Topshop gender neutral changing rooms part 2

[BahHumbygge]

Part 1 here

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3080957-To-alert-you-to-the-fact-that-Topshop-just-changed-its-policy-to-let-men-into-the-womens-changing-rooms

It’s just Top Shop reconfiguring it’s changing rooms and everyone gets their own private space.

They're not reconfiguring them though, they're just changing the label from women's changing rooms to everyone's changing rooms but those that are still flimsy curtains are still going to be flimsy curtains.

Is it really flimsy curtains? Have they said that?

Look I’m concerned about the trans activist agenda especially regarding the way it impacts children and young people, particularly in schools. It concerns me that as a parent I have no right to know whether a boy is sleeping in the same room as my teenage daughter and therefore have no opportunity to talk to school about safeguarding abd my daughter’s right to privacy. It is wrong, wrong, wrong.

But I think issues like this muddy the waters. If there are flimsy curtains then customers should vote with their feet. But I would credit TopShop with a bit more understanding of their market than that.

Topshop are well known for having old school flimsy curtains in most stores. Why do you think lots of perfectly ordinary (i.e. not feminist activist) mothers and other women are upset? The curtains don't stay closed, people open them etc.

I think Topshop are just pandering to this man and his angry twitter mob of transactivists and allies. I don't think this has been well thought through at all.

The biggest issue here is that a single man, who by his own admission “sometimes” IDs as a woman shouted loudly, got his own way and opened the floodgates for any man to gain entry to a female space.

It’s a real, practical danger.

It’s also a symbolic one. It encapsulates the whole issue with the GI reforms - woman are being expected to stand aside and welcome men into our most private space: our sex.

Fat face have unisex changing rooms and they are just that, a fully enclosed room, absolutely no problem. Other stores have flimsy curtains that don't close properly, my teenage daughter always makes me hold the curtains so no one can see her and that's in a female only area. Now we have the added issue of the potential presence of men.

Yes, this sums it up. I’ve used gaping curtained female changing rooms and been uncomfortable. Women/girls are often topless which feels more exposed gor us than men being topless. Wonder how teenage girls and 20 something’s actually feel about it.

Don't shop at TopShop. It's poorly made crap anyway.

The really nasty attack on a poster's CHILD on this thread sums it up from the group of TAs that are an issue.

A girl went to topshop and asked if they would let men in the changing room while she was in there. Fair enough question.

Poster reacts with a really over the top attack on the girl. Part of it being the thing that many teens are worried about - popularity.

Message is to teen girls - if you are worried about men coming in - don't ask - don't say anything - keep quiet. This is the EXACT same message that is given to girls about how to react when men do creepy shit to them - as seen on #metoo. It's an attempt to silence.

I can't believe someone attacked someone's kid like that.

And no topshop here doesn't have doors it has gappy curtains, and has done since they changed it from a communal room which was a long long time after all the other shops stopped having them.

I am 99.99999999999% sure they are not going to pay to refit all their changing rooms and make them less hidden away and with proper doors etc.

Yes to PP about "holding the curtain" and it's only girls in there at the moment.

"Is it really flimsy curtains? Have they said that? "

They don't need to say it, we can see them with our eyes

Why are people talking about unisex changing rooms? That’s not what’s happening here.
They aren’t calling for unisex changing rooms they are asking to be allowed into the women’s therefore having it recognised that on the days they put on a dress they actually become women.
It may seem like a tiny thing, you might wonder ‘well what harm can it do’ but it sets a precedent, it starts with the changing rooms but how can we then say they aren’t allowed into other women’s spaces if we as a society have already allowed them into changing rooms. We can’t pick and choose.

Anyway I don’t want unisex changing rooms, I like the fact I can get changed with no men around. It’s nice to be able to come out of the cubicle and show the person you’re with your new bikini or unflattering top. It’s part of the fun, laughing with your friend at the trousers that give you camel toe or getting your sister to check that your nipples can’t be seen through your top.
Unisex changing rooms have a totally different vibe.

I was once chatting to my DH and communal changing rooms came up - he was flummoxed. Turns out that men have never had them (well of all the shops he'd been in and he likes clothes ). This was something he had never imagined existed.

Maybe the men's have always had more privacy - no communal, better curtains, doors, that sort of thing. I know they often have more space - I've seen when waiting for DH but admittedly not in many shops. It's possible that the men saying what's the prob haven't ever been a 14 year old trying a bra on with one hand while trying to hold a gappy curtain shut with the other... And certainly don't have a history of having to get undressed in a communal changing room ie a totally different history and expectations around the whole thing. In topshop it was the place where you definitely did NOT expect privacy while changing.

I mean it's unlikely they'd be trying a bra on anyway but you get my drift.

Maybe if they wanted to try bras on the men's is a better place if they have doors / better curtains?

Maybe we should have been going in there all along?

Maybe the men's have always had more privacy - no communal, better curtains, doors, that sort of thing

Men's changing rooms have flimsy curtains and doors just like female changing rooms - and no doubt pervy men hoping to get a view of a young boy getting changed. Not sure about communal changing areas though.

Maybe we should have been going in there all along

If you had a son, you could take him into a male changing area so you could see for yourself what the changing rooms are like.

So it’s just that men want to be allowed into the women’s changing area?

That’s not right.

