Primark changing rooms - discussion on R4 now

[MagpiePi]

Talking about Primarks' decision to reintroduce women only changing rooms.

Ta!

They reintroduced anyone that identifies as a woman changing rooms.

So as unsafe or even more unsafe than before. Women are being deceived here.

I wonder if Topshop Travis has ever thought about how many women and girls (and likely a few boys too) have been harmed by the fad for unisex changing rooms that Travis set in motion?

Seems unlikely.

Buzzfeed 2017: www.buzzfeed.com/amphtml/laurasilver/topshop-refused-to-let-a-trans-person-into-an-all-gender

Well discussion was wholly inadequate. Sigh.

...yes, it was a bit light.

Just listened to a couple of comments that were read out at the end of the programme and one has made me think; someone said they wanted gender neutral changing rooms for their non-binary (I think) teenage child who doesn't feel comfortable in male or female rooms.

My thoughts are, how would being in a changing room with people who don't want to use single sex facilites (so presumably a mixture of male and female bodies but with various gender identities) be less uncomfortable or threatening or even dangerous than being in a room of single sexed bodies without the gender identities? Would there be some magic aura created by the collective gender identities that prevented people abusing the space?

This is the Travis Alabanza who dressed up as a "slutty" girl/child? And regularly posts on SM about the "sluttiness" of female children?

Oh yes, he's totally safe to have in TopShop changing rooms alongside pre- and pubescent girls. No problem here, move along please ...

I didn't get a chance to listen to this, but I was wondering by Boycott Primark was trending on Twitter. Yikes, I wished I hadn't looked. I had no idea that Primark changing room was now something you could find on porn sites. I'm now wondering if shops with changing rooms will now have to put up signs warning customers they could end up on porn sites.

Here's today's You and Yours episode. The changing rooms segment starts at approx 18:50 minutes in :
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001cx87

As PPs have noted already, there were also a couple of listeners' comments read out at the end of the programme.

You might be mixing Travis up with Travis’ BFF Alok Vaid Menon?

Alok famously said that ‘little girls can be kinky’.

i don’t believe either has any sexual interest in women or girls but they are both societal boundary pushers and that creates a hostile environment for women that both allows and excuses predatory behaviour from other males

Neither belong in our changing rooms or toilets, despite being GNC males of the sort we are supposed to act as human shields for due to their supposed vulnerability.

You mean theatre Travis, recently declared 'an incredible thinker, philosopher and human being' in The Guardian by the Royal Court theatre's Vicky Featherstone, writer of a whole play about wanting to use female toilets, and who once tweeted that most feminism is 'transphobic' and 'transmogynistic'. The Tweets were online for some time but were later highlighted by feminists and deleted. Well, I guess saying trans ideology is fundamentally incompatible with feminism is saying the quiet part loud.

If I recall correctly, some years ago Travis Alabanza put up a photo on twitter of them, in their words, dressed as a "15 year old girl" prior to going out. That post seems to have disappeared now.

Yeah when Albanza says it's important to train staff to know about how to serve every kind of customer, he isn't talking about any female ones with intersectional needs that mean they need single sex provision.

So fed up with males exploiting a whole lot of manipulative crap about 'inclusion' unchallenged when they are vigorously advocating for exclusion and discrimination against many groups of females purely because those needs present a boundary to those male people's desire to use those females in those female spaces. It's a whole lot of nice sounding waffle being intentionally used to deceive.

I see river island tv ad features a person who would probably use woman’s changing rooms. I’m sky high teeters heels that they can’t walk in. For the love of the wee man…

You might be mixing Travis up with Travis’ BFF Alok Vaid Menon?

ah yes! Thank you @TheClogLady What a lovely pair.

And how safe they seem to be around young teen girls.

The thing is, anyone who has cared for babies, children, and teens knows that even infant and young humans are sexual beings. But not in the adult way of “sexuality.” And sometimes it might seem to an adult as though a child or teen is behaving in a “sexual” manner. But that does not give ANY adult permission to respond. And adults need to really check their perceptions about child/teens’ sexuality. This is basic stuff, which this charming pair seem utterly unaware of - or deliberately defiant of.

