to be surprised by single sex changing rooms in M&S!

[MrsMaturin]

There is a new M&S near us. It's pretty huge with ladieswear downstairs with a changing room and then menswear and childrens upstairs also with a changing room.
This week I took dd2 (13) to look for a school skirt which she had to try one because school are v fussy about length. We found two and headed over to the changing rooms on that floor. When we got there the man wouldn't let us in saying it was men only. I pointed out that the children's department was also on that floor with no separate facility but he was implacable. AIBU in finding this really odd? The changing rooms are all made up of cubicles and I've never been told they are single sex. If I had been shopping with my son would I be told to wait outside, unable to see how the garments looked on him? This is a minor issue of course but his officious exclusion of us really made me cross plus the ladies changing rooms were miles away. If we'd wanted the staff there to fetch us something else it would have taken them quite some time.
Or am I being weird and you would expect changing rooms to be single sex only in a major clothing shop/department store?

I've never been to a clothes store with unisex changing rooms. Our M&S has the mens dept and children's wear on the same floor - it wouldn't occur to me to wander into the mens and expect DD (tall, skinny and a completely odd shape) to get changed there. We'd just walk to the nearest female changing rooms and get changed there - if we needed any other sizes we'd buzz for one of the assistants to get them.

I shop online with stores which would otherwise necessitate a 40 mile trip to visit, but it's expensive/inconvenient to pay for a load of stuff you don't intend to keep all of upfront and then wait weeks for the money from returned items to go back into your bank account. Wouldn't be affordable for many people!

Thanks for the feedback on the situation with my mum and dad - I think I will write to M&S and see what they say. The staff were polite and apologetic to dad but insisted he could not go in to help mum (who very obviously could not do it herself), they do have a disabled accessible room in the ladies changing room. If I could get it in writing that it was allowed he could take the letter with him.

More generally - I do see the need for single sex changing rooms for bra fitting as the assistants are in and out. Otherwise I see no need - I don't want other women to see my flabby, stretch marked tum as other women are judgmental. If I don't want others (male or female) to see me I don't come out of the cubicle. I really don't think men would use a unisex changing room to be a pervert in - how could they if cubicles went floor to ceiling and it was one person per cubicle? As for unisex toilets, the men in this household leave the toilet as they expect to find it, as all people should. I have found many disgusting women's toilets - lots of women 'hover' and don't clean up their spray which is really grim. They hover because they don't want to touch the seat then expect the next child/old person/less stable person who can't hover to clean up their piss or sit in it . I've also seen lots of mess left from sanitary products which a man wouldn't do.

Who remembers the horror that was communal changing rooms...?

I remember communal changing rooms from my younger days.

You couldn't possibly have them now because some pain in the arse would wipe a phone out, take your pic and before you know it you're all over Twitter and Facebook in your mismatched bra and knickers.

I do owl I would only buy online if they ever came back

A close friend and I went shopping together. He is transgender and wanted to try on a dress in monsoon. He was not allowed as he was dressed in male clothing at the time.
My friend did not get his dress and the shop lost out on a sale.

I wouldn't have wanted a man (transgendered or otherwise) in the changing rooms while I was getting changed - so Monsoon would have lost my sale (and possibly that of other women) had they let him in.

I don't think I have ever seen someone changing in changing rooms, nor given anyone else the opportunity to see me changing. I don't understand the problem. Not since communal changing rooms anyway ... [shudder]

Hypothetically. I wonder how this falls wrt sexual discrimination laws? Just idly wondering, I don't know enough about them.

Sexual discrimination laws allow single sex space when it is for good reasons. Toilets are specifically mentioned as a possible good reason.

Male to female, or female to male? Dressed in male clothes (as this person was) or female clothes?

But is a room of individual cubicles "good reason"? I don't think so. Particularly in the case of the transgender friend who wants a dress.

At least one of my local swimming pools has unisex changing.

A male to female, wearing female clothes, looking like a female - wouldn't bother me, probably wouldn't even notice one way or another.

A male to female, wearing male clothes, looking like a male - would bother me.

Whether or not that's the 'right' way for me to feel is irrelevant.

Just checking - we are talking about either communal changing rooms or male/female individual cubicles ie men one way to their cubicles, women the other way, yes?

I agree with OP that this is peculiar. I've been trying to remember how it works in our local M&S. Downstairs is women's clothing, and there's also a changing room. I can't remember if it's labelled "women" (I don't think it is) but obviously you only ever see women in there.

Upstairs is men's and children. I have always taken DD to the upstairs changing room without any problems at all but for the life of me I can't remember if it's labelled a children's changing room or just a changing room.

In our local John Lewis, men's, women's and children's are all separate, and there's a changing room in the children's dept that is obviously for children.

Do your feelings trump those of a transgender person wanting to try on a dress though? I'm not getting at you, it's more of a general question.

DuchessofKircaldy I think you're pushing your luck trying to get Monsoon to allow a man dressed in man's clothing in to a changing room.

I don't think they were being unreasonable in refusing.

Yep, in Monsoon they obviously do.

Without wanting to turn this into a deep and meaningful discussion about transgender, if someone wants to try on a dress in a changing room that caters for one gender then I would expect them to bear some resemblance to that gender.

Ithink it was Warehouse in London that had one communal women's changing room. I went in with DSis when I was 13 and came out sobbing. Floor to ceiling mirrors. Horrific.

I'm all for unisex changing rooms, or a lobby area inside where I could wait rather than drag DS1 all the way to the front of the changing rooms.

I never knew changing rooms were single sex either. I've seen the lingerie fitting rooms, but otherwise I assumed other ones were just free to all.
Maybe it's a Yorkshire thing