Zara - male bodies in female changing room

@cordyceps I think there is evidence that more assaults happen in mixed changing. The key is staff present but to be honest in my swimming pool mixed changing rooms the staff are thin on ground and the door locks are flimsy or broken (and yes I have complained). There is a Uniqlo I use with mix changing but staff member present so I feel safe. And it's been like that for years.

suspect most women would be ok with a female presenting feminine male in female changing room?

What? A feminine presenting male is still a male? Whats the difference? I don't see why a feminine presenting man changing next to my daughter is any safer than any other man. What is it you think is different about this situation?

This is a really crappy policy that puts the onus on the lowest paid - probably female - staff members, possibly on insecure contracts, to manage the behaviour of potentially aggressive, volatile men.

This, one hundred percent. It's totally unfair on the staff. Remember police don't even come out to shoplifters unless they've stolen over £150 worth of stuff. Some aggressive man wants to come in every single day and leer at women and try women's clothing on in the women's changing room and not buy anything ever? What are the staff going to be able to do about it? Who's going to back them up? The equally vulnerable and only slightly less badly paid manager? Their toothless union? The unavailable police? Private security guards their company choose not to pay for?

Shop staff are vulnerable, it's bad enough for the customers but I can see why staff are too frightened to challenge these men. It's not about a lack of backbone, as pp have suggested, it's about a lack of backup.

All I see in this is women let down by women.

Irrespective of whether these men were trans or not, why did they say it was ok for the men to be in the changing room, and not do anything when questioned?

Cordyceps

Not all changing rooms have floor to ceiling doors. Many just have curtains. Or an open space. I wouldn't want men getting undressed next to my daughter. I'm surprised, if you are a woman, that you would think this is ok.

I suspect most women would be ok with a female presenting feminine male in female changing room? Likely you would not know they are male and if you did suspect you could not be sure. I think the real concern comes when the individual is obviously male.

I swim a lot and use mixed changing rooms. I am not bothered but it needs a couple of things to make it comfortable.
It needs staff present preferably both sexes. And it needs good locks on changing cubicles. I do occasionally see a man wandering around naked which could be accidental but I do wonder if something else is happening - that's where the staff intervene.

Minimum wage Saturday staff. Who is going to take on two huge lads with attitudes of absolute entitlement? Not worth the argument/loss of jobs (bosses more likely to side with the men) or hassle.

I just got back from the states and shopped at a few places where the changing rooms weren't gendered. It was literally 100% fine and not even remotely an issue. You actually do the changing of clothes behind a door. What are you actually worried about? This is a genuine question. Is it that you think someone will enter your cubicle and see your underwear, or that they will physically attack you? The doors lock, and the staff keep track of which ones are in use. If someone did try to contravene this system by trying doors themselves or, I don't know, trying to climb under, then the shouting of the victim would be heard immediately and the other people queueing along with the staff would do something about it. I actually felt safer in a crowded, mixed-gender changing area with lots of people around then I would have if it were some dimly lit "female only" curtained space in some far corner of the store. If there was some sort of raging violent sexual psychopath with a penis who wanted to take a break from trying on miniskirts to sexually assault someone, well, that wouldn't happen in a staffed and busy changing area, and if a non-staffed changing area existed, they certainly wouldn't be fazed by a "women's changing room" sign.

Honestly there are actual problems and issues to worry about, this isn't one.

I don't understand. Why would the assistants send men into the women's changing rooms when women are getting undressed in there? That's insanity. Changing rooms don't get allocated to people according to the clothes they have in their hands. It's people who need single sex changing rooms, not the clothes.

Opportunity! Not ‘poor tip’…

Unfortunately though with unisex facilities men have access and poor tip to leave spy cams so that isn’t failsafe either. And lockable cubicles in vicinity of men is giving an opportunity they don’t have in a single sex supervised changing room.

We need to stick up for single sex female culture and campaign for our own changing rooms with no men allowed. It’s worked reasonably well for decades.

If they flagged them as unisex (generally they are just vaguely called ‘changing rooms’) then women wouldn’t use them. As it stands, women are tricked in reality because they assume the changing room on the lingerie dept is a ladies only changing room.

