LinkedIn chat about men bringing their dd into women’s loos

[thetinsoldier]

As above. He says he doesn’t want to take her into men’s loos, what should he do? Cue lots of women saying it’s fine, come into our loos, we don’t mind at all.

I said he should find a family loo or unisex loo, or take her into the men’s. He doesn’t want to, says he wouldn’t be using the loo. I said that he’d still be there, and that many women need single sex spaces for religious or other reasons, plus it’s the law.

He’s just said it seems to be the consensus that he should use the women’s loos.

Why are some men so selfish?

What else can I say?

For @NovemberMorn and others on here who would like to see men women's single sex facilities the example in the EHRC guidance is in Chapter 13, 13.136. It refers to an adult woman and her son but applies equally to an adult man and his daughter. For toilets, changing rooms and other single sex facilities take the child to the facility the adult parent is allowed to use. It is the child who is the exception by reason of their youth/need/vulnerability. The adult cannot be the exception.

So, if a woman has a small boy who needs the loo, she should take him in the men's? Really? Somehow it's always women who are expected to give up spaces to adults of the opposite sex, not men.

Being patronising does not cover up the small detail that you have failed to provide any link to back your 'opinion' up ... that it's illegal; for a man to take his small daughter into a public female toilet.
Or like thetinsoldier, do you 'not have the time' to post the link?

Odd that you both can spend time arguing on the forum, but finding a link that backs you up...isn't forthcoming.🤔

Can you provide a link?

So where, according to the EHRC would a disabled women go, if her carer was her husband and there was no accessible toilet available?
Should she, like a young daughter, have to endure a male toilet too??
I very much doubt it.

Here you go @NovemberMorn

Equality Act 2010: Code of Practice for services, public functions and associations, 2026 - GOV.UK

Scroll down to Section 13 and then within 13, head to 13.113 and you'll find a range of examples about how service providers should balance needs. There is one that is a community centre that has single sex toilets but also extends the use of the accessible toilet with baby changing facility - this is deemed to be likely proportionate given the size of the venue, however the centre are advised to monitor impact etc.

13.136 gives example of changing room and small children. Both the changing room and public toilets have been determined to be single sex spaces. The presence of a young male child accompanying their female care-giver doesn't go against that determination. An adult male taking their female child into the female toilets/changing room, would go against the definition of the single sex provision. In that instance, other patrons may well complain to the organisation hosting the single sex space and the adult male with female child in the female toilets (or vice versa) should be asked to leave. The example also gives you a link to relevant court case.

If there is no accessible toilet provision, I would suggest asking the building/organisation why this hasn't been provided, what assessment of need, consideration of equality act has the organisation undertaken.

No I'm afraid I'm not techy enough for links but if you go to the EHRC website - which is very easy to find - this document is on the main page and that numbering will take you to the chapter and example.

Sounds like your example should be in the disabled toilets. That is why they are large - so that carers and wheelchairs can be accommodated. Two adults, as you are aware, raise very different issues to an adult and a minor child (in the case of children who need support in toilets and changing rooms, very minor children). In one interview following the Supreme Court case Robin Moira White attempted to argue that, because boys under 8 are allowed into the ladies toilets with their mums, he - a man in his 50s or 60s - should also be allowed in. It wasn't a particularly convincing argument.

I see that, despite your promises, you are not prepared to stand corrected when someone provides an exact citation.

Thanks @JamesKirkupReviewWritersFund I've just seen your post above

Thank you, it becomes clearer.
I understand the guidance that the EHRC give, and your link is interesting.

However, the original dispute on this thread was others insisting it was ILLEGAL for a man to be in a ladies toilet no matter the circumstances; obviously it is not.

Guidance isn't law. However much some posters here want it to be.

The answer is for every venue to have an accessible toilet to meet the needs of fathers with daughters, husbands with disabled wives etc, till that happens, I think common sense should prevail.

I have only just logged on to see the link.
I thanked the person for the info, which others didn't seem able to give, but that doesn't make me wrong.

From the start I have said if it's illegal for a dad to take his young daughter in a ladies' toilet, I will stand corrected.
It's obviously not wanted by many women in ANY circumstance, but that doesn't make it illegal.
I doubt the couple of posters who insisted it was law will bother to come back and correct themselves.

Strictly speaking it isn't illegal for any man to enter the ladies but it doesn't means it's OK for any man to waltz into because they want to. You have based your 'it's fine they are allowed to' on a shonky internet passage that had clearly been (badly) altered from saying an exception is young boys accompanied by their mum/ female carers to say men accompanying their young daughters.

