M&S changing rooms

[SweetChilliGirl]

Was I unreasonable to send this to M&S?

Good morning,

Having not shopped for lingerie with you for several years, due to your policy of allowing trans-identifying men into the women's changing rooms, can I now be assured that, in line with the judgement of the supreme court males will no longer be allowed to identify their way into your single sex changing rooms, thus preserving biological women's dignity and safety? I would very much like to be able to shop with you again.

I look forward to hearing from to to clarify this important matter.

Regards,

Sweetchilligirl

It doesn’t.

Doors that are floor to ceiling means nobody can help if someone is attacked. (And no retail worker on minimum wage is going to want that responsibility.)

Doors that aren’t floor to ceiling creates a voyerist playground. As do cubicles which are open to men and women simultaneously.

But it is the same for unisex toilets though. I don’t like them but we do have to reach a compromise.

No we don't have to reach a compromise.

Male people already have the right to be in the space designated for male people.

By compromising male people have 2 options and women who need single sex spaces have none.

That's not equality.

I realise I keep repeating myself on this thread but it bears repeating.

Some people don't seem to understand what equality is.

If a woman is trying on bras behind a curtain and a man comes along and can either see her breasts through the gap, or worse, rips open the curtain as says " oops I didn't realise someone was in there" (whether deliberate or accidental)

Then that is certainly a proportionate and justifiable reason.

Shops are using these changing rooms to support their business of selling bras. They are making profit from the changing rooms. If they are providing changing spaces at all they therefore form part of their process in provision of their goods to the public and therefore both sexes must be able to access dignity equally.

It might not be laid out in plain terms that they have to provide separate rooms for m/f but it will likely only take a few high profile complaints to lead to it now that the law is clear. Or for them to withdraw changing rooms altogether.

Why?

How many attacks against women and girls are acceptable in order to “compromise”?

why should women of certain faiths be prevented from using changing rooms while men swan around doing whatever they like?

What is it you think that link is saying? Because it really isn't 🤣
Daily Mail? Do better
You said "look at the school in the states where girls were held captive in locked cubicles and raped by a boy who claimed he was trans" but it seems this is something you made up. Why?

This is from the 'evidence' you posted to back up your claim
Still, the assaults appear to have little to do with the attacker´s gender identity, according to documents filed with the family´s lawsuit.
Teachers say he preferred and requested male pronouns, according to the report.
Dan Adams, a spokesperson for the school system in the wealthy Washington suburbs, said it does not comment on pending legal matters.
A law firm's investigation, requested by the school board, found 'no evidence that the perpetrator identified as a female or that he wore a skirt or kilt in an effort to gain access to the girls' bathrooms'.
A policy that expanded access for transgender students to school facilities was not in place at the time of the assault
The attacker and his victim had agreed to meet in a Stone Bridge High School bathroom before the May assault occurred, according to an investigation conducted by a Loudoun County grand jury

This is from a NYT article about the incident
“Bro I’m so bored,” she wrote.
They had slipped out of class before to meet in girls’ bathrooms around the school. They had met in a stall to have sex at least once before, and this morning, the boy suggested something similar.
“We could call a pass,” he wrote. “Have some ‘fun’”
“Maybe,” the girl wrote back.
“Maybe”
“Where doe”
“What about the bathrooms by the Tech Ed classroom?” he proposed.
The girl hesitated for a moment before replying, “I’ll meet u but I’m not promises anything”

I think your "things that never happened" is enough for me 🤷‍♀️

See above yourself...

Do you understand what INDIRECT discrimination means?

An unlabelled space can still fall foul of indirect discrimination

That's because the world went mad and changed their policies to appease the trans ideology.

20 years ago large firms selling bras had female changing.

Men do not wear bras so this primarily affects the decency of women. For most other goods women do not need to expose their breasts when trying something on.

So M&S & other stores absolutely could probably just say: We don't feel our staff can challenge any well behaved customer who is politely requesting access to a fitting room, even if we put up signage saying 'women' & 'men'. Accordingly, we aren't going to claim our changing rooms are single sex. They are not. They are unisex. As our clothing is laid out in 'women''s & 'men''s sections, we expect most people will go to the fitting room at end of the store that has clothes being primarily marketed to their sex...but we are not planning to stop a man who is peaceably bra shopping from trying things on in the facility nearest to the lingerie section.

