Boycott JL and Waitrose? : James Esses' latest Substack on John Lewis LGBTQIA++ 'Identity' mag

This debacle should be a strong hint to employers that they should all move away from bringing your whole self to work.

There are so many ways in which this it's always been inappropriate and this illustrates it.

Employers have a 'duty of care' to their employees' health, safety and wellbeing. This includes carrying out risk assessments. Not using surnames or identifying locations ought to have been looked at very critically, especially for staff who might be more vulnerable. Suggesting people protect or delete their social media accounts, especially anything sexually explicit, before the project went live was a no-brainer.

Why do people turn off their brains around this entire area? Did it not even vaguely occur to someone to carry out a vague round of due diligence to see whether something would turn up that would give them pause for thought about their recommendations and how they'd handle this?

ETA: xd with Chers

@SoupDragonsFriend JL management have swallowed "bring your whole self to work" hook, line and sinker. And expect the entire world to accept, no, to applaud that.

Any alternative result has simply not occurred to them, I suspect.

I can see from their comments part way down the project page that many of the people who have contributed their photos and biographies to the project are proud of what they've done. I see no problem at all in being out and proud when you are fully aware of what you are doing but, nowadays, nobody can predict what might happen when there is a very critical reaction on the internet.

The difficulty right now will be for any of those participants who realise that maybe they've shared too much about their personal lives. It's too late to withdraw. Their identifying info is already out there. I'm imagining some of these staff feeling very stressed this weekend.
Employers have a 'duty of care' to their employees' health, safety and wellbeing. This includes carrying out risk assessments. Not using surnames or identifying locations ought to have been looked at very critically, especially for staff who might be more vulnerable. Suggesting people protect or delete their social media accounts, especially anything sexually explicit, before the project went live was a no-brainer.

And as for the Nursery ambassador. Words fail me. JL were trying to claim Mothercare's £11m share of the nursery market.

I'm struggling to think why they think this will help them to connect with new parents.

Good plan. I think that's the option I will go with. The App has a lot of receipts in so it makes sense to keep that. I just won't use it.

“The enby who struggles with the war of having birthed a child…while not being female…” Christ on a bike, these people need to watch the news every now and then before talking about “war”.

JL will have definitely alienated their core customers by producing this nonsense.

So often when the online presence is examined , this is what you find 🙄

"Ruby" who presents as a woman according to JL and appears in the magazine with a whip and latex dress has all sorts of other interesting activities. So predictable to anyone except the staff of JL

I've just seen some of those photos on TwitterX 😱
And as for some of the other magazine pages - the enby who 'struggles with the war of having birthed a child' while 'not being female'. The 'happily married father of three' who's also bisexual and now realises he needs to be honest and proclaim it to the world in a staff magazine.

Dear God alive. What the hell are JL thinking? Do they have a death-wish?

Couldn't be more pissed off with John Lewis and Sharon White if I tried. I've been a huge fan of hers for ages and now this.

"Ruby" who presents as a woman according to JL and appears in the magazine with a whip and latex dress has all sorts of other interesting activities. So predictable to anyone except the staff of JL. x.com/sewmuchno/status/1758635204519043485?s=46

I am a huge JL customer. Weekly Waitrose shop, kids clothes at least monthly and have a lot of white goods I would naturally get from them. No more.

The JL Identity Project photos also include one of a man who has transitioned who appears to be holding a whip. Is it a whip?

Regardless of my opinions about JL's in house magazine etc, I'm feeling a bit concerned that these 'identity' pictures also give full name and place of work, including department, for a few employees who might be quite vulnerable and I wonder how much consideration was given to this.

Gutted. Any recommendations for a credit card company that doesn’t supports woke ideologies?

Local shops?

I know it isn't as convenient and not many deliver (but some do). Also some have strange hours, my local butcher opens at 7.00am.

Iceland? Have they swallowed the kool aid?

https://ifcf.org.uk/

Their charitable foundation seems OK.

Oh and they saved me during Covid. They only let you book one delivery at a time and it is free over £40.

If I met him in the nursery dept I would be perturbed.

And on Facebook too.

Lots of comments on this on their latest insta post:

www.instagram.com/p/C3Z3vnwqKUy/?igsh=MWFqaGV2enV0M25pNg==

He's wearing reins!

Is the belted vest fashion ware? My teen wears lots of alternative thrift shop fashions and so I’m used to creative outfits. However leather and buckles make me assume kink wear ..

Bloody hell, just read the article. I love shopping at JP but how can I shop there when it’s ethically questionable.

😶 oops forgot to write something!

Is the whole magazine just more of this?👇

There's money to be made in the signage there: "women and male wankers".

Aren't they great? The Telegraph has done excellent work in exposing all this. I've got a very cheap 6 month sub to them and am impressed. Don't share many of the political views but they've some excellent journalists, their sports pages are fab (with a whole section devoted to women's sport) and the sports writers articulate about the eradication of women's sport by mediocre males.

Many commentators are articulate about safeguarding children, lesbian erasure and could hold their own on this board.

The comments on that Telegraph article are a joy to behold! I've read the majority of comments (1200+!) and only two in favour of the wokeness.

Huge mis-step, JLP!