In a way it would be better if they were just unisex rather than pretending to be female, as we would know where we stand at least, and not be used as validation tools for men. But then why should we have to give up our spaces.

Just feeling glad we are suddenly seeing stories about this.

I hate this. I would feel so uncomfortable and think it totally skews the dynamic of the changing room. No teenage girls trying on fun outfits with their friends, just scared girls feeling uncomfortable around men when they are half dressed.

The reason they get away with it is because women are frightened of confronting men on the whole because we know they can hurt us.

They rule through fear.

Again, I appeal to the assistant for help.

'What can we do?' she shrugs, looking apologetic. 'If that's how they classify themselves?'

I dunno. Grow a spine. Whistleblow. Say this is causing a safeguarding issue.

Later I speak to a manager at the branch who indicates they don't feel they have any clear instructions on the issue from head office.

Again spineless staff. Why aren't you as a senior manager raising it properly and continually as a safeguarding issue.

'In some stores we get complaints when we let men into the changing rooms on the women's floor and in some stores we get complaints when we don't,' the manager says

Yes and? It doesn't stop it being a safeguarding issue.

This is a multi million pound company with a complete void on safeguarding women.

They could put in individual cubicles for trans customers which are not as problematic. They chose not to.

They choose to turn a blind eye and say 'not our problem'.

There needs to be legal action on this somehow. Its not protecting on the grounds of sex or religious belief.

Its not ok. And its clearly the only thing that gets listened to.

Shouty men complaining are more important than women trying to protect their dignity and safeguard.

No excuses. And yes these female staff are utterly complicit. There is no excuse in saying 'i was worried about my job' when its an issue that involves safeguarding. Its just pure cowardice.

It's no secret that plenty of MRAs feel women have too many rights.

The aim of the game - sometimes openly stated - is to just accustom female people to loss of all space, privacy etc and to train them up in just bowing to the superiority of male doingwhateverthefuckmalewantsforwhateverreasons.

Hence the whole schools thing, start 'em young, never let them have any boundaries to start with, and avoid the current annoying generation of females who won't get undressed alongside random males and tolerate whatever said males do without being noisy and difficult.

As with refuges: the political aim is that females will just 'get over it'. They'll adapt. They will want to buy clothes and will just learn to put up with being used and having a miserable experience at the hands of males while they do it. Win for males.

The only alternative is sufficient females getting sufficiently pissed off and willing to stand up and refuse this. And stopping being the easier ones to upset.

What would it take? I mean, we've had plenty of documented cases of voyeurs, hidden cameras, males using women's clothing and underwear and putting it back, there are plenty 'reviews' of women's underwear on the M&S website from males who are at pains to make it clear they are male. There is evidence that mixed sex changing rooms put women at risk.

At what point do people start listening to women?

When do women's thoughts and feelings matter?

Seriously,we need to just tell them to get out ,why are we putting up with this
Women chained themselves to railings for the right to vote ,for a voice .
Now we are loosing our voice

I feel like you're right but you know what would happen. Somebody would get their smart phone out and record you using your voice, and then you'd be all over the papers, lose your job etc.

Or will they just grit their teeth and hope that the sector of people supporting males to change wherever they please and telling women they are free to change at home or shop online is larger than the sector of women buying clothes who want a changing room that is free of males?

'We have to be very careful, it's a very sensitive time and it's very easy to offend people.

Only male people though. Heaven help you if you offend male people. You can do what you like to female people though. It's pretty much good practice to offend, harass, scare, exclude, belittle, marginalise and otherwise oppress female people. If they complain, you can even call the police on them.

Because any man carrying a blouse on a hanger is automatically exempt from being a voyeur or any other form of predator. QED.

I don't think at this point anyone is left pretending that there's any way to know or manage the agenda of the male person entering the single sex space, regardless of what it turns out to be. The fact is, as this member of staff has helplessly demonstrated, is that the male person will do what the male person chooses, and female people and staff can do nothing whatsoever about this.

It's just male supremacism now. Cut and dried. It's inexcusable.

Zara went a while ago though. Most high at stores have (just look at the wording on their changing rooms). They snuck unisex (cos it’s unisex not genda neutral nonsense) changing rooms in.

The top comment has 20k up votes!

The list of places where I will shop is getting smaller, that’s lush and Zara both gone now ffs.