WIBU to hang about the toilets?

[Samaranian]

I am not a poster who usually posts here but I lurk, and read and for the most part agree with the sentiments on this board.

To keep in brief, I am enjoying a lovely week in Edinburgh at the festival. Whilst at a venue yesterday waiting for a show to start, me and (male) DP went off to find the toilets. Turns out all the toilets in this venue were labelled "Gender Neutral". Just to be clear - there were two rooms I guess each with three cubicles inside and then the sinks outside the cubicles. So I guess at one point one was male and one was female? Anyway.

I made a cats bum face and huffed to DP a bit but we both went and used the toilet. When I was washing my hands several men came in to use the toilet and were standing waiting by the sinks as all the cubicles were full.

Three young girls came in and stood waiting, if I had to guess their ages I would say about 6, 8 and 11?

I was the only other woman in there and I just felt like the girls were so vulnerable in there with all the men (and again, to be clear, I am speaking about men) so I waited at the mirrors and pretended to be sorting out my make up etc until they had left.

I know the chances of anything happening are very slim but it just didn't feel right to me. DP thinks I was being silly in waiting but does agree that something about it isn't right and he actually felt uncomfortable standing washing his hands etc next to female children in an enclosed space.

So I know this isn't AIBU by any stretch of the imagination, but was IBU to wait until the girls had left the toilets before leaving myself?

not all men are pedophiles though & how is it any different to young boys using a male toilet? surely they would be just as vulnerable then?

Why is this absolute bullshit always trotted out? Do people get a handbook of "witty retorts" for when they want to gaslight women or something?

So, what you're saying is that women shouldn't go with their gut instincts just because there may be young boys at risk in a completely different facility as well?

The non abusive men have to be the ones watching out for the boys in the mens toilets, we're not Fox Force Five for toilets.

As for the tedious "not all men" argument, just grow up and stop NAMALTing everywhere. You know as well as I do that child abusers are overwhelmingly men. And until the day they give all paedophiles a big flashing badge to identify them in advance, we have to be wary of the whole class (of men)

Mum theres a strange woman hanging around the toilets!

I was at the Fringe last week, and noticed how woke many of the venues were. One had toilets with the following written on the doors:

Toilet 1
Female sign
Gender neutral sign (the one with the circle & arrows)
8 cubicles
We encourage customers to use the toilets in which they feel most comfortable

Toilet 2
Male sign
Gender neutral sign
3 cubicles, 7 urinals
We encourage customers to use the toilets in which they feel most comfortable

There was quite a lot of milling around while people read the long instructions and worked out where the hell they were supposed to go.

Another venue had changed their separate male and female toilets to 'Whatever (with urinals)' and 'Whatever (without urinals)'. There was some serious eye-rolling going on among the women waiting in the 'Whatever (without urinals)' queue.

My daughters age 10 and 6 would usually be allowed to go to the toilets on their own but only if I knew the venue. I can imagine their mum would be horrified that they were in such a position. Most parents don't. Let young boys use the men's toilets on their own until they're quite old and this is no different. Scary! Well done for looking out for them

God that’s so depressing isn’t it. Grown men in toilets with young girls just because we all have to be woke. To fuck with safe guarding.

Although having said the above I’ve just realised this will make accompanying my six year old son to the toilet so much easier!! I hate the thought of him getting to say ten and then just sending him into a toilet on his own in a place I don’t know.

I totally agree Nottonight I’m just trying to find a positive in a sea of fucking depressing happenings.

I guess that's a sort of maternal instinct. I would have done the same, it didn't occur to me how depressing it is that we'd need some kind of pretense (I don't wear makeup, so I probably would have washed my hands super thoroughly or rummaged in my bag) to fucking look out for kids.

So I was impressed with this:
And I would have explained to the men why I was doing it while I was there so that more people start to realise what a shit show this is.

Agree it's the way to go, doubt I could actually do it.

not all men are pedophiles though

So we take the risk and hope for the best?

I would have done the same. For girls and any other women I perceived as at risk or uncomfortable. And yes, I hated the 'inclusive' festival toilets this year, with no alternatives offered.

But this is what women do isn't it? Fight the long war while having each other's backs at the same time, doing the silent extra work to help each other out. Often with some people's fathers and husbands helping who are tuned in. Demonstrates yet again the difference between women's care for other women in reality and the total lack of care or fellow feeling for women and girls in this political movement.