Alok came to my work to give a talk, it was all utter guff, the only bit i can remember is him moaning on for the first 15 minutes about how hard done by he was that people shouted at him in the street when he was younger and dressed in an unusual fashion. I remember being so angry at him as I'd been sexually harrased on the street since I was about 10, just for dressing in school uniform. He's a small minded person with bad taste, who thinks he's very very special.

Is Alok the one who did some stage show that featured burger throwing?

That’ll be Travis.

I was so close to going to the Burger show when it toured but I was worried I’d be kicked out for laughing in the quiet bits.

I listened to it. It was ridiculous. It never said what had happened to that girl, or what other incidences have occurred. It never mentioned that “women only” might include trans women.

I notice Primark was trending, so I had a look and found this:

twitter.com/VikkiLax1/status/1587370923765731329?s=20&t=jneRDRqFExpAwZ78h3p2mg

Don't know, in fact I doubt, if this is why. But thought it should be recorded.

That's an excellent thread, cake - thanks!

Excellent thread and all excellent points, I will await the response with interest. Yes, they are vulnerable to discrimination claims on all this, and yes they are relying on the fudge the government have tried to cling to of 'we will say they are single sex women's changing rooms' (to make the immediate problem and bad publicity go away as people are currently still pretty gullible about all this) 'But this is in fact a euphemistic way of saying any male who wants to can just identify in there, so in fact we're lying and it's mixed sex'. (which stops bloody Stonewall screaming and holding its breath until it turns blue.)

And yes, enforcing this will involve dealing with a lot of tantrums, but it's on the way to the only possible end point of all this which is, male only spaces, female only spaces (and yes, before the wittering starts we don't care if Buck Angel turns up) mixed sex spaces and disabled spaces. And male people encountering policed boundaries that prevent attempting to force or deceive entry into female only spaces for personal reasons without regard for the needs of female inclusion.

It won't be pretty. But as any parent can tell you, that's what happens when you sod about for years before introducing boundaries. If there had been the guts to say no and insist that male people shouting 'I want' and 'I don't exist unless female rights are removed from them' need to handle their problems in healthier ways.

'we will say they are single sex women's changing rooms' (to make the immediate problem and bad publicity go away as people are currently still pretty gullible about all this)

Although this is so much more in the news than before, I still have friends who say, musingly, 'I've forgotten which way round it is. Are transwomen men who think they're women, or women who think they're men?'

So I don't think it's 'gullibility', precisely, but confusion about something that is (deliberately?) couched in confusing terms.

Perhaps I could put that better as 'not yet learned from bitter experience how very, very cynical you have to be when this ideology is involved'? Thankfully people are gaining more experience every day. Yes, I agree it is intentionally couched in deceptive terms.

And yes, enforcing this will involve dealing with a lot of tantrums, but it's on the way to the only possible end point of all this which is, male only spaces, female only spaces (and yes, before the wittering starts we don't care if Buck Angel turns up) mixed sex spaces and disabled spaces. And male people encountering policed boundaries that prevent attempting to force or deceive entry into female only spaces for personal reasons without regard for the needs of female inclusion.

Absolutely @nilsmousehammer and these spaces MUST be legally enforced, all public institutions and private businesses HAVE to supply them and uphold them and swingeing penalties if they don't. Plus make it a criminal offence to use a space not designated for your use and in that I include disabled spaces. It has been proven time and time again that you cannot trust people to be decent human beings so they will have to be forced to comply.

This. It’s basically a PR campaign to try to stop the groups of men who were hanging out in the unisex changing rooms to ‘accidentally’ pull back curtains on teenage girls while they changed.

It still isn’t single sex facility, and it should be. Plenty of transwomen have attacked girls in changing rooms / toilets etc. Girls have a right to single sex changing.