M&S changing room policy

[iamawoman]

Apparently to allow any transperson in to which changing room they feel most comfortable. This is mentioned today as a transperdon was refused access to changing staff prob because they didnt look like the SEX of the changing room they wished to enter 🙄

I'm fine with mixed changing rooms as long as they're supervised and have lockable doors. Unsupervised changing rooms or those with just curtains are too open to abuse.

Yes, me too.

Hopefully one day women will not need protecting from men. Surely that is the ideal to strive for?

Yes of course. But what do we do until then?

It's not gentle harmless transwomen like your friend that we're afraid of - do you understand that? It's the men that pretend to be trans in order to abuse women we're afraid of.

ten years ago we'd have not had a problem tacitly accepting your friend into our spaces. But not now the TRAs have starting pretending to be trans in order to access our spaces.

and who has lost out - your friend, and us.

I think calling her a 'gay man' is pretty offensive.

I don't believe your friend is a woman. That's a term for us adult human females. So there you go.

Windchimes you can't possibly believe that the benchmark for which men get to breach women's boundaries should be "people windchimes likes"

And of course women and men are different.

My PRIVACY and DIGNITY matter. My SEX matters, to me. Even if every inequality against women was erased I would still be physically, biologically different from men. And I'd still expect my physical boundaries to be respected. If you think women should deal with nakedness, menstruation, childbirth and all that goes with being female in the presence of men because they don't deserve dignity, it really begs the question of a. How do you not realise what a misogynist stance that is, and b. Do you think if your friend could be guaranteed his safety in men's changing rooms you'd stop pushing for him to be in women's? Dignity being irrelevant, as you seem to think?.

Your argument seems to be this:
1.Males are violent.

1. Women are not violent.
2. A man who looks like a woman is at risk with other men
3. Put him in with women
4. He is the exception to the rule of point 1

Except
He isn't.

Every transwoman has a friend who thinks they should be treated as exceptions to rule 1. And none of them should be exceptions.

Let me just get this straight. It's humiliating and dangerous for a transwoman to try stuff on in a cubicle in the male section, because of the men around, but it's not humiliating and dangerous to women to change the rules so any man is allowed to go in the female section

No, obviously not. Who knew women had feelings? I thought that was only male people?

Winchimes - why isnt your friend happy to use the mens changing rooms anymore? What does identify mean , if a trans -"woman" cant understand the reason why a lot of women would prefer sex segragated changing areas then she is not doing a very good job of truly identifying as a female psychologically - maybe that is because she hasnt had enough lived experience of a girl / woman and hasnt been leered at/groped/sexual comments by 'normal men' as many men continue to view women as objects for their pleasure +

Ereshkigal

Absolutely.

Provide some fabulous, fun, hip, non binary changing rooms, where all the 'progressive' people can have fun away from the tightarsed TERFs and auld farts, who will have their old fashioned sex segregated nonsense.

Should any crime be committed it will be recorded as being committed by woman. Not a man

This is a problem, but if crime goes up, then that is going to be a count against it.

TBH, I was thinking that if that happened, my FIL for instance wouldn't hold back on what he thought of it, and my MIL, who up until now wouldn't have thought about it at all, would also be very clear about her feelings on the matter.

ie. it would bring the idea to the fore.

Unisex changing might be fine in other countries with different cultures, it might be fine in other shops which cater to different markets, but M&S has a certain middle-britain clientele that I think prefer to try their trousers on in sex segregated changing rooms.

women and men who aren't comfortable with it can feel that their privacy, dignity and boundaries are respected and that their feelings count too?

Wouldn't their privacy, dignity and boundaries be well enough maintained by the lockable floor length doors and individual cubicles?

Im just saying that it is being played upon and provoked intentionally by groups who are incredibly transphobic. In America the christian right go in all guns blazing with it... waxing lyrical about their desire to 'protect women and children' and it has nothing t do with that it has to do with horror of anything outside the heterosexual family unit.

How patronising. No, I and I think most gender critical posters on this site, came to the conclusions we did all by ourselves. I am neither religious nor a homophobe thanks.

So can you see how gender self ID is a step backwards for womens rights? When it means we have to fight to make crimes committed by men recorded as such? Thats a new fight that only exists because of gender self ID...

Wouldn't their privacy, dignity and boundaries be well enough maintained by the lockable floor length doors and individual cubicles?

How many of them have to tell you that the answer is no before you care?

Even if you do not accept trans women as women, you cannot insist they are just the same as men!

Why? What "trans women" are we talking about? I presume you're doing some mental gatekeeping there, because it's not my experience in many ways.

For the record, I'm pretty sure that religious conservatives have had very little impact on my views on this, what with me being a lefty atheist and all. If we happen to agree on the idea that women have a right to sex segregated spaces in which to undress, well, I'm sure that we agree that gravity is a thing that exists too, or that water is wet.

*Your argument seems to be this:
1.Males are violent.

1. Women are not violent.
2. A man who looks like a woman is at risk with other men
3. Put him in with women
4. He is the exception to the rule of point 1

Except
He isn't.*

I read that with a sense of relief. It's exactly it.

It encapsulates all my Wordy Mc Wordsmith posts in one.

Also just to add all the transpeople i have met have been lovely and i wouldnt have an issue with them in a female changing room but this is not about the individual - this is ensuring that females can retain their spaces where they feel the most vulnerable to protect them from the deviant males who would use access to girls changing areas for voyeuristic purposes at the very least

Windchimes you can't possibly believe that the benchmark for which men get to breach women's boundaries should be "people windchimes likes"

I know. So absurd.

Also can we add...

1. Even if he, the specific person that you know, is the exception, other women have no way of knowing that.
2. The same is not necessarily true of other men who look like him who you don't know.

Transwomen are already protected by law in men's changing rooms. I'm pretty sure there haven't been fisticuffs over the marks and sparks v necked jumpers yet, and if any male M&S customer attempted anything illegal towards a transwoman in the mens changing rooms they would be committing a crime, so I'm sure transwomen have nothing to fear.

I'm sure all the points about cubicle doors etc apply to preserve safety for transwomen in men's rooms, no?

Provide some fabulous, fun, hip, non binary changing rooms, where all the 'progressive' people can have fun away from the tightarsed TERFs and auld farts, who will have their old fashioned sex segregated nonsense.

YYY. I'll contribute to a crowdfunder for them.

Wouldn't their privacy, dignity and boundaries be well enough maintained by the lockable floor length doors and individual cubicles?

That depends on them, doesn't it? The filming issue is a concern.

I refuse to use a space that I don't feel comfortable in. And we ALL have the ability to refuse to use stores/leisure facilities/public spaces that don't take our needs seriously. Given the amount of actual transpeople in the population (ie less than 1%) , if all women stop using these stores/public facilities they are soon going to see the reality of the situation when their profits plunge. So I'm not stressing over it. It will happen but I don't think it will be for very long.

How many of them have to tell you that the answer is no before you care?

I'm certainly hearing it a lot today, which is surprising honestly because it's not like I've been living under a rock this whole time.

Would you support some kind of national polling on the idea, theoretically?

This is what gives me a little hope.
We might be oppressed, we might be under an onslaught and we might be silences and ostracised.

But
We have money. And we can choose where to spend it. And at some point, a company will prioritise profits over sexism and decide they need our money more than they need to put us in our place

I'm dying to see who will break ranks first.

Depends how the question was framed. It's generally done quite dishonestly.

Haha my phone tried to autocorrect "generally" to "gender ally" yeah that's me!