Truly single-sex bra fittings for DD13

Also they don’t have a single sex policy , or at least they didn’t a year or so back.
Only time I have seen a man trying on bras was in John Lewis, a long time ago. I did not like it at all, and my dd would not have wanted to try on bras with a man in the next cubicle. Dd went to M&S for her first fitting nine years ago, and the lady there was incredibly kind and sensitive. They had no bands small enough so she took the bras home and altered the bands herself just to be kind to dd. Lovely woman.
Have any of these shops changed policy since the ruling on single sex spaces ? As bra fitting rooms, with young girls in there as well as women , seem a clear reason to enforce a female only rule.

Also they don’t have a single sex policy , or at least they didn’t a year or so back.
Only time I have seen a man trying on bras was in John Lewis, a long time ago. I did not like it at all, and my dd would not have wanted to try on bras with a man in the next cubicle. Dd went to M&S for her first fitting nine years ago, and the lady there was incredibly kind and sensitive. They had no bands small enough so she took the bras home and altered the bands herself just to be kind to dd. Lovely woman.
Have any of these shops changed policy since the ruling on single sex spaces ? As bra fitting rooms, with young girls in there as well as women , seem a clear reason to enforce a female only rule.

There a thread about JL bra fitting rooms and the fact that the bra fitting room is within a mixed sex changing room in, at least, one of their stores

The bra fitting all took place behind a loose fitting curtain. The man was the other side of the curtain.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5515423-ideas-please-to-get-a-response-from-john-lewis-to-my-complaint

Our M&S has cubicles in their underwear department, the chance of a man trying on bras is slim to zero, just buy her bras to try on my Dds would have rather stick pins in their eyes than go for a bra fitting at 13, don't make it awkward for your Dd

Ignore my previous post. Bravissimo does do first time bra fittings, including virtual ones.

I'm extremely close to my mum but I still would have found it extremely embarrassing to have her 'fit' me.
Why on earth do you think someone is qualified to fit bras just because they are a mother? I wouldn't know where to start.

I don’t know but why not go to somewhere like Bravissimo where the chances of a man trying on clothes at the same time is much slimmer than a shop that sells clothes for both men and women.

Obviously you need to be prepared for men accompanying their partners in the shop.

Go to a local independent one. They are much better than M&S anyway.

Exactly

but in theory

and for a man to be drawn to go to the fitting room in the bra section of marks… he will have had to have gone to the ladies department, then through to the bra area and to the changing rooms always on the bra area where they do fittings

It has never needed to........because up until recently people wouldn't have thought to use the changing rooms of the 'other sex' and which have always been located on another floor.

Well you weren’t close to your mum

And this 13 year (and her mother!) sounds very anxious so might be better

You storming out wouldn't be relaxing either. You sound very on edge about something that should feel normal. Seriously, I think the male thing is a distraction. What matters is that the person doing the fitting will be female. Having done this in John Lewis with my own DD, I would say that talking through what will happen is the most important thing. My DD was not keen on the idea of having to take her top clothes off and being seen semi-naked by a stranger but I reassured her by saying I understood, that I would be with her, and that the woman doing the fitting would know it was a big thing for a girl the first time.

I would honestly rather have died as a 13 year old rather than allow my mum to fit me for a bra (not that she would have had the faintest idea how). What an odd suggestion.

Yes but doesn’t stipulate MEN’s or WOMEN does it

How have we got to the position that women and girls have to take all these precautions just to take part in society and buy clothes?

Trans identifying males get fitted for bras too, by the way.

Yes, and they all have doors rather than curtains.

Take a robe or a big cardigan
Choose a stall that is not facing the central area
choose a place with doors not curtains
you stand outside the stall and guard

the chances of a man coming in are slim as the Bra sections generally have their own changing rooms don’t they?

Men and women's clothing tend to be on separate floors in J.Lewis.....and so the changing rooms are necessarily women's changing rooms.

How many transwomen are employed by M&S that they have to be by the changing rooms where women will be undressing, and where they will have to have conversations about their breasts, etc, with the fitter, knowing that there is a man dressed as a woman just outside who may be able to overhear?

Unfair to force a woman to discuss underwear with a trans identifying male in order to access a fitting service. And how many teenage girls would feel able to do that.

Yep

Storm out? Ok.

and the changing rooms for bra measuring are in the bra section.

more to the point - throughout my life I have just seen shops sign posting to their “Changing rooms” or “Fittings”. Can’t recall ever “men’s” or “women’s”. So presumably means unisex changing rooms have been around for decades?

The bra fitting rooms are separate to the general changing areas. I've only ever encountered a man once in the general changing area of my local JL, and never in the bra fitting rooms. They are all individual cubicles, anyway.