M&S Changing Rooms

[Foxglove22]

It seems from these threads that M&S have decided that people can 'choose' which changing rooms they wish to use at their stores whilst not actually clearly marking them as mixed sex:

mobile.twitter.com/OnjaliRauf/status/1562365191458902016

mobile.twitter.com/marksandspencer/status/1562385003866075139

Observed at birth. No-one is randomly assigning anyone's sex 😼

And that's your right. Those of us who know that the evidence is that they are more hazardous for women and girls aren't so keen. What ever our views, M & S are cowardly in pandering to the queer theory groups while not admitting to women that their lingerie changing rooms for bra fittings are now mixed sex.
If anyone bothered to ask women whether they want a bra fitted (for them or their daughter) in a cubicle next to a man, the answer would be no. But M & S don't ask their women customers for some unknown reason.

I’m a typical M and S shopper, nearly everything I wear is from there. Could anyone say who is good to shop from? I have enough clothes so that I don’t need to buy new ones for a while, but what then?

I prefer mixed sex changing villages in leisure centres, much easier if you have kids of the opposite sex.

But changing rooms should be separate if larger communal types with curtains. Lots of places have unisex ones but they only have one or two cubicles anyway and they tend to open out straight onto the shopfloor with a lockable door.

You could check ebay and buy M&S stuff second hand.

I prefer mixed sex changing villages in leisure centres, much easier if you have kids of the opposite sex.

I prefer what ours has - a choice of male, female or mixed sex. Plus quite a few rooms for groups, disabled people with carers etc.

I don't mind mixed sex changing rooms if they feel safe and private but the last two I've been in (Primark and New Look) were neither. Very flimsy curtains covering about 80% of the space. My DC wanted to go in alone to try things on and I was too nervous.

M&S does bra fitting though. Is this really appropriate to have as a mixed space? Plus they're not really offering up mixed spaces, they are just opening up the women's space to anyone that fancies it, which let's face it is a clarion call for creeps.

If they had all the changing rooms, male and female as floor to ceiling spacious unisex rooms, like good unisex toilets then I think it'd be a different story.

I also wonder what their policy is regarding their OWN staff working in the lingerie department.

Are they going to be forced to fit males for women's underwear?

What if they objected? Would their job be at risk if they didn't play along?

I don't mind the lockable cubicles

I think it's probably the best way forward with Trans identified male in the world around us

We don't risk assess based on random people's opinions on the internet though do we?

We risk assess based on risk. And the risk is from men, toward women and girls.

That's the point of having a policy.

If their policy is so great, why not publicise it and have it as a benefit then it will attract people like you who prefer them. But they aren't doing that, they are pretending the rooms are single sex but are just allowing anyone to use the rooms of their choice. So putting women and girls at risk who aren't aware that this is the policy.

I suspect the reason for Asda and Tesco doing away with fittings rooms altogether is because they don't want their staff getting into awkward interactions with certain customers.

Another case of the minority spoiling it for the majority.

www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/08/25/ms-accused-introducing-unisex-changing-rooms-stealth/

archive.ph/V3pmY

Absolutely nothing new but another sliver of sunlight on these new policies is always good

M&S seems to be trending, but not, for them, in a good way.

Hoardasaurus (iirc) posted a link to this article on twitter:

www.cheshire-live.co.uk/news/local-news/women-changing-room-makes-ms-5294463

Men complained about women coming into their changing area, M&S stopped it. It was years ago, how things have transformed.

Except it's not just one issue with cleanliness when you're the one who puts your hand in the stuff is it? It's not someone who's been sick in public or accidentally wet themselves, it's a deliberate violation. There are screenshots going round twitter of someone boasting about an incident in Manchester M&S last year, doesn't look like they've done anything about it - actually, they definitely haven't because of their stated policy. You don't know what's on the clothes you buy.

I'm wondering if actually what happens is that most men go towards to changing area near their clothes and most women go to theirs. Where this is the case I use the 'mens' because, well why not ? men don't like it either but I think it's good that they understand, partly, what it's like.

An option to rage against this is to buy lots of clothes and then return them. This will cause them loads of extra work but makes a point.

Yep, I shared my email and (lack of meaningful) response here at the time and I’ve been boycotting M&S completely ever since. Must be at least three years ago now, maybe longer.

If the changing rooms are so safe and have lockable doors etc, then why can't transwomen just use the male ones, seeing as they are male?

Well that shows exactly why TWs want to use the female facilities.
It's nothing to do with perceived "safety" and EVERYTHING to do with being validated as a "woman".

Sorry, but I don't understand why a mixed sex changing room would be handier for a woman trying on women's clothing.

It isnt. Because if it was, we'd have been campaigning for it years ago.

It's another lie - like primark have never had single sex changing, or we have always welcomed men into our changing rooms.

Women are deluding themselves if they think they want or need mixed sex loos or changing room for their own benefit. . It's for the benefit of men, but for some reason they have to spin elaborate lies to hide the fact.

I went into M&S changing rooms recently to try on trousers and there were two men together in the second doorway opening I had to pass. Inside there was a staff bit to the right with no staff and an opening to your left to the changing rooms. The changing rooms were an L shape. I had to go into a changing room, get in a state of undress with those two men between me and any escape combined with no staff and the changing room completely out of view.
This is the sort of situation as a woman I have spent my life avoiding. M&S have surely have a duty of care? and it didn't feel like it that day.

They introduced this instead of separate changing rooms at my local swimming pool a few years ago and unfortunately had to call the police after a couple of weeks because a small group of men was caught coming in regularly and secretly filming women and girls changing by sticking the phone under the gap at the top or bottom of the cubicles. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that when I think about mixed changing areas.

The twee expression "changing village" sets my teeth on edge.

The local leisure centre has a changing village. And individual showers in cubicles. And if you really want to shower properly and take your swimsuit off, you have to exit the shower wrapped in a towel, with blokes walking up and down. It's unnerving. Some of them making the most of it, and others desperately trying to avoid eye contact.

And yes, I know you have less on at the beach, say, but showering is an intimate act. And coming out wrapped in a towel, is part of that.