M&S changing rooms

OP, you are definitely not unreasonable.

Someone I knew who has experienced a huge amount of violence and sexual violence from male people was shopping in a store that allowed male people to be fitted for bras in the bra fitting rooms. She went there to try on a new bra and heard a male verbally attacking a female attendant who said that at the time there was no spare staff to do a fitting.

My friend was very distressed to come out after it had gone quiet to find the male customer videoing themselves in the corridor of the fitting around, including getting footage of her.

This was just a suburban store too. Not M&S though.

Well done on sending your email.

I don’t wish to be the minority who do come to harm.

If they advertise a space as being for women and allow in men then they are lying - they should label it as mixed sex. Any gym or club claiming to have single sex facilities and failing to enforce that would be open to claims of false advertising

So are you arguing for mixed sex everything ?

Can't WAIT to see your reaction when a female to male trans man who has been transitioned for a long time and easily passes for a man, but hasn't yet undergone sex reassignment surgery, uses the same changing room as you as he would be protected under that same policy.

We have skilled midwives and seatbelts to mitigate some of those risks. A way to mitigate risks in public toilets and changing rooms is for them to be single sex.

When I say protected I mean in essence to be honored. If I say something is blue it should be kept blue and not mixed with yellow. Most TW don't even have the full surgical procedure. TW are not women and there is no matter of injections that can change your sex. Unisex rooms are available for those who choose. If you disagree that is up to you but this is my last response as my view won't be changed. The supreme court has made a common sense judgment and companies who made their adaptations need to have a rethink. Happy Easter 👍🏽

I come from Brighton, and TW were around in the Eighties. I knew one called Stephanie in the mid-Eighties. I'm not old enough to remember further back than that.

You say enough to justify single sex changing....well, some people die during childbirth, some people die during a car journey, and yet millions and millions of people still do those things. There is an element of risk in absolutely everything, including taking your clothes off in public. But the vast, vast majority of people come to no harm.

Protected from whom, though?

If you mean big hairy men dressed as men with all their muscle intact because they've never been near HRT, but just declare to the air that they are women, then yes, I wholeheartedly agree.

TW who have taken the time and trouble to dissolve most of their muscle with oestrogen injections and who are dressed as women and look as much like women as possible, and might also have had surgery, then no, I don't think women's spaces need protecting from them. Men who want to attack women have many other ways to do so that don't involve going to all the bother of socially, medically, and/or surgically transitioning. Why on earth would they do all that if they were not genuinely trans? (By which I mean, wanting to change sex (as far as is possible) and then just live their lives in peace.)

Men who want to harm women don't need to pretend to be trans. They usually attack their partners, or break into homes, or lie in wait at night for a lone woman to come along after dark.

Not saying that this is OK, of course!!!! But I am saying that changing rooms during the shopping day is not how/where predators usually attack.

Enough happen to justify having single sex changing.
Very, very small numbers of trans women in the past compared to now. But you know this.

A few criminal TWs doesn't mean they all are, though, does it?

For decades, TW have been passing as women and using women's changing rooms, and the terfs never knew it and came out unscathed!!

Male-on-female attacks do not happen in women's loos and changing rooms, by and large.

YANBU all shops with changing rooms like this need to fall in line now. Women's spaces must be protected.

Or maybe she just wants to dress as she feels comfortable and not conform to anyone else's expectations. You assume she wants to look like a man rather than just dressing in a way that she feels happy with. As she has done since she was 3 years old. Maybe she shouldn't have to answer to the fact that she doesn't dress in a "feminine" way because, after all, that is what women have been fighting for for decades.

Which school is that?

You are not unreasonable to send an email to a company. You can send whatever you like. Bit weird to post your whole email online afterwards though. I mean, it's done now, so what are you going to do if people say you were?

M&S must be beside themselves to have you considering a return as an in store lingerie shopper.
Don't forget to share their response

Oh look. Another thread inspired by the Supreme Court ruling where the OP has not made a single additional comment.

What is the purpose of these other than for women, in good faith, to repeat all the points that have already been made in numerous other threads?
If you are looking for screen grabs proving MN is a hotbed of hateful transphobia then you are going to be disappointed.

Go and eat your Easter eggs or whatever it is bored teenagers are doing today.

They aren’t safe.

look at the school in the states where girls were held captive in locked cubicles and raped by a boy who claimed he was trans.

Exactly. Women have been marginalised, killed, raped and treated as barely second class citizens (if they're lucky) for centuries. Why do trans rights suddenly trump women's? And why has such totaliterian subservience to the trans minority been demanded? There are other minority groups who don't enjoy such unilateral and unquestioned protection. Transwomen do not affect men on any level whatsoever and yet trans, gay and even straight men are screaming at us to shut the fuck up as if it was nothing to do with us.

Love the message and totally agree except that I will not be going back to M&S. The reason is I was completely disgusted with the way they made their decision about changing rooms and allowing males in, a decision they took without any consultation with women, who are overwhelmingly their main customers. I wrote to them at the time about the lack of respect or care for female customers and I would boycott them in future. Never got a reply of course. They let women down hugely, and don't deserve our custom now imo.

But do shops have to provide single sex changing rooms? I don't think they do. Uniqlo has mixed changing rooms for instance (with curtains that don't shut properly so I won't try on clothes there). I'm not sure shops are obliged to provide any changing rooms at all, let alone single sex ones.
So presumably M&S can carry on allowing men in the lingerie department changing rooms, regardless of the SC judgment?

Mixed sex changing rooms have problems with voyeurism and increased rates of sexual assault. I don't care how 'female' someone looks - if they're male they should be in the male changing room.