I mean, they could. & women like me who don't fancy sharing the space will say: ok, I'll shop elsewhere, at a store that meets my needs.

OR they could say: We are following the SC judgment, our changing rooms are going single sex & staff will refuse entry to customers trying to access the wrong one. We fully support any of our customers who prefer not to use correct sex facilities to try items on at home & return them if they are not happy.

They just can't fudge it anymore, & call a fitting room a space for women if that isn't what it actually is. Nor can they claim they genuinely think Bra Buying Barry is a woman. The SC says he isn't.

I imagine how it'll pan out in the long run is that most businesses will adapt to the needs of their most profitable demographic, or they'll go under. Like pubs having to adapt due to cheap supermarket booze & the smoking ban.

As I said, M&S's stores in the ME have single sex changing, end of. They'll do what is most profitable AND keeps them out of court, wherever in the world they are. After the SC judgment, I would put a fiver on them wanting to keep their UK female customers happy.

It will be.
For the proportionate and justifiable reason to have been applied in the first place the business first needs to justify why males need to be excluded from the female space.

If they've met that test then it follows naturally that TW must also be excluded as they are male. If TW were allowed then it does away with the proportionate and justifiable reason to exclude males in the first place and the business fall foul against sex discrimination against other males as they haven't undergone GR

Trying on bras is absolutely a real world scenario so I don't know why you are pretending otherwise.

The shop may not have it written down word for word that they MUST provide single sex spaces but they will be cautioned to consider how certain groups could suffer detriment from not doing so. (That's the indirect discrimination I keep mentioning and which you keep ignoring)

Most real world people would not consider it reasonable for a woman to be trying on a bra with a man on the other side of a curtain. Therefore for a multinational company to only provide unisex curtained spaces or cubicles without a staff memeber nearby is likely to fail that test for indirect discrimination if it went to court. A small business with only one space will be able to manage the use of the unisex fitting room to one person at a time and it would not be proportionate to make them build an extension to their property.

Maybe no woman will ever take it to court but businesses certainly have to consider that they might. And that's where we will see the outcome of their considerations.
A shop selling bras likely will end up providing single sex space and a shop selling only jumpers probably not.

They are not labelled though. They are simply situated where the women’s clothing is. Another issue that may come up is whether ‘implied’ is as good as formally labelled.

And yourself to see above yet again – where I said that implied use would have to be clarified.

They used to be labelled.

Shocking how many people are tying themselves in knots to excuse the fact that equality for women has been removed.

The real world application is muddy. You may not like it, but it simply is. And no one is ‘wrong’ for pointing out that is confusing and it will be until all policies are updated clearly.

Again, depends how the space has been labelled and whether implied use is as strong as direct labelling.

Well said.

How about a bit of self-policing? Nobody would ever have thought twice about who was using the women's changing rooms, toilets etc if all men, including the trans-identifying ones, had had the common decency to keep out.

Well a unisex cubicle is a self contained area with a lock. I don’t like them myself but they do resolutely fit the brief of being a single sex space at the point of use.

You’re rather missing the point.

If you think people ‘self police’ to standard then you’re living in a fantasy land!

How? I’m staunchly single sex spaces but I accept that sometimes a unsex locked cubicle is the only way they can accommodate everyone

Just goes to show how entitled these men have become.

But no before this madness started men knew to stay out. You are rewriting history by suggesting otherwise.

You really are determined to look at this with blinkers on.

If a big store sells vests for men and bras for women and provides a unisex changing room that has ill fitting curtains and everyone can see through the gaps as they walk to the next cubicle. It's very very easy to see how that space which has been labelled "unisex" prevents women from using it but not men.

That is indirect discrimination. All cases of indirect discrimination nearly need to be thought through in practice and written guidelines cannot cover every possible scenario.

This means that if a store labels a place unisex it needs to be very, very certain a woman cannot claim indirect discrimination from being unable to use due to decency. If no disadvantage then it's probably fine.

If it feels a woman needs a private space (followign a proportionate test to exclude males) then it will have to label it as women/ladies/females and this means TW will have to be excluded. It cannot let in some TW and and call the female customers bigots for complaining.