Proper unisex changing facilities with lockable doors, mirrors inside, monitored by staff -absolutely fine but perhaps nit as much of a thrill for some men

Why are people talking about unisex changing rooms? That’s not what’s happening here.
They aren’t calling for unisex changing rooms they are asking to be allowed into the women’s therefore having it recognised that on the days they put on a dress they actually become women.
It may seem like a tiny thing, you might wonder ‘well what harm can it do’ but it sets a precedent, it starts with the changing rooms but how can we then say they aren’t allowed into other women’s spaces if we as a society have already allowed them into changing rooms. We can’t pick and choose.

This is the crux of it. The comparison with unisex changing rooms is moot. They are not asking for a gender neutral 'unisex' space to be provided alongside mens and womens. They want the women's to remain, but to have access to it to validate their feeling like being a woman that day even though they may feel differently tomorrow. They are not saying they want their own space. They want the right to walk in the womens just because they are wearing a skirt. That is putting women at risk!

sagamartha

People like Travis and other prominent trans activists who behave like this and act in such an entitled way are causing issues for those trans people who just want to live their lives without bothering people and who just want to slip under the radar. The ones who are undergoing transition and who do qualify for a GRC. The ones most people think of when the word 'trans' is mentioned

I worry about a backlash against trans people as some people may not be able to separate the actions of such activists from the trans people who don't want to cause issues. The behaviour of such activists affects public perception and public attitudes towards a community that already has a lot to deal with

When trans people who are thought of as 'traditional transsexuals' speak out and challenge such activists, they get verbal abuse and all the other behaviour that is also similar to the way they treat other people who challenge them. It makes standing up to such people very difficult when there is such a response

^^ This.

Well put.

Have you really taught your daughter to feel afraid of being in a safe space with men?

Thats an interesting statement. It smacks of privilege. It suggests that fear of men is some kind of bizarre social contagion.
It suggests the only reason women need 'safe spaces' is because of men. It ignores the reality that many children - of both sexes - reach an age where they decide they want privacy.
It ignores the reality that if shops can provide a unisex changing room then the mens can become unisex, leaving the womens for biological women only. which is the only changing room many women can use.

Unisex changing rooms prevent many women from engaging in public life. Thats the exact opposite of the type of society intersectional feminists want.

Let's be clear:

The individual who started this said 'changing room I decide'. So this is not about a transwoman wanting to be recognised as a woman, this is a man who feels entitled to use which ever changing room he decides he wants on the day. To question this is apparently 'shit'. Not quite sure what he means by that since he hasn't bothered to explain or be any less rude or more articulate.

This individual likes to dress up as 'a fifteen year old girl' albeit a highly sexualised 15 year old (child) girl and take pouty pictures in front of children's books. They further were there with another individual who has posted some highly questionable things online about children being at least partially culpable if they are sexually assaulted, and other things implicating children in a sexual way within his perceptions.

Their 'transness' is clearly highly connected to their sexuality and they feel absolutely entitled to express it anyway they like, wherever they like, without consideration or interest in how it may affect others.

Would those insisting it's just about 'unisex spaces' like to explain why they feel it's appropriate to support this person in their agenda?

Good post Bucketsandspoons.

"Men's changing rooms have flimsy curtains and doors just like female changing rooms - and no doubt pervy men hoping to get a view of a young boy getting changed."

I'm not sure what the point of this comment is. Is it that because there are men who like to perve on boys, equality means that the (larger number of) men who like to perve on girls should be allowed?

If there is an issue with men perving on boys, and I wouldn't be surprised if there was, then action should be taken. Maybe men could do petitions and stuff for proper doors with locks in their changing rooms. I would support that.

I don't see what kind of answer it is to say, well some men perve on boys, at the moment men who want to perve on girls can't, that is unfair

Bucketsandspoons

Yes, I completely agree.

There is far more at stake here than whether unisex rooms can be configured so that women are less uncomfortable sharing them.

I don’t want to be less uncomfortable purely to suit the agenda of men. I want to be as comfortable as possible. Thank you very much. I don’t have to justify that to anyone.

The inherent power dynamic between men and women is what’s at the heart of this.

We shouldn’t have to justify privacy and comfort for the benefit of a cohort, when it is that same cohort who are responsible for it being necessary in the first place.

Especially when idiots like Travis, show up the dynamic so blatantly.

And that’s even without taking into account him dressing up as a 15-year-old girl. Why 15? Why under age? Why specify? It’s got perve written all over it.

And yet we seem to have come to a place where even saying that out loud is almost considered rude.

How did that happen?

Blurring the lines between what is acceptable and what isn’t, by pretending that men are women. That’s how.

No, I don’t have any problem with men dressing in a feminine way, because it’s just clothes. Pick the dress up and take it to the men’s. Or allocate one room that is unisex.

There is a reason women want their own spaces. And until men get their act together, they can keep out of them.

I had that very argument put to me on another forum.

It’s the same argument that says women are raped anyway, so what difference does it make.

The whole issue with men's spaces is something that should be addressed by men.

I read a long article the other day singing the praises of cottaging. This is not on at all IMO. But it does present an interesting take on some of the "let trans women into the ladies" stuff. There were lots of memes with glamorous TW saying "do you want her in with the men". To women this is an odd question, as we don't see the toilets as a place for a potential sexual encounter. For certain groups of men this is a "thing". And then we have Alok suggesting that a. sex between a TW and a female child in a public toilet is a thing that might well happen (he's apparently unaware of the fact that women do not cruise for sex in toilets, let alone "little girls") and b. if it did it might well be because the girl was "kinky".

There are definitely issues around men and women and what they expect and how they behave when they are only with the same sex, wanting access to the other's space and making all sorts of assumptions about how they behave. A lot of men seem to have funny ideas (from porn mainly) about how women behave when they are alone together in situations where they might take their clothes off.