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?

If there is no cubicle then I see your point. If it’s all cubicles, individually lockable, I don’t see the issue?

Woah! How ducking dare they! I mean we haven’t been changing into and out of bathing costumes in unisex changing rooms at swimming pools for years now have we?!

Apparently this is what passes as female these days...

All women go straight to men's changing rooms and take over for a few weeks! Ave it! ( wow, I sound like my stroppy teenager)

If TopShop insist on pandering to the needs of ONE person who does not consider him/herself to male or female against the basic human needs of teenage girls and vulnerable women then it wont be long before TopShop will be a closed shop.

Nobody should have to shop online just in case some perv is loitering in the changing room, under the guise of being 'Gender fluid'. If the ONE person doesn't like it that S/He feels "unsafe" using a male changing room then there is nothing at all stopping him from shopping on-line.

If teen girls don't feel safe in the changing rooms at TopShop they will purchase from other shops. Bye Bye TopShop! You are overpriced anyway - Good riddance!

Men would laugh in our faces if we pulled a stunt like this.

Which we wouldn’t do because funnily enough, we have no strange desire to occupy men’s spaces. Funny that. And people wonder why women are insecure around men.

I don't use unisex changing rooms at swimming pools, Rackelle, having been sexually assaulted and harassed by men in there on a number of occasions.

Cubical being curtains or big locked doors aside - are people missing the issue that a man demanded he must use the female changing room, as he felt unsafe in the male changing room? And his solution to this, that people support, is to make (not all) but some females feel unsafe by being allowed in their space? Men demand to be on females space so they are allowed to. Why is that fair?

If the cubicles are individual why can't Travis change in the mens?

I normally stay away from these threads because I don't hold the majority view and anyone who tries to engage in reasonable debate is usually witheringly shut down as trying to be 'cool' but I'm becoming increasingly incredulous at the amount if people on here who seem to have a fear of men, or more specifically, penises.

I have been raped. I've been in abusive relationships. I've known some deeply unpleasant, predatory men. But never have I ever felt threatened simply by the presence of a penis. Gender segregation, especially within the context of religion, is about othering and sexualising women. I truly believe, as a society, if we didn't inherently believe that men's and women's bodies are sexual and should be kept apart, we wouldn't be in the position we are today. There have been studies that show gender segregation can actually perpetuate harmful stereotypes and behaviour. I personally welcome a society where we don't feel the need to separate men and women and work towards everyone feeling comfortable with their bodies in everyday, non-sexual settings, and reinforce the idea that human bodies are not inherently sexual. I genuinely believe that, had this been the agenda throughout history, we'd all be a more comfortable society. Of course it wouldn't eliminate sex offenders, but mixed gender changing rooms don't turn regular men into sex offenders, and I think if we all took a less hysterical view of human anatomy there wouldn't be this moral panic.

I have no problem with sharing a changing room, hospital ward etc with a heterosexual man, much less a trans person.

The women saying 'but women who've been raped want women only spaces' I'm sorry, but please don't apply that rhetoric to all women who've been raped. You don't speak for me.

Sign me up for boycotting. Add a gender neutral changing room - sure. Allow biologically male people into the women’s? Nope. I’ll take my business elsewhere thanks.

sailor

Went through what?

You the point was that there have been many unisex changinf rooms for years and this is nothing new. Why are people so aghast at the thought of a unisex changing room.

If you walk in to a shop, browse, find items to try on and discover it is a unisex changing room do you leave? If you go swimming with your kids and discover a unisex changinf village do you leave? Or do you use it without a second thought?

As I said above, Sailor (maybe our posts crossed), I don't use unisex facilities. I use women-only facilities.

If women should have nothing to fear from the opposite sex and therefore be completely fine with unisex changing rooms, why can't this guy use the men's without feeling threatened?

(I should add, plenty of women I know have the same stance - we don't want unisex facilities, we use sex-segregated ones)

How do you cope at the swimming pool, being on holiday in a bikini/swimming costume and people seeing you and so on?

In fairness, I know a lot of women who prefer to keep their bodies lightly screened, even on the beach. At a swimming pool, people don't actually see you taking your clothes off. The actual process of disrobing makes a lot of people feel vulnerable.
The changing rooms in my local top shop are flimsy draw-across curtains. I think most of my dd's teenage friends would feel intimidated by a group of blokes trying frocks on. Or even just one large flouncy bloke trying a frock on. Not to mention the threat of it becoming commonplace.

The world's gone bloody mad.

battered rape, sexual assault be it physical or verbal, intimidation and so on.

I have been raped and in a severely damaging and abusive relationship while at an impresionable age. I am still not wary of men, insecure around men or boycotting Topshop because of this.

If TopShop insist on pandering to the needs of ONE person who does not consider him/herself to male or female

The correct response to someone who identifies as neither male or female is “sorry, we don’t be have unidentified changing facilities, we only have male or female changing facilities”

What about women who don't want to change in the same space as men?

And men who don't want to change with women? I just came across this link while looking for the Topshop story. This is the only one I've come across of ftm trans being unwelcome in male spaces. Possibly because it's rarer for ftm to want to access men's changing rooms and toilets.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3576566/Transgender-man-born-woman-banned-male-changing-room-gym-BREASTS.html

The whole changing room thing is kind of red herring when I think about it.

This is about a man demanding access to a woman's space Because he said so. And a huge corporation giving him that space because he said so. And women not being allowed to argue against that because he said so.

@bimbim are you topshop's PR rep? Was that passage a rush job?

Spot on, Formerly

I was on a mixed sex hosp ward when I was 18, all others were male. A couple of them were just staring at me. When the lights went down at night I did feel very uncomfortable. No nothing happened. But, I believe that single sex wards are desired by most people, men and women, for perfectly good reasons and the government agrees. Saying that teen girls are prudish or hysterical for feeling this way is a silencing tactic and it's a shit one.

Most women have had enough happen in their lives to know that a significant minority of men are dodgy, enough that most have had multiple incidents of varying severity. It is not unreasonable to want to be separate from men in situations in which women and children are vulnerable.