Yanbu. It's called girls sticking together. I would have done the same.

Make fliers of news items like this and leave them in toilets
metro.co.uk/2019/03/16/transgender-woman-18-sexually-assaulted-girl-10-morrisons-toilet-8914577/

Yes, I'd have done it too.

And TBH I don't think it's great for the men to be in a toilet with a young girl or woman alone, it's pretty standard in a lot of organisations for men to be very careful about being alone with anyone underage or a woman, for their own protection. My dh is a scouting leader, they aren't even supposed to be left with the kids unless there is another leader present.

So - awkward for everyone.

how is it any different to young boys using a male toilet? surely they would be just as vulnerable then?

That's a fair point? What would you do if you saw a 6, 8 and 11 year old going into a male toilet alone, when you knew there were other men in there? Would you hang around outside until you knew they were OK?

I don't know if I think mixed sex toilets are ok but surely young boys are at risk in single sex toilets ? Do you do anything about this or just think there's nothing you can do about it? Genuine question, I keep reading it back and I don't know if it sounds like I'm trying to be argumentative. I'm really not, I just can't seem to make it sound any different.

I wouldn't let a 6, and probably not even an 8 year old boy go into male toilets alone. Infact I don't think I would let them go into any toilet alone.
I'm uncomfortable letting my 12 year old go alone to be honest, but he doesn't want to go into the women's, and I think some women would have a problem with him being in there so all I can do, like other pp have said is wait outside for him.

I think the difference with boys going into the male toilet is that the parent will have made the choice that they are happy for their children to do that full in the knowledge that there will be other adult men in there. The parents of these girls possibly didn’t make that choice.

Drogosnextwife I think many of us would do that for our own sons. But would you wait outside of you saw young boys, not yours, going into a male toilet alone?

*If not of

MonChat

Yes, I do think it's an issue with boys going alone into the mens. And I think a lot of mums for that reason bring boys into the women's as long as possible or wait outside.

I don't think that actually there is a huge issue with perverts targeting kids in public toilets. Not that it never happens, but your kids are likely more at risk of being seriously hurt in a car accident on the road to wherever the public toilet is. So my own view is that if your child is old enough to be going into the toilet alone and old enough you've told them to yell if there is a problem, it's not something to worry about excessively.

I tend to think what's more of a potential problem is older girls, like teens, or even women, in the toilets with strange men alone.

Be that all as it may, and I don't know for sure where the risk is greatest, the main thing IMO is I think most women or teen girls, and most men, are not all that comfortable being alone with the opposite sex in a public toilet. People feel like things could go wrong, or even just like they are making others uncomfortable, and they don't like it. And they shouldn't have to put up with it.

You did absolutely the right thing OP, and I would do the samel. Most males have no idea how ingrained vigilance is in females, it has to be. Today I walked the dog as I always do, and as I always am I was on a high level of alert, particularly along a couple of miles of canal towpath (where there have been a couple of reported sexual assaults in the past). I went to the theatre last week, one friend had parked the other side of a park, so two of us walked her back to her car after the show. The examples are endless and these are things we as women do everyday, it's second nature. Most women have been sexually assaulted at some time, certainly all the women I know have. Men don't tend to have that worry.

MonChatEstMagnifique

Not sure, it's a different situation from the OPs. She was in the toilets and could use the pretense of applying make up to hang around for a bit, until she felt comfortable enough to leave.
In all fairness, hanging around outside the toilets is probably a pointless attempt to keep my ds safe, but there really isn't much else I can do. Put them in the disabled toilet and get falmed for using a facility that isn't designed for an able bodied child? (which I wpuld agree with)Take him in with me at 11 years old? Like I said he wouldn't do that unless he felt very uneasy about going alone. If I felt there weren't enough people around to help if anything should happen to another child in the toilet alone, yes I probably would hang around, if it was a pretty busy toilet, no I probably wouldn't.

Thanks Drogo.

I just think that if I was worried about 6,8 and 11 year old girls using the toilet due to men being present, to the point of hanging around when I had finished, then I would be equally concerned about boys in the male toilets and having single sex toilets wouldn't help boys, only girls.

I hate that we even have to consider these things.