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?

We have unisex swimming pool changing spaces and that works fine, so what's wrong with unisex changing in a shop?

Where are these swimming pools? Because a few people have mentioned this but I've never in my life been to a swimming pool that didn't have separate male and female changing rooms. Some have a family changing room which is unisex obviously but that is in addition to the usual changing rooms.

The area outside a cubicle isn't a "waiting area" it's a corridor thing with people up and down

Depends on the shop. My local new look the cubicles are in a massive room, in the middle of the room are sofas and chairs. It's very much a waiting area, there's even tables with perfume samples and make up testers.

Never seen any men sat there waiting though.

The cubicles do have decent, wooden doors.

My local swimming pool also has a unisex changing room and only that one room. I don't have an issue with it, it's been li,e it for 15 years.

You are able to change in privacy and peace. In the cubicle.

There are a few, very select places that I think should be kept firmly female only. The corridor outside the cubicles in top shop isn't one of them.

I do have an issue with changing cubicles with shit fitting curtains being a unisex space.

Depending on the changing room, I would have a different reaction.
In a ceiling to floor, solid door’d changing room, I’d be fine with it.
If there are curtains that never actually fully close I would walk out and refuse to go back in. Why do my feelings count for less than theirs?

I'm sorry but it's all just so SILLY! I'm all for people living as the gender they want to be and us all kindly pretending along, but teenage girls shouldn't have biological men in spaces where they are getting undressed. It's common sense. We shouldn't have to kindly pretend along to the extent that we allow this.

Neither I nor my teens will be setting foot in TopShop until we are given safe, separate spaces to change.

The worst one I have come across is a unisex toilet in a nightclub in Leeds.
I found my friend, who was drunkenly half conscious, being abused by someone who pounced on her when she was vulnerable. But yes, let’s keep allowing women to be at risk 👍🏼

""But this person doesn't identify as a woman or a man..."

Indeed, he identifies as 'they'. And he doesn't present as a woman, he just looks like a bloke.

If you are trying to 'pass', then it's easy to see how you might be offended at getting told to go to the men's room. But he's not.

He's a bloke presenting as a bloke who insists that he comes into women's spaces and we have to LIKE IT. And the reason is simply BECAUSE HE SAYS SO.

That's all there is to it.

That's so awful, Sayyouwill - your poor friend.

littlebird I have two children, none are preteen girls. I was a preteen girl who went shopping on her own, swimming and so on and never once took notice of anyone else in the changing areaa.

battered I did. There seems to be genuine hysteria on these issues and it all falls in to a 'now I/my daughter(s) will definitely not be safe'. It all breeds insecurity in young girls about men. I swam competitively for years. I must have changed in communal areas thousands of times. Shared changing rooms with small cubicles (not always floor to ceiling walls) with women and men of all ages; including other swimmers, parents, coaches, public and leisure attendants. I've sat in those areas and poolside, in front of those people, in a top and swim suit or swim suit and bottoms for hours. I have never been brought up to feel threatened by a man simply being present in an area that I will be using in that way. I am not threatened by it. Lots of women seem to be threatenes because "men shouldn't be there", so yes many do seem to be insecure about men.

Urban Outfitters have mixed sex changing rooms and that’s never been a problem for me or seems to be a problem for the thousands of people that shop there.....

i can half see the argument against this, but changing rooms were never 100% females only. what about male shop staff, security guards, partners/carers/dads coming in to assist or give opinions?

And let's not fucking take this lying down.

Narcissistic fuckwits like this until quite recently would have accepted that they were men.

Here he was three years ago.

www.bgdblog.org/2014/09/abandon-word-subtle-discussing-racism/

"as a British man"

" A student by day, and an erotic-political poet by night, shouting unapologetically about his brown-queer love. Recently performing his one man show #storiesofaqueerbrownmuddykid"

He hasn't changed, all that's changed is men are being emboldened by a society that refuses to place any boundaries upon them.

The demands from these narcissists will not stop as long as they are being granted.

It's wrong, totally wrong.

The last time I tried stuff on my friend and I were in cubicles and then we would step out to ask each other's opinion. There was a middle aged man literally staring at us as when waited for his other half. Really uncomfortable. Men have no place in a female changing room. How is a transgender man safer in a female changing room if men are given permission to use them?

Women have spent the last 4,000+ years trying to avoid ogling and now men have hit on a new way to get a peep.

This is just not on. Men have no right to enter women's spaces at all.

I have used unisex toilets in the past, which was a corridor with 4 cubicles in it. And do you know what? It was basically self-segregating - when a woman came out of a cubicle, the next woman went in and the same with men.

also unisex changing exists in lots of places eg sports shops, pre-teens in department stores...

so yes many do seem to be insecure about men.

I can’t actually believe I’m having to say this but did you ever wonder why women seem inscribe about men? Do you genuinely think women have just decided to be coy and pretend we are shy around men?

And many shops do have a waiting area outside the cubicles with chairs.
As for the ones that do not, I've then seen many women and young girls come to the entrance to the corridor/end of the shop floor to show off what they are wearing, which surely defeats the purpose of the 'too insecure to come out' argument.

Our local dorothy perkins/burton, supermarkets, river island and dunnes all only have unisex changing areas. It's not new and no one was outraged then.

Naturally this stupid fuck was given space in The Guardian recently (July), where he insisted he was "neither male nor female".

www.feministcurrent.com/2017/07/28/special-millennials-special-please-tell-im-special/

No amount of attention is enough if you are narcissist.

battered I do understand why some women are and yes they have every right to be. However the odds of every woman who is 'outraged' having went through that is slim.

If they are cubicles and completely private anyway why can't just Travis change in the mens then? Could it be that he is more interested in validation and self promotion than fearing for his safety in the men's changing rooms with the same layout that apparently mean women have nothing to fear at all?

Also whilst the idea of both gender neutral and single sex is great in theory it won't be good enough for some. Nothing other than complete acceptance as women will do. I've read accounts of transwomen walking past unisex loos down the corridor to the womens, just to prove a point.

This is madness!

I shan’t be shopping there again, for certain.

The many times the curtain doesn't fully close and my mum saying 'don't worry, were all girls here' comes to mind.
Maybe provide a neutral changing room in addition to same sex ? So people can choose ?