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?

I don't get the big deal about it tbh.

Please repeat this to young girls who already feel insecure about their appearance and bodies. Now they have to contend with possible peeping toms. No I'm not saying all men (in case someone jumps on me) but there will be some. Why should women and girls be made to feel uncomfortable in what should be a female-only changing room? We're talking about a man who wants to be considered gender-fluid here, not a transitioning woman. It's a fucking joke.

*I love the fact he says he is 'unsafe' in the men's changing room. He is allowed to assume all men are unsafe, but women and girls are not allowed to feel unsafe if biological men/transwomen are in their space.

Sounds about right.*

Quoted for truth and common sense.

"Years ago I worked in a clothes shop, quite often on the fitting rooms. It stocked both men’s and women’s wear and shock horror both genders used the same fitting rooms. It was never an issue. Not once --because anti-trans sentiment wasn’t a thing then"

Were camera phones "a thing"? There have been lots of cases of men filming/taking pictures in changing rooms. Some of them have had an interest in only preteen girls.

The issue is that someone can decide that they identify as a Woman and be allowed everywhere. If you can't see an issue with that then you are to stupid to be allowed out.

My city center Weatherspoons allow Men (who identify as Women) into the toilets. But they far from just go in and use the facilities,it's all very 'look at me'. Why they would feel awkward in the Men's, is unclear, as they dress and act like Men.

I think teenage girls are statistically more at risk of harassment in a mixed changing room than gender-fluid people.

This kind of thing really pisses me of I know it can be rare before anyone has a pop at me but do they not have any idea how terrifying it can be for a woman that's been raped in the past to know that they will be changing(so vunerable)with a man right next to them.

Because sadly I am one of those women and there's no way I'd change in one of they're shops again so they've lost my custom!

What exactly is there to worry about. Is it that a man might pop his head around a curtain and sneak a peak? Surely that would be illegal and the police could arrest them. There are plenty of cameras and staff around to stop that.

Gah, bold fail!

Gender fluidity is the point at which I lose patience completely and utterly with all this crap. I have every sympathy for people who are gender dysphoric and feel at odds with the biological reality of their bodies. That must be an awfully hard thing to have to deal with in one's life.

But gender fluidity. Gender is a made-up set of arbitrary rules designed to stop men and women doing what they feel like if it breaks the boundaries of behaviour society has deemed acceptable. We're all of us fucking gender fluid - every woman who's ever put on a pair of trousers, every man who's surreptitiously wiped a tear from his eye at a rom-com.

This guy is a man who likes to flounce around in brightly coloured, frilly clothes which society has deemed to be feminine. He is not a "they", he is not some sort of strange new being who is half man and half woman, he is not somewhere on a spectrum. He's a bloke who likes makeup and frills. He's also, going off his twitter feed, an aggressive, narcissistic, self-absorbed individual who is exactly the sort of man I would not want to be in an intimate space with.

Why was he unsafe in the men's changing rooms?
He's obviously male, so nobody would challenge his presence there. Is he suggesting that the male changing rooms are unattended and he is at risk of attack in them? Because if changing rooms are unattended and full of violent men then why the FUCK would we be ok with men in the women's changing rooms?

Travis alabanza is a professional trans person who is trying to make a career out of being persecuted. He's a total fool.

prickly what a bloody good post! I couldn't have put it better myself.

Governments and businesses are scared of trans / gender fluid people and pander to whatever they want. They are evidently definitely not scared to piss off women though. That's the impression i have got recently.

I don't want a man in a changing room when i am changing - just because they can. This makes me furious. Get the fuck out of the women's changing rooms and spaces and flounce somewhere else 🚫🚫🚫

If he's gender fluid why didn't he just identify as a man that day? Or does that not suit his look at me agenda?

Exactly. Gender-fluid, meaningless concept as it is, surely means that a male changing room is just as appropriate as a female changing room.

Is it that a man might pop his head around a curtain and sneak a peak?

I let my 11 year old go into the changing rooms in topshop by herself. She feels really grown up. But spoilt silly gender fluid people don't care about that. If a man puts his head round the curtain and 'sneaks a peek' of my 11 year old that will be frightening and distressing for her, of course it won't be illegal, he can just say he was checking if anyone was in there.

I'm incredibly worried by these developments and I'm a man! I hope people are commenting on Topshops twitter post and saying how wrong this is. I'm not on Twitter or I'd comment myself!

Me and my wife are trying to get pregnant and I find myself hoping that our child isn't a girl or I'd be terrified every day.

Your entire "style" screams LOOK AT ME.

I'm so glad somebody else is recognising this! I've always thought so too.

I've experienced men walking brazenly into ladies changing rooms and ignoring staff when told to leave. What if said man was going to put a button camera up to perv on customers??? It does happen!

@scabbersly yes. Exactly this. My dd and her cousins and friends who loved trying on clothes in topshop on their own (me waiting outside patiently for ages!) will NOT be doing that anymore. Under any circumstance whatsoever.

If an incident does occur it's damaging permanently for them. Utter bullshit this is. I have no problem with transgender people but this is testing my patience. Massively.

BYE TOPSHOP.

I am actually really glad about this. So many shops won't let my dh come in with me and without him I can't get out of my wheelchair to try anything on. So surely anyone who thinks reglion and woman's rights need to be more protected what about disabled people. Just cause I'm in a wheel chair means that I can't try something on while I'm out but it's ok for others???

If he feels unsafe in a male changing room why should women expect to feel safe with him in a female changing room? He's not a transitioned or transitioning female he is "gender fluid". If this is going to become Topshop's policy they will need to roll out proper lockable cubicle doors instead of just curtains, otherwise they might as well just go the whole hog and make the changing rooms unisex.

@oddmanout they are but then for every person who questions it there is another person saying 'yay go trans community - no more persecution - our lives are so traumatic topshop are scum'

I don't care if it's the most mild mannered, well behaved man on the planet. I just don't want any of them in my changing rooms. I don't need to have a 'reason'

I’ve worked in Topshop.

Not all Topshops have a topMan section.

Not all changing rooms are supervised by staff. In smaller stores during lunch times, quiet times etc there is often only one member of staff on the floor.

The cubicles in the one I was in was just a curtain you pull across.

Men often stood inside the changing room area so partners/friends could show them outfits.

bloodynorris - I understand your point of view but there should be dedicated facilities to accommodate your position in the shops without endangering young girls. I'm sure you can understand why people think this is a terrible idea?

Just looking at this from another perspective. A friend of mine is a F to M trans, we would go shopping together and he would always go into the M changing rooms despite being fully biologically F in his genetic makeup at the time, as he had been abused by woman and branded a ‘perv’ when he went into the F changing, same as toilets etc.

He wasn’t going to pull down his trousers and bare his vagina for them to see so put up with the abuse and moved into the men’s, if trans men are getting the same abuse he got then where do you expect a trans to get changed?

Based on the MN ‘woman need safe spaces’ which I agree with, although I disagree with a lot of the stance on here wrt trans, where would you say my friend should have got changed?

"All-Gender Changing Room" is the part which makes me fine with it. If it's all-gender, what was the problem?

I could understand if it was a women's changing room.

And what this gender fluid man doesn’t realise is that the very same people he is trying to avoid by going in the ladies changing will be just as entitled as him to be in there too.