Did anyone write to M &S Re changing rooms?

Baroness Nicholson is a bloody marvel. Am hoping her confident sounding statements that self-ID is not on the cards, further changes will be made etc are rooted in insider info.

I've forwarded the emails I sent at the time, thanks for sharing the email address.

misbriefed
Go Baroness!

Bloody hell. she's really on it.

apologies for broken link:

Kathleen Stock's speech critiqued the deeply flawed Women & Equalities 'Trans Inquiry' led by Maria Miller MP
medium.com/@kathleenstock/womens-place-talk-full-text-house-of-lords-oct-10th-2018-b1f3d70c4559

It's worth following the Baroness on twitter - she seems very on top of things and is continually asking for evidence of various things, this thread was started because she wanted evidence that people had challenged M&S about their changing room policies.

Baroness Nicholson hosted and chaired the WPUK House of Lords Meeting.

"A Woman’s Place is in the House of Lords
London

Wednesday, 10 October 2018

Tickets: 70+

Venue: House of Lords Committee Room

Speakers: Kathleen Stock, Julian Norman and Raquel Rosario Sanchez, Baroness Winterbourne (Chair)

In addition to our public meetings, we were invited to organise a panel discussion in the House of Lords hosted by Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne.

Around 70 people attended this invitation-only event."
womansplaceuk.org/a-record-of-womans-place-uk-meetings/

There are two speeches available, Julian Norman & Kathleen Stock's.

Kathleen Stock's speech critiqued the deeply flawed Women & Equalities 'Trans Inquiry' led by Maria Miller MP
medium.com/ @kathleenstock/womens-place-talk-full-text-house-of-lords-oct-10th-2018-b1f3d70c4559

Julian Norman (a barrister specialising in Human Rights) outlined the legal background to the GRA.
(extract)
The background to the Gender Recognition Act (“GRA”) was the case of Christine Goodwin, who took the UK government to the European Court of Human Rights, arguing that the government’s failure to recognise her in law as a woman breached Article 8 ECHR. She had suffered discrimination, including being unable to marry her male partner, difficulties caused by an unequal pension age, and detriment caused by her birth certificate showing her as male, which outed her as trans whenever she was compelled to show it.

The government maintained that the interference with her private life was proportionate. The Court upheld the complaint, pointing out at §87 that there was no threat of “overturning the entire system” given that the number of transsexuals in the UK was estimated at only 2,000 – 5,000, and at §91 that although there would be legal repercussions these were not insuperable “if confined to the case of fully achieved and post-operative transsexuals.”

The government responded by introducing the GRA as a mechanism by which this small group could reconcile their new identity with the state." (continues)

concludes:
"Failure to share someone’s belief is not the same as mockery or disdain for it. It cannot be beyond the wit of the legislature to protect the beliefs of those who believe they have an innate gender, protect the rights of others to agnosticism on the point, whilst also maintaining sex based protections.

My final point is this: If gender identity is innate, then the cultural norms attached to the female sex, which we call gender, and which have historically served to oppress women, are not a bug, but a design feature. A philosophy which seeks to ascribe women’s oppression globally and historically to something innate within them – whether that is wandering wombs, or phrenology, or evolutionary psychology – has never ended well for women. We should be extremely slow to codify in law such a perspective.
womansplaceuk.org/julian-norman-in-house-of-lords/

Thanks Ted, I had to enlarge the image on my phone, so it wasn't great quality. I'll forward my (unanswered) correspondence with M&S later.

Oh! I didn't read it as _uk but as .uk so [email protected] and that worked.

I also forwarded my email and the response to my MP as a matter of courtesy. She knows my GC views so it won't come as a surprise.

Teds, did you use the @parliament_uk email address? It seems an unusual format.

Well, that was jolly quick!

I've just received this from Ms Willmott, personal assistant to the Baroness.

"Dear Ms. xxxxxxxx,

Thank you very much indeed for sending through the helpful information below. I forwarded this to the Baroness this morning and she has asked me to let you know that she will be using this.

Kind regards"

Every little helps.

Most men would run a mile - you only have to look at when you are out somewhere and a child is lost.

Men stand well back and are generally worried about being accused of taking an unnatural interest in a child - whereas a woman will go over, crouch down and speak to the child, calm them, get help, help them find their adult ‘WHO ARE YOU WITH? OH MUMMY? DID MUMMY GET LOST THEN? OH DEAR! LETS SEE IF I CAN SEE HER. WHAT DOES SHE LOOK LIKE??’ (I tend to do a stage voice to hopefully alert the kids parent.

@Lordfrontpaw

Interesting isn’t it - most men wouldn’t dream of sharing such facilities with young girls - and yet the ones who do are supposedly the ones we don’t have to worry about.

I’ll send her my emails too from JL - they were quite long!

I have refused to buy from JL since then and only cut through the store as a shortcut. I walk past the ‘men’s’ changing room and once enjoyed watching a woman march her husband (I assume) in with a lot of trousers - it was like watching rats streaming out of a sinking ship as men bailed out.

Actually same when I was waiting for someone outside the JL men’s loos - a man marched in with his daughter (she looked about 8 or 9) - it was like someone had rung the fire alarm or something (men don’t want to be peeing with a little girl in the room - who knew?).

Thank you for this.

I have forwarded the email I sent to John Lewis to which I received no reply.

Thank you for the email address. I will be very happy to forward the email I wrote to M&S and the bog standard bog off reply I got from them that didn't address a single one of my questions.

Copy of letter with email here

Yes I emailed twice, with very specific questions, and was fobbed off both times. Same generic response as above, plus the follow up "we are not talking to you about this any more" response.

I'm not on twitter but I'd forward the emails to the baroness if someone can post an email?

If anyone on twitter wants to draw her attention to the centre parcs spa communal changing rooms that would be good. I've emailed them two or three times now but they have ignored me. I'm pretty sure there's a thread on here that has a transcript of a phone call about it that she might find interesting as well.

Sorry, didn't find the email address on that other thread and it's a long one, just skimmed as I have to start the day.

If anyone has her email address to hand, please post it!

I got told that ‘this is the final word on the matter young lady, and I won’t say anymore. Good day to you.’ (I paraphrase)

The FWR thread earlier today 'Good News' includes the email address Liz Truss used to write to the Baroness.

Perhaps this could be posted here again, so we don't have to go looking? However, I'll go look now and post if I find it.

This was my response from them. What is the Baronesses email address? I am not on Twitter.

"Thank you for taking the time to contact us.

As a business, we strive to be inclusive and therefore, we allow customers the choice of which fitting room they feel comfortable to use, in respect of how they identify themselves. This is an approach other retailers and leisure facilities have also adopted.

We understand your concerns and I want to make it clear that if any customer was to act inappropriately or cause intentional offence, the necessary action would be taken.

Thank you again for your email.

Kind regards

Liz Coady

Executive Team"

Almost amusing use of the word ‘misbriefed’ for a seller of knickers. I hope she looks at JL - I have my emails to and from them!