To alert you to the fact that Topshop just changed its policy to let men into the women's changing rooms

[YouStoleTheBowlFromTheRoom]

Been made aware of this today: a 'gender fluid' man having a pop at Topshop because he wasn't allowed to use the women's changing rooms at their Manchester store:

twitter.com/travisalabanza/status/927198660089339904

Topshop have now been quoted as apologising to him, and saying they've changed their policy to get rid of sex-segregated changing rooms altogether.

Another shop to strike off the list. Am I the only one worried this is past the point of no return?

battered i was mever sexually harrassed or assaulted whilst using unisex changing or the males dressing room. I have been raped, harrassed and assaulted. I have been in a dv relationship. I still do not fear unisex fitting rooms as they have been around for a long time.

Of course your daughter shouldn't see hate crime. We'll just send my son it to witness it, because girls obviously cannot cope with it.

Gender neutral changing will not place mtf transexuals in somewhere they don't feel they belong. Gender neutral changing meaning everyone or any gender.

"If she is with her dad he can wait outside". Daddy outside will stop the sexual predators in a male changing room. Mummy outside or inside a gender neutral changing room with same aged girl will not stop a sexual predator. Okay.

Genuinely mixed changing areas, at some swimming pools for example, will be around 50 per cent male users, 50 per cent female. So it’s different to a changing section for women and girls, where no-one is expecting a man to be in there. At least with the areas that are 50/50, people will be aware they need to consider all other users, and there will be decent men who’d stand up against any odd or aggressive men who were intimidating women or girls.

scabbersly yes, many .

Sailorcherries - I'm surprised to hear this from you?
"I've seen many women abuse other women who adopt a masculine look and tell thwm to get out."

After many decades in female changing rooms I have never ever heard or seen this.
I know you said you were 'out of here' as this is going round in circles' It could be that people just don't agree with your view? At a time of repeated and consistent evidence about male harassment and abuse in plain sight I don't agree with you either.
Keep sex segregated spaces, listen to women and stop pandering to the demands of this tiny percentage of the population.

Therefore I don’t think “so what if a man is in the women’s changing area, some places have a mixed hanging area” is a logical defence.

You are saying that you often go to changing rooms in shops and see women throw abuse at women who look masculine to get out.

I don't believe you.

Nora I've said that sex segragation can be kept. Gender neutral spaces in areas already does exist and can exist without threatening womens rights or spaces. Given the fact they have been there for years.

scabbersly because women never abuse others who don't conform as the ever tolerant MN proves.

As a teenager I regularly had middle aged, girls must wear dresses, women insult me and tell me I was in the wrong changing room.

I had an ED, no chest visible through the bit jumpers I used to hide my body, wore loose fitting jeans for the same reason and converse. I had short hair. Before the women even took notice of my actual features they'd tell me I was in tbe wrong area, comment to each other about being one of thosr "weirdos" and how it was wrong and so on.
I never once had that bother in gender neutral changing.

battered i was mever sexually harrassed or assaulted whilst using unisex changing or the males dressing room. I have been raped, harrassed and assaulted. I have been in a dv relationship. I still do not fear unisex fitting rooms as they have been around for a long time.

Again, you are asserting that other women are safe based on your experience and feelings. You aren’t afraid so no-one else has a right to be?

Of course your daughter shouldn't see hate crime. We'll just send my son it to witness it, because girls obviously cannot cope with it.

I have sons, no daughters. I don’t want my sons seeing it either. But I know the solution is not to spread the problem so it affects others. Sending it to the ladies changing room doesn’t stop it. It just means everyone is experiencing it.

Gender neutral changing will not place mtf transexuals in somewhere they don't feel they belong. Gender neutral changing meaning everyone or any gender.

Gender neutral changing isn’t the problem. As I have said, I welcome gender neutral changing. The problem is that ladies only and men only is being removed. This is not acceptable. Gender neutral changing can exist alongside sex segregated changing. Very easily.

Of course women can abuse others. I just don't believe your allegation that you have seen lots of women abusing women 'who adopt a masculine look'.
I think you're getting desperate as you have no credible arguments to defend your statements (as they're based on your own opinion / beliefs and ignore those damned facts)

I never once had that bother in gender neutral changing.

Why would you?? It was gender neutral changing!! Of course you couldn’t be in the wrong room. How can you not understand that?

haidees i said sex was visible - penis, testicles, boobs, vagina.
Gender is not as easy to ascertain. Hence the women insulting me.

battered the point was in relation to a completely different question. It highlights that gendered changing rooms can cause bother for anyone whereas gender neutral allows everyone to use them without such harrassment.

nora i had an entire post witb facts, research papers and so on. I clicked off the page before posting and it disappeared. The facts are out there.

Again, certain spaces can be made gender neutral witbout harming women, particularly when gender is the only deciding factor.
Certain spaces can be kept sex segregated when biological sex is present.
The two aren't mutually exclusive.

