“Any gender” changing room for women in Primark

[Womanwomanwoman1]

I joined a queue of women waiting for (I assumed) the changing room on the right with no sign on. The other sign on the left said “Any Gender” - I asked whether both changing rooms were open because of the queue. I was told that the one without the sign is the Men’s changing room, the women’s is signed “Any gender”.

Won’t be returning there again.

There’s 3 changing rooms in our store, each has cubicles with doors and anyone can use them, can’t see the issue

Ah, I see. I was being slow on the uptake.
You could have explained without the snitty tone, but thank you.

Wasn’t snitty, sorry if it came across that way - I usually use dictation instead of typing so the punctuation inserts itself.

I wonder why they’ve elected to give men the single sex changing room but make women share with anyone who feels like it on the floor with the underwear and nightwear.

Maybe stop shopping at primark

The massive Primark I go to has womenswear on ground floor with women only changing rooms, 1st floor is kids, lingerie, women's accessories/shoes and home and has an any gender changing room which I think is a bit mad as it is on the lingerie floor. The 2nd floor is menswear with a male changing room.

So all 3 sectors are covered and I can see why they have laid it out this way. The women's clothing is all on the ground floor, hence the women only changing room on that floor. Most women will be shopping for clothes not lingerie every time.

You need to go back and take photos.

Same here.

No they changed it, all changing rooms are now women and any gender. There's no men's only changing rooms

Good point and IANAL. I would have thought the key thing here is that they have single sex spaces for men but not for women. I think they can choose to have entirely mixed sex spaces (though if toilets would need to be enclosed cubicles and frankly, if changing rooms would be deeply off-putting) but they cannot provide single sex spaces for one sex and not the other and they cannot provide single gender (mixed sex) spaces without admitting all members of both sexes (ie. can’t admit trans women without admitting all other men).

Had a reply this morning, they’ve apologised again and said the appropriate steps have been taken in that particular store to ensure what happened, doesn’t happen again. They’ve also said that it should be “women’s” and “any gender” rather than “men’s” and “any gender”.

Whatever the reason the managers did it, at least it’s now been rectified.

Also sent me a gift voucher so can’t say fairer than that.

Women’s and any gender makes a lot more sense and works way better.

We're going to reach a point where clothes shops just stop having changing rooms because it's not worth the hassle.

Unless of course Mumsnet isn't actually a true representation of the real world and most people just aren't bothered about things like this and don't write letters of complaints

How weirdly thick of the store. I thought it couldn't be right, just could not find any combo of beliefs that made mens and any gender work!

The Primark near us have a 'Womens' changing room and an any gender one. So only women can use the women's one and men and others can use the other one. Looks opposite to yours.

I went there the other day and it was the same. It was bonkers!

Well done OP for questioning this with Primark.
We need women like you to put some sense back into the system and stop all this madness.
Women can feel safer now !
👏👏👏👏

Thank you so much, your message is extremely appreciated x

If woman always had that view we wouldn’t have the vote.
In fact
We wouldn’t have the Equalities Act for women
or any rights at all because women have always had to fight for what we currently have.

Fight for it or lose it

I understand, it's disgusting. Women do not want to be in Any Gender with a 6ft 5 self identifier. That should have been all women and girls and the %0.005 of populatiotion that are men with the "need" to use womens toilets can go to the back of rhe shop, not women and girls who are half the population.
Don't patronise this place any more.

This kind of comment is so weird...do you somehow think all the women on Mumsnet aren't also in the real world? Do you think we just live in your phone?

The vast majority of women absolutely care about having men in women's changing rooms. Obviously.

You don't want to share a space with them. But you don't speak for all women. I couldn't give a monkeys who's in the cubicle next door.

Well, @KT1113, you can use the all genders AKA mixed sex facilities. Or the men's. Entirely up to you

But those of us who do mind, want separate women's changing/fitting rooms etc. - women in the meaning of the EA.

absolutely i can and you can use the one that suits you. But someone can't say "women want" she doesn't speak for all women, only herself.

I was thinking of my 12 year old niece. No I don’t want her sharing a changing space with a man