How dare the sales girl oppress him like that. He tweeted about this terrible act of ‘transphobia’ and said to Topshop: ‘Who made you in charge of deciding who is woman enough to use your changing room?’ There was a media storm and Topshop caved – it said all its changing rooms would be ‘gender-neutral’ from now on.
This changing room incident and its outcome brought me up quite hard because of its similarity to this manifesto item from 1972.
Gay Liberation Front journal - Come Together - issue 11: Lesbians Come Together. It's from a piece by the GLF Transvestite, Transsexual and Drag Queen group (NB: yes, although this was a special issue about lesbians, this was printed as a submission. PS: available at archive org site):
A more central question is how to relate to other women. When we talk about our hopes and fantasies, it becomes apparent that what we want above all is to be accepted as women, primarily by other women. But will we achieve this by looking for ways in which we share experience with regular women or by developing a unique transvestite consciousness?
Sometimes the second approach seems real militant and proud, at other times it seems a cop-out, accepting the prejudiced view that we're not women, that we're some freaky third sex (or fourth or fifth?). Possibly we can find some light by considering the situation of black women and gay women, who develop black pride and gay pride, but still explore their feelings as women. Think how much more inspiring and beautiful the women's revolution will be when it joyously includes all women. Think of a Holloway demo with transvestite, transsexual and drag-queen women, gay women and heterosexual women, black, yellow, brown and white women, working women, housewives and career women. Certainly, whatever course we take as transvestites, transsexuals and drag queens, we must first destroy the trap wherein regular women set up standards by which they accept or reject us.
50 years later, look at that last line again.The intention was always to take away women's right to say, "No". And companies, organisations, entire social and political systems, even the police are supporting them in removing women's "No".