Again, you have my list of other shops to complain about and yet frequently ignore it. Boycott them all or none. Complain about them all or none. Don't use 'because men' as a response to everything.

Interesting and infuriating thread. Couldn't agree more OP.

Daily Mail and Indy reporting this today as a little victory for Travis. 🙄

Sailorcherries
Damn it when those statistics to back up a -feeble- argument disappear. It happens so often on here to people who pop up to tell women how very wrong we are to worry about threats to women or being cross at a company changing policy at the behest of one man.

Actually Nora the research asked for related to gender being discovered and formed by age 3 as a result of hormones and the biochemical makeup of the brain.

There has only been one group name calling; making fun of the looks of others; using blatant transphobic comments; and trying to whole "I don't believe you". That's enough for me

Remember to check the changing facilities of every place you visit and store you buy from from now on.

However a lot of posters here can only justify not having unisex changing rooms as men are predators. That is not a reasonable answer.

Yes, in fact it's an emminently reasonable answer.

• Why have there been sex segregated facilities available up until this point?
• Why have governments strongly supported and insisted on sex segregated hospital wards?
• What sex commits 98% of all violent crime?
• How many women have experienced sexual harassment in their lives? (clue: almost NONE of that will have come from other women)
• Have you noticed the #metoo campaign at all?

Your point is that women are being silly to resist being unilaterally forced to accept unisex facilities by men who want to have access to women's spaces. Because they want to be with women and be validated by being in women only spaces. So exclusively to meet the needs of those men, basically. Why is it you place such huge importance on the feelings of men but not women? You don't agree women can possibly justify being unhappy about this, and you're demanding factual evidence carrying enough weight that you're forced to agree. Because basically their feelings? Bleh. Women's feelings mean nothing.

Silly, neurotic tarts that they are.

Can I ask what fathers with daughters are supposed to do?

Well I'll take a guess, exactly what they do now? And have done for the last century or so we've had sex segregated facilities?

I already pointed out my position with a young son who looks older. Why should he be sent alone in to this apparent lions den?

Another straw man. What do mothers with young sons do now? What does that have to do with the issue of self identification?

it in itself is not a big deal in this instance.

Are you capable of grasping that your feelings are not shared by every other woman and that their feelings are equally as valid as yours?

And that in issues of consent, if one person says 'yes' as you are doing and the other says 'no' - the one who says no gets a casting vote. This is absolutely a consent issue. It's about the right of women to set boundaries over privacy, dignity, vulnerability.

I've not read the whole thread, and I'm sorry if it's been mentioned, but surely if 'they' were feeling intimidated and needed to use the female changing rooms, then surely 'they' need to spare a though to how we women feel.
There are male and female separate changing rooms for a reason, when we get undressed we are in a vulnerable position, and so we are separated and made to feel safe.
Put together takes the safety away.

And not 'a casting vote' - THE casting vote.

Try the tea analogy around consent.

"No I don't want a cup of tea."

"Oh ffs, tea isn't poisonous! Don't be so silly, I'd be perfectly happy to drink it, so drink and shut up."

I've seen many women abuse other women who adopt a masculine look and tell thwm to get out. They don't know that she has a vagina. Gender stereotyped. Unisex facilities stop this.

I gather, from what you have subsequently said, that you personally have experienced abuse based on your gender nonconforming appearance. For which you have my utmost sympathy.

Indeed, feminists everywhere have been trying to break down gender stereotypes which would cover a situation such of yours. There is no earthly reason why women cannot present in a masculine way, and vice versa.

The problem with your assertion, is that you are ignoring the inherent power dynamic involved in bullying, intimidation and predation.

Largely, this dynamic is comprised of men in the powerful position and women in the subordinate position.

However individual situations, are just that. They do not counter the overall dynamic, which is somewhat mitigated by sex segregation. Because the power dynamic is based on biological sex.

Gender is immaterial. A man who presents as female, is still of the cohort that subjugates women. He would have been socialised male and retain male pattern criminality. Irrespective of whether you can tell his sex, or not.

The criteria for segregation cannot be based on what somebody looks like. Anywhere.

That is a completely different issue to whether or not you think segregation is applicable in all situations.

But if you have segregation, it cannot be based on gender or looks.

So do you have a link to that research about gender identity then sailer?

I actually feel that my gender has changed and evolved as I’ve got older, i used to not leave the house without wearing heels and full make up, I loved traditionally girly things and now I am much more ‘gender neutral’.
At what point is it ‘gender’ And at what point is is ‘personality’.

Gender is such a red herring.

How can it be innate, when I don’t have one, there are any number of people who claim it’s fluid and equally a load of people who say they have several at once, or it alternates, and another cohort of people who say it is immutable, and they’ve had it since birth, and at the same time, almost every official organisation will tell you it is a set of socially expected stereotypes.

So instead of segregating based on something that is subjective, unidentifiable, unverifiable, constantly changing and half the population doesn’t have one, let’s segregate on the thing that’s the most obvious, that we can all see, we all have and that we know can dictate peoples’ behaviour. Sex.