It's official, Marks and Spencer have fallen

[MrsSnippyPants]

I know we have 'known' this for a while, but this is now their official response. How many 'inappropriate' incidents will be necessary before they see sense?

#BoycottM&S

Maybe but Disabled loos have large level drop down handles so not impossible situation to solve. Plus I’m already vulnerable so why should that mean anyone can walk in?

Anyone else now having a quick look around a cubicle (in any store/public place) for signs of miniature cameras prior to disrobing?

Why do they keep lying about all fitting rooms having lockable cubicles when it's so easy to prove wrong?

Thank you @TipseyTorvey . I've just emailed:
I am aware that your customer service has a history of not actually answering the questions over this disgusting new policy of yours. However, let me make this perfectly clear, women deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. Allowing men into the women’s changing rooms is entirely undermining that.

Here are my questions:

1.	How do you define behaving inappropriately or causing deliberate offence? What are your guidelines and protocol for this? 
2.	What is the necessary action?
3.	Why is that women have to be in a vulnerable situation in your stores? And only when men inevitably take advantage of this, then you will do something mysterious.
4.	Is this really a marketing ploy to gain new customers? Plenty of men will now be thrilled you’ve invited them into the women’s changing room. One thing you haven’t considered, a lot of women will now be boycotting your stores, which will quickly loose your new customers too.
5.	What are your plans for Muslim customers who can no longer use your changing rooms?
6.	What support will you be offering traumatised women who enter your changing rooms unaware of your new policy? 
7.	Will you be signposting that men are now allowed in there? If not, are you prepared for the inevitable law suits due to you intentionally placing unknowing customers into a vulnerable situation?
8.	Why are you lying about cubicles being lockable? Disabled ones aren’t, and disabled women are particularly vulnerable. 

I would also like a response my comments, not just my questions.

Yours sincerely, newly ex-customer,

The changing room in my branch is hardly ever staffed. I'm intrigued as to how any M&S staff would even know about any 'inappropriate' behaviour, let alone be available to take action.

@Floisme I wished I'd asked about if they'll be hiring extra staff now! Maybe someone who hasn't emailed yet?!

Another question might be: what are women with small children and pushchairs to do? Usually they'd leave the curtain open to keep an eye on the toddler. This would be no longer possible if men who prefer to be seen as women have access to changing rooms.

Anyone else now having a quick look around a cubicle (in any store/public place) for signs of miniature cameras prior to disrobing?

No. I’ve started doing this, especially in mixed sex loos (eg Costa).

Are the bra fitters female?

There was apparently at least one in the Oxford St shop who was not.

How does the FOI act work? I'd like a copy of the research they did, including sources which shows this isn't dangerous. Can I get this and how do I go about it?

FOIs cover public bodies. You can ask them questions directly or do it here (for free) and then your answer is published, which is usually worth doing.

www.whatdotheyknow.com

You can't ask businesses under FOI.

I have also emailed, and if they fob me off with that cut-and-paste response, I'll be asking for specific answers to my questions, including "where do I go to feel comfortable".

Why do they keep lying about all fitting rooms having lockable cubicles when it's so easy to prove wrong?

Yes, I wondered that too.

Have Marks and Spencer's really not understood what fetishist cross dressers are all about? Becoming sexually aroused at being 'treated like a female'?

What could be a greater sexual pull than getting a bra fitted, in an erstwhile strictly female only space, surrounded by women and teen girls at one of their most female and intimate moments? Being able to loudly 'chat' all about it to the fitter.

Utterly 'inappropriate', and M and S have zero way of stopping it. Indeed, they are encouraging it.

What, exactly, do they think motivates male born individuals to insist on accessing female spaces?

(Not all men, HQ, not all trans, just the specific ones I'm talking of).

Emboldened by Fekkos live feed, I am report "enjoying" a hotel buffet breakfast. I have mastered waffle making, but how on earth do you get a decent cup of coffee from the machine. Current formula is two expressos, hot water and milk.

And cut to the chase, sitting next to me were security personnel responsible for player security at one of the big six clubs. We talked about the growth in women's football and they explained that the women faced specific and quite different security problems. Essentially stalker types who would follow them to the car park and create all sorts of problems. A minority certainly, but a genuine threat.

No reason to think that this sort of obsessive minority would not be tempted by the opportunity of following teenage girls into unstaffed mixed gender changing rooms. As Target discovered.

What a pleasure to see so many different women commenting on this thread and taking such clear action. It's a sign of how this British "legacy brand" has seeped into our consciousness and why we are so affronted by their lack of concern for women's safety.
Regrettably their tone deaf management have listened to a misogynistic organisation like Stonewall. They've completely ignored the fact that their women customers have a finely honed instinct to protect ourselves and our children from harm. And when M & S tells us that men can choose to place themselves in the lingerie cubicle next to the woman having a bra fitted after her mastectomy or the teen being fitted for her first bra, our creep alarms go off. The majority of men who respect boundaries would never choose to access these spaces. Those who seek them out are precisely the ones who should be banned. Yet M & S, listens to Stonewall (with their woeful safeguarding history) and invites them in.

And when it's pointed out to them, this struggling company doubles down, lies and denies.

place themselves in the lingerie cubicle next to the woman having a bra fitted after her mastectomy or the teen being fitted for her first bra, our creep alarms go off. The majority of men who respect boundaries would never choose to access these spaces. Those who seek them out are precisely the ones who should be banned.

Exactly.

I never fail to understand how shops and services don't get this. Men who insist on making women feel uncomfortable are the very men who should be excluded.

It's a bit deluded of them to think they can appeal to the woke market, which is mostly a young one, honestly. I'm 46 and the only things I buy there are basic cotton knickers and thermal socks. Everything else is, bluntly, too unfashionable, and also in many cases not entirely people shaped (my dad bought me a couple of tshirts last year, not sure what sort of alien being those were designed to fit). Do they think being all "we love transwomen we do, actual women can piss off" is going to persuade young people to buy their questionably designed, peculiarly tailored garments?

Sorry my fans (my Fekkolites) but I shall be doing no undercover gender-based shopping activities today.

However I am taking DS swimming later on - the signage says sex-based changing rooms but there are ‘respect everyone’ signs up (and it’s in a woke-central uni gym so I suspect...).

I will be popping into Waitrose tomorrow and will take a peek at their loo situation...

As other have said M& S have issued an open invitation to all fetishists ( not genuine trans) to access lingerie fitting in women’s spaces. They are also offering their female staff to partake in someone’s fetish, helping fit the lingerie, talking about styles etc. The logical conclusion is that this is pimping out female staff - eughhh .
They need gender neutral cubicles with male bra fitting staff to help out their trans customers.

@ Akire yes - you are right about the door handles. But that costs money doesn’t it? Maybe that’s a factor - cost.

Any female staff member forced to help a male customer with a bra fitting should file a complaint against the company.

I think 'where do I go to feel comfortable?' is very good. Short, simple and quotes their own policy right back at them. I like it.