, but you cannot possibly tell who those people are, so don't make someone who has enough challenges in life have an even worse day.

I challenge people know using disabled toilets and it’s usually because there is no queue, particularly theatres . I don’t do it aggressively, but if I’m waiting unnecessarily when someone actually needs the facilities? Its not fair

Well, God didn’t die and leave you in charge, so you can probably knock off with that. Are you seriously saying you expect people to provide you with sensitive/confidential health information so you can give them a nod of approval? Fucking hell. Fair warning, you really wouldn’t want to do this to me.

It's aggressive to even ask. It's horrible navigating the world with an invisible but crippling disability. I know people who avoid going out and about because they need to use disabled bays and toilets but are so afraid of being challenged. Not least because any stressful situation can make our symptoms flare dangerously.

Personally, if someone confronted me, I wouldn't hesitate to make them feel very small.

You aren't the toilet police.

As I stated in my first post I have worked with people with additional needs a very long time, and spent far too long outside disabled toilets waiting for people who do not need them . My own Mum has had very complicated gynaecological and urinary issues so I understand more than your average person.

So I am not policing them, I am stopping people abusing them. They’re fairly easy to spot btw, and you can usually hear whats going on inside.

For years I took groups of people out with hidden disabilities and endured withering looks from the public who misunderstood the behaviour they saw.

People are abusing the system for their own ‘comfort’ meaning those who actually need it are left without the facilities they desperately need.

If all disabled toilets had RADAR keys it would help , if a person with no disabilities hidden or not actually bought a key to use it for convenience , then society truly is going backwards .

You have a disabled badge for a bay 🤷‍♀️

Stopping people 'abusing' them is absolutely policing them, it is not your place to do so. Also, listening to what is going on inside? Seriously OP?

No, you aren't some global expert in identifying whether or not someone is disabled.

I don't have additional needs, noone "works with me" , I don't have strange behaviours, there is no outward sign I am disabled. You cannot possibly know based on a momentary encounter what someone deals with.

I expect on countless occasions I have used a disabled loo and taken a young child in with me and chatted to them while we are in there. That didn't take away from the fact I absolutely needed to use the disabled facility. Sometimes I use a wheelchair, sometimes I don't. If anything it's the times I don't have my wheelchair where I need to use the disabled facility the most.

I've never noticed anyone treating me differently. I wear one so that I'm not questioned if I use the disabled loo. I have bowel disease, but to look at me, you wouldn't know.

Of course, yet still people with invisible disabilities get challenged.

Yeah, kind of creepy.
Do disabled people make special disabled noises when they are in the toilet?

If someone challenged me, I may well just say "oh I didn't fancy queuing" or something equally facetious. Just because it's none of their fucking business.

You would have probably argued with me about using the disabled toilet with my young child then. What you don't realise is my young child has a bladder condition that means her bladder spasms when it gets too full or she drinks a lot of fluid in one go (common on very hot days), she becomes incontinent or suffers from urgency for around 2 hours until the bladder fully empties and the muscle relaxes again. She is under a specialist at the hospital for this and she has medication for it. The medication and pelvic floor exercises she does means that she doesn't always wet now but she will need the toilet every 5 -10 minutes until the bladder empties. The specialist told us to get a bladder and bowel card and got us a key for disabled toilets. My 4 year old is NT and does not look disabled but she needs quick access to a toilet at all times. Even when not spasming if she holds on too long then it will make the muscle spasm and lead to urgency incontinence. We still take the travel potty out with us on days out when we are not sure how good the access to toilets will be. We use the normal toilets where possible but if there are very large queues for the normal toilets and my DD needs to go quickly and the disabled is free or a disabled toilet is the only choice we use that one.

Similarly I have a friend who suffered horrific birth injuries who now has continence issues and sometimes needs to change underwear if she doesn't make it in time.

The whole hidden disability thing means just that. Its hidden. You should not be confronting people. I actually reported a carer to her care home who was aggressive towards me at a tourist attraction for using the disabled toilet with my DD.

As for the lanyards, I think there is more awareness now and they are a good thing for those who genuinely need them. It was a shame they became so abused during Covid. In our area people were selling them on FB as a way to get out of mask wearing. Some of the ladies at my mums knitting and bingo bought them and then realized they also came with "perks" like not having to wait in queues at airports and you could ask for checkouts at supermarkets to be open for you so you didn't have to wait in the queue and were quite frankly becoming very entitled with them and abusing their use. Some still do take them when they go cruising/ abroad so they can skip queues and get "special treatment".

My adult daughter has one and when we were in a very crowded noisy restaurant in London last summer she politely asked if the music could be turned down a little, the waitress was happy to help

We were at an outdoor museum a few weeks ago and a teenager in the car next to us was wearing one, as she got out of the car she began to panic, so we moved to the other side of our car to give her plenty of space.

It's a shame if people are taking advantage

I would like to see something brought in about the amount of accessable toilets somewhere should offer vs the capacity of the venue. Especially as so many places are using the accessable toilet as a baby change/ gender neutral/ feeding area/ disabled facility. We visited a tourist attraction -aquarium recently where they had 2 accessable toilets and the accessable toilets were multi-use. The only baby change facilities were in the accessable toilets. They were also the gender neutral toilets. The queues for these toilets were huge all day. It was no-ones fault. The mums with babies needed a baby change space, those who needed the facilities due to disability also needed them. Those who needed a gender neutral toilet for whatever reason also needed them. For the capacity of the venue 2 accessable toilets were really not enough for the level of demand for them.

"You can usually hear what's going on inside"?

Do people with disabilities make special noises when they pee? Or are you timing how long it takes to wipe their bum? And have you even considered how weird it is that you're listening?!

I had never heard of them and mistakenly bought one for my daughter because I was looking for a pretty one for her camera and thought she'd like the bright yellow flowers. She was using it when we went to visit Harry Potter world and the woman at the ticket desk offered to give her another one with the green background. We were all a bit confused, but it was her birthday so we thought it might be linked to that. We were there ahead our time slot and there wasn't much queue so they ushered us in right away. It was only months later that I found out about what they meant (on MN no doubt) and felt mortified we'd accidentally done that.

I have mentioned it to many family/colleagues/friends since and no one had any idea they existed either. So I think you might get special treatment from "official" sources who have been trained, but not much from the general public.