Boycott JL and Waitrose? : James Esses' latest Substack on John Lewis LGBTQIA++ 'Identity' mag

[PersephoneSeethes]

I saw it this afternoon on Twitter and read the article with utter horror.

I was hoping it would be uplifting stories about people being accepted and living full lives

John Lewis and Waitrose are seemingly actively promoting and policing
pronoun usage by colleagues, Stasi-style. This seems like it is a court case, a-la-Forstater, waiting to happen.

They have an article about 'raising non-binary and transgender children', not from an information position in case Partners come across such families in their stores, but with a heavy activist slant.

I think I have finally been pushed to the edge with this beloved company. I can no longer shop with them, and I shop at Waitrose every week for our main shop, have done for over a decade.

This is a real gut punch because I believe in what Waitrose does, or used to do: they pay their farmers better, their animal welfare is better, their shops don't have the bright lights and loud noises that set off my migraines and irritate family members autistic temperaments. But as someone who grew up a tomboy, and would have been thrown under the gender bus by Stonewall and all the other organisations if I had been a child today, I can't stand by and accept all this nonsense.

Local shops?

I know it isn't as convenient and not many deliver (but some do). Also some have strange hours, my local butcher opens at 7.00am.

Iceland? Have they swallowed the kool aid?

https://ifcf.org.uk/

Their charitable foundation seems OK.

Oh and they saved me during Covid. They only let you book one delivery at a time and it is free over £40.

Gutted. Any recommendations for a credit card company that doesn’t supports woke ideologies?

Probably only ever going to be online. They've only recently restarted issuing a print version of the inhouse news magazine which had gone online in lockdown. It's available in store, not sent out to their home addresses.

The JL Identity Project photos also include one of a man who has transitioned who appears to be holding a whip. Is it a whip?

Regardless of my opinions about JL's in house magazine etc, I'm feeling a bit concerned that these 'identity' pictures also give full name and place of work, including department, for a few employees who might be quite vulnerable and I wonder how much consideration was given to this.

Indeed. It’s as though no thought has gone into this project outside of their own activist echo chamber.

Couldn't be more pissed off with John Lewis and Sharon White if I tried. I've been a huge fan of hers for ages and now this.

"Ruby" who presents as a woman according to JL and appears in the magazine with a whip and latex dress has all sorts of other interesting activities. So predictable to anyone except the staff of JL. x.com/sewmuchno/status/1758635204519043485?s=46

I am a huge JL customer. Weekly Waitrose shop, kids clothes at least monthly and have a lot of white goods I would naturally get from them. No more.

"Ruby" who presents as a woman according to JL and appears in the magazine with a whip and latex dress has all sorts of other interesting activities. So predictable to anyone except the staff of JL

I've just seen some of those photos on TwitterX 😱
And as for some of the other magazine pages - the enby who 'struggles with the war of having birthed a child' while 'not being female'. The 'happily married father of three' who's also bisexual and now realises he needs to be honest and proclaim it to the world in a staff magazine.

Dear God alive. What the hell are JL thinking? Do they have a death-wish?

So often when the online presence is examined , this is what you find 🙄

“The enby who struggles with the war of having birthed a child…while not being female…” Christ on a bike, these people need to watch the news every now and then before talking about “war”.

JL will have definitely alienated their core customers by producing this nonsense.

Good plan. I think that's the option I will go with. The App has a lot of receipts in so it makes sense to keep that. I just won't use it.

And as for the Nursery ambassador. Words fail me. JL were trying to claim Mothercare's £11m share of the nursery market.

I'm struggling to think why they think this will help them to connect with new parents.

I can see from their comments part way down the project page that many of the people who have contributed their photos and biographies to the project are proud of what they've done. I see no problem at all in being out and proud when you are fully aware of what you are doing but, nowadays, nobody can predict what might happen when there is a very critical reaction on the internet.

The difficulty right now will be for any of those participants who realise that maybe they've shared too much about their personal lives. It's too late to withdraw. Their identifying info is already out there. I'm imagining some of these staff feeling very stressed this weekend.
Employers have a 'duty of care' to their employees' health, safety and wellbeing. This includes carrying out risk assessments. Not using surnames or identifying locations ought to have been looked at very critically, especially for staff who might be more vulnerable. Suggesting people protect or delete their social media accounts, especially anything sexually explicit, before the project went live was a no-brainer.

@SoupDragonsFriend JL management have swallowed "bring your whole self to work" hook, line and sinker. And expect the entire world to accept, no, to applaud that.

Any alternative result has simply not occurred to them, I suspect.

This debacle should be a strong hint to employers that they should all move away from bringing your whole self to work.

There are so many ways in which this it's always been inappropriate and this illustrates it.

Employers have a 'duty of care' to their employees' health, safety and wellbeing. This includes carrying out risk assessments. Not using surnames or identifying locations ought to have been looked at very critically, especially for staff who might be more vulnerable. Suggesting people protect or delete their social media accounts, especially anything sexually explicit, before the project went live was a no-brainer.

Why do people turn off their brains around this entire area? Did it not even vaguely occur to someone to carry out a vague round of due diligence to see whether something would turn up that would give them pause for thought about their recommendations and how they'd handle this?

ETA: xd with Chers

That's such a good point @UltraLiteLife . So many of these groups end up in a bubble with their own values that sometimes conflict with the organisations. Not wishing to derail but it's a bit like LGBT groups for children in schools - run by activist adults, often undermining safeguarding and guidelines on teaching about sexuality / "gender identity" etc yet sanctioned by clueless senior leaders seemingly oblivious to potential grooming / age inappropriate allegations.
Such a lack of critical thinking .

Please please stop trying to bring your whole selves to work. Especially when it involves latex, whips and a bondage collar.

The situation isn't helped by John Lewis' constitution, in which the primary purpose of JL is to exist for its staff, not to make a profit.

Wise heads understand that you can't support staff if there is no profit, but JL are more vulnerable than a brand led by hardened city hawks to "do gooding" initiatives at the expense of core customers.

I’ve seen the Ruby photos on Twitter. How companies are incapable of doing any due diligence is beyond me.

You just have to wonder who is advising John Lewis and who has editorial control.
Unless they are planning to transition into a kink shop for fetishists they need to think hard and fast.

The Pink News take was "Bigots rage over trans feature in John Lewis staff magazine". They reference a gung-ho 2 year study of gender affirming hormone treatment (Chen et al) as proof that JL are right to promote breast binders for the “more traditionally masculine” chest.

😒

@Boiledbeetle , many thanks, you read my mind, was going to ask you to post this as the Xitter link not working for me.

There's another thread on this, in Active section, John Lewis in trouble.

I believe twitter has uncovered even more disturbing images of this individual

I'm not sure I'm brave enough to look!