No-one will be able to prove it's illegal because it's not how the legislation works but 50 years ago when I was a kid everyone understood that men don't go into the ladies and if they are with their daughter they take her into the mens. 15+ years ago when my kids were little everyone knew it.

Suddenly people like you are claiming that the 'rules' are that small girls have more rights than women and that it's acceptable to for men to take girls into the ladies but the only thing you can find to back that up is a botched alteration of the guidance that was supposed to flip the exception on its head but because the person who altered it hadn't bothered to read to the end of sentence failed miserably.

Yup.

Guidance would all point towards him using the Gents. What happens with daughter during that time is a good question, as arguably she isn’t using the facilities, nor is she there to support someone using the appropriate facilities. So she would have less grounds to be in the gents while he peed than he would to be in the ladies while she pees.

This whole thing demonstrating how the ‘no one who has ever had a Willy may ever set a single foot into a ladies loo’ brigade are totally detached from reality.

Why not?

Or are you suggesting that there’s an age / independence threshold on whether you get to use the facilities designated for your sex?

What guidance points to him entering the ladies if his young daughter needs to use the toilet? Where is there any guidance that says men which daughters are an exception? Sons with their mothers yes, cleaners, maintenance men, emergency workers yes but father with daughters? Nope.

"People like me"?
You mean people with common sense that can see the difference between "it's OK for any man to waltz into because they want to" and a genuine need for a father to take his daughter in a female toilet because that is the best place for her to be.
I'm glad you realise it isn't illegal, as some posters kept insisting, but you do the debate no good by twisting my words.

By people like you I mean people who have this belief that it is common, acceptable practice for fathers of daughters to take them to the ladies. It has as far as I am aware always been common practice to go with the sex of the adult, just as it with swimming changing rooms if there isn't a mixed sex option. Prior to the last few years I have never come across anyone who believed it was 'normal' for men to take their daughters into the ladies.

I saw a TikTok about this a few weeks ago. The man was a gay dad, and the women in the comments universally said what a good man he was, and of course he was welcome in the female toilets with his daughter - some said that it was fine because he was gay. I commented (very politely) that I knew I was in a minority in the comments, but I didn’t think men should be in the female toilets regardless of whether they were gay or had a female child with them. My comment was deleted and I was blocked. (I checked with DP’s TikTok to confirm I had been blocked.)

Per pp, my dad took me swimming at least once a week until I was about 12. I went in the men’s with him until I was old enough to change by myself - I think about seven or eight - and likewise if he and I were out without my mum and I needed the loo.

I didn't say it was common; I said it was legal.
I also think it's preferable for a father to take a young daughter in a ladies' loo rather than a gents, for various reasons.

I understand some women would not like it, and they are entitled to object. Though outside of Mumsnet World, I personally think the majority of women would be understanding.

The women who "would be understanding" do not get to override the consent of the women who object.

I didn't say they would.

Like I said earlier, you’re so determined to be right (even though all you have done is post AI nonsense and argue the toss about where an adult disabled woman and her husband should use the loo, so a totally different issue).

Example from the EHRC guidance:

‘Example13.136 A council swimming pool has separate men’s and women’s changing rooms. One of the aims of having separate-sex changing rooms is to safeguard women’s ability to access the facilities and use them safely. A woman is allowed to take her male child under the age of ten into the women’s changing room. This does not undermine the aim, because it is unlikely that young boys pose a threat to women’s safety. It also contributes towards achieving the aim, because fewer women would be able to use the swimming pool if they could not bring their children with them[footnote 81].’

There is no equivalent example of men being allowed to use the women’s toilets with young children, because there tend not to be factors preventing men using loos and changing rooms (see reasons above).

But no matter what anyone posts, you won’t believe it and will persist in your weird belief that men are entitled to barge into women’s spaces, so 🤷🏼‍♀️

You were wrong in the first instance to argue it is illegal for a father to enter a female toilet with his daughter.
I don't expect you to admit it though.

And you’re just splitting hairs.

But there is nothing that says it's OK for fathers to use the ladies - it is no more legal for a Dad with his daughter than it is for any random man.

It's not illegal because if it was a male paramedic couldn't go in to treat a collapsed woman or a male plumber couldn't fix a leak.

No. If someone is wrong, and in this case you are, it's not splitting hairs to admit it.
I said at the beginning of the thread "If anyone can show me an updated law that says this isn't so, I will stand corrected." Not only can you not, but you have swore at me, called me a troll, and just repeated your argument, to try prove yourself right.🙄

You are wrong....and that's the end of the conversation.