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I am a father of 2 quite young girls. Sometimes when we're out they need to use public toilets.

I usually take them into the female toilets, because I don't want them gawking at men openly urinating (btw, I have never understood why men's toilets are designed to maximize genital display by removing all privacy measures, but that's another story). However, if the female toilets are full, I'll use the male ones because with little kids it's about T minus 2 minutes when you are first alerted to their need.

So, is it "OK" for a man go into the female toilets for the purposes of accompanying small girls?

Which countries would it not be OK in?

Which countries would it not be OK for me to bring my daughters into a male toilet?

Are there countries where I should do neither?


In my experience in USA and Australia, it's always been OK with any women who happen to be using the toilet (or "bathroom" as Americans call it, despite there being no bathing facilities present) - they can see that my intention is both honorable and harmless and the women seem relaxed and understanding about it.

If the roles were reversed - ie a mother accompanying her young sons into a male toilet - I don't think that would ever be a problem: Men don't seem to care about females in their toilet facilities, but in general the reverse is not true.

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    Normally, I do take them to the male bathroom on the assumption that I'm the adult and the kids are there to go along. Sometimes I have to bring her in because I have to go which stick me to the male bathroom. Luckily I don't think you've been to SE-Asia, because I was surprised and even uncomfortable that urinals are often outside the bathroom, so while i a bar in Thaland, you can see pen pissing away. Same setup in Malaysia. In some modern countries I see often family bathrooms now to solve some of these issues.
    – Itai
    Apr 21, 2017 at 15:38
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    Slightly different situation, in the municipality pool (the Netherlands) the changing rooms have the statement that the gender of the adult decides which gender room to use.
    – Willeke
    Apr 21, 2017 at 17:26
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    @Willeke changing rooms are a completely different thing. I would never go into a female change room!
    – Bohemian
    Apr 21, 2017 at 19:18
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    I bet Parenting.SE has answers to this. Nevertheless I like this question here.
    – JoErNanO
    Apr 21, 2017 at 20:33
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    @JoErNanO I had a look on parenting, and I could only find At what age should a child stop accompanying a parent into the “wrong” public toilet? and At what age should parent of opposite sex stop taking their children to changing room?. Incidentally, their SE doesn't have a hygiene tag.
    – Golden Cuy
    Apr 22, 2017 at 0:41

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