Council to ban kids over 8 from using opposite sex toilets!!! Sign this petition!!!

[Weemee]

Hi,

Glasgow City Council are proposing to change the parks management rules...I think in reaction to the problems had in the past with social media organised events. However, they are proposing (amongst other things):
-Children over the age of 8 may not use opposite sex toilets;
-that nurseries/ schools may not take children to the park without written permission from the director at the parks dept. and only once a charge has been paid;
-No congregation of more than 20 people without permission;
-No playing group sports (an intended legacy of a commonwealth games city?!?)
-No music;

There's a petition doing the rounds and an email to tell the council what we think. Seems to me a pretty heavy handed reaction to an incident from 3 years ago.....and one which will negatively impact upon everyone. Many inner city nurseries use the parks as many have little/ no outside space. It's not exactly promoting a health lifestyle either! Not the best legacy for a commonwealth games city!

If you agree this proposal is not what's needed there's an email address to the council directly and a petition here
Thanks for reading!

" And if I did I would be accountable."

I'm sure that will be a great comfort to the 9 year old girl who is mortified by finding a boy in the loo she thought was girls only.

Because while you can judge the situation as far as your child is concerned- you have no idea about what's going on in anyone else's life.

I think it's just important to recognise that (apart from in very extreme circumstances) you don't need to, you don't have to, you can't justify it. You're wrong. You're choosing to break the rules, to disregard the feelings of other people because being overly cautious about an imagined threat to your son is more important.

I'm sure we all do it at times, but we should recognise it when we do.

It's important to think about what message that sends out to a 9 year old.

Well my parents occasionally broke the rules for me and I was thankful for it. It told me that sometimes the rules aren't always appropriate, there are exceptional circumstances and people are more important. It taught me to be merciful when other people occasionally break the rules.

And the wishes of the girls in the women's loo? Do they count for anything?

They taught you to break the rules when you deem it necessary, with no regard for other people! Which is what you're teaching your son.

People are more important than following rules, but that's not what you're arguing for here. Here you're saying 'pandering to my own paranoia is more important than the feelings of anyone else'. That's quite different.

And 'there might be a pervert in the toilet' is NOT an exceptional circumstance. It's something that a lot of people think, a lot of the time, if this thread is anything to go by! There are exceptional circumstances (SN, sickness, first aid etc.) and I agree in those cases rules need to be broken.

A lot of them wouldn't care. I wouldn't. No one I know really would. Not in a toilets with cubicles. As I said we are not talking about usually, just occasionally. People forever have to weigh up their priorities. Offence or embarrassment is less of a priority than safety. Safety would not always be an issue but sometimes it might.

I am not paranoid. I don't take my ds to the Ladies as a habit.

Explain to me a circumstance where the safety of a 9 year old boy means he has to go into the women's loo?

'Offence or embarrassment is less of a priority than safety'

This is true.

A 9 year old, going to the toilet, with a parent outside, is not a safety issue though.

Circumstances? Group of jeering adolescents would be one.

Are in the UK? If you are and you genuinely believe that a 9 year old, going to the toilet, with a parent stood outside is a safety issue, then you ARE paranoid.

Yes I am but I have lived in some dodgy areas in my time.

"Circumstances? Group of jeering adolescents would be one."

In the loo?

That's interesting because surely 'jeering' is about offence and embarrassment, not safety?!

So you don't fear his safety, you fear him being upset....but the girls/women in the girls toilet...? It's just offence and embarrassment, so that's ok?

'I am not paranoid'

'Yes I am'

You've also got some sort of split personality thing going on?!

Jeering can be aggressive. A boy with his mother generally is not.

As I said. Girl's feelings are not as important as boy's. Nothing changes.

On the news tonight, here in Canada (N.B I think) there is outrage because of group of teen aged boys grabbed a boy who was 9 (in the bathroom) and yanked him by his pants hard enough he flipped over and hurt himself.
His dad was called, who came down, grabbed one of the teens, and hollered that if anything like that happened again, there would be consequences.
The teens got off scott free, as there wasn't enough evidence, the dad is being charged with assault.
This happened at a community centre, where adult were around.
I'm not saying people should be paranoid, but even in safe and quiet Canada, stuff can happen.
All the more reason for unisex family bathrooms!

Crap about the dogs. What's the point of exercising a dog if they have to walk at your pace? Dogs 'under control', ie with good recall and non-aggressive, fine, but on a lead or at heel? Ridiculous.

I am far less arsed about the toilet suggestions than that.

It must be safe and quiet if that made the news!

Surely girls do not feel threatened on the whole by boys-with-their-mums in the ladies toilets? I don't agree with boys using ladies toilets by themselves. But with their mum/gran/ whoever supervising them, well they can't cause harm can they? And who is to know whether they are a big 7 year old and therefore 'not threatening' or a 9 year old anyway?

Tbh I think it's more likely to be older ladies who feel threatened, than young girls.

Young teens may be embarrassed.

Maybe the rule should just be 'no unaccompanied boys' then. I can't imagine DD being embarrassed at seeing a boy at the sinks, or me feeling threatened by a boy who has a mum/gran/aunt with them.

I'm not a daily mail type, but of all the places that anyone could be assaulted, somewhere with no CCTV and where it is normal practice for men to wave their penises about, is always going to be a higher risk place. So it is unsurprising that parents don't want their boys to be alone in the gents.