Are equality laws clear on sex and gender expression at work? Kids Toy Shop AGP

[MyShyCat]

So yesterday I was in a local branch of a well known National Toy Superstore.

I needed to Click and Collect a large lego item for my daughters Birthday. I needed to be in and out as I was rushing to get back to set up for her party so i was already a little stressed thinking about getting stuck behind a long queue of people collecting random items and not being able to find their Order Number etc etc.

In the end, there was no queue and I was able to collect my item in record time.

However, I wasn't expecting to be served by a 6ft male member of staff with a receding hair-line called "Boudica" who had clearly "brought all of himself" to work that day. I wasn't prepared for the enourmous fake latex breasts that he was clearly wearing under his corporate uniform.

Problem is, what do I do? The teacher in me sees this as a safe-guarding issue (especially in a kids toy shop!) I don't believe for one minute that anyone has consented to be part of this mans fantasy.

Do equality laws actually permit this type of behaviour (even in a kids toy shop?) or am I just a big transphobe?

"healthy-minded people" = people that need to project their own sexual obsessions onto others.

I'm loving the 'if you even dare to think a man wearing massive fake boobs in front of children has a fetish, it's a you problem'.

it's right up there with the marvellous toilet invasion prevention strategy of 'how can anyone tell i'm a man unless you look at my willly'.

Ffs the amount of people here justifying a man bringing his fetish to work is absolutely unreal. Women. You are your own worst enemy.

YANBU OP.

Do these lesbians wear their strap on dildoes at work, or when they're having sex in private?
Ridiculous to pretend it's even remotely the same thing.
Except it kind of is I suppose. He's wearing his sex toy/prop at work. If you don't think he's getting a sexual thrill out of this display - in front of KIDS no less - then you are painfully naive.

Agreed. If he was just dressed like a “normal woman” I wouldn’t have an issue, but (assuming the OP isn’t exaggerating- i think she probably is a bit) if they are indeed huge then yeah probably a fetish - not appropriate at work

I always wondered what a degree in Gender Studies was useful for, it seems making facile comments on MN's could be one.

Inner masculinity/femininity is cobblers, men wearing big fake boobs are indulging a fantasy, not expressing any imagined inner femininity. No man knows what it is to have big boobs, the toll it takes on the skeleton, the shoulders, the back, too have to wear a bra that is as strapped up as a straight jacket. I bet he doesn't have a painful sweat rash under his boobs in hot weather, which is the real female experience.

Expressing his femininity, I can't believe anyone would advance that as a genuine explanation. 🤯

Do these lesbians wear their strap on dildoes at work, or when they're having sex in private?

Do some women wear their sexy lingerie at work under their clothes or in private?

Attire can be purely aesthetic or fetishising. Either way you have no way of knowing.

I don’t think it's a legal question. I think it's a company policy/dress code question. If a female member of staff was wearing an inappropriately short skirt/crop top/whatever, the employer might well have a word with her about looking professional at work. This shouldn't be any different. However, I can imagine the manager is too scared to say anything if the clothes are appropriate but the enormous false breasts are the problem.

You are entitled to your opinion. Mine is that I’m never going to agree that wearing a strap-on is appropriate for the workplace.
Massive fake tits—also inappropriate. Particularly if you work with kids, but definitely not limited to that particular place of work.

No. This is about large fake secondary sex characteristics on display for his own gender-euphoria. Taking OP at face value, they were larger than "normal", and based on our understanding of male cross-dressing, presumed to be part of fetish. If a trans-identified female person was wearing a large fake penis, which was somehow visible to customers, that might be the equivalent, but you didn't include that in your comparator scenario, oddly. We know that cross-dressing men are more likely to have a fetish than female cross-dressers. We also know that we are discouraged from stating that having our body parts fetishised in public makes us uncomfortable, but should we accidently call him "Sir", that would be literal violence, and we would deserve litigation, jail, violence etc etc. I hope the OP complains.

Oh that old chestnut. If you call out sexually unwelcome behaviour the perpetrator uses plausible deniability and faux naivety and accuses the person who called them out of having a dirty mind themselves. It's a tactic that goes back at least as long ago as Shakespeare and isn't fooling anyone.

Or maybe he's aroused by it?

@EmilyinEverton seems to know lots about lots of women.. "lots of women" get large implants and "lots of lesbians" use strap on dildos..
Also all over child safeguarding with the eqivalence of a man wearing fake tits in a toy shop and Aunty Jane or whatever wearing a suit and tie.
You're nailing it Emily, give us more of your wisdom.

I agree with you that it is inappropriate, but it’s going to be virtually impossible for anyone, including the employer, to address it.

If you said to anyone “Hypothetical scenario - a man wears absurdly large breast forms, dresses in revealing clothing, adopts a female warrior name and then spends all day interacting with children. Is this a) absolutely fine and completely normal behaviour or (b) concerning, and should be watched very very closely” they would say B.

However as we all know this would be referred to as transphobic and bigoted so instead we are supposed to ignore the concern, push aside the completely reasonable suspicious that this person may not be the best choice to have around children and hope for the best.

You forgot the clincher that because women wear nice underwear, men can practice their fetish in a toy shop.

Lots of people have fetishes, they keep them to themselves where they belong, they don’t bring them to work and they don’t foist them on other people.

if someone wants to use a strap-on in the comfort of their home with a consenting adult then more power to them. If they wear it dangling out of their zipper at work they should be fired.

if this guy want to put super large fake boobs and a low cut top on then he can do that at home or on a night out, but it’s not appropriate at work and certainly not when working with children. If your fetish involves getting a thrill from being overtly sexual around children then everyone who sees that should feel comfortable raising a red flag, it is not good that we’re currently in a situation where anyone is worried about being branded a bigot for highlighting this kind of dodgy behaviour.

The idea that huge fake boobs is an ‘expression on inner femininity’ just goes to show that to these men ‘women’ or ‘femininity’ is all about a male sexual fantasy idea of a woman and they have absolutely no idea or interest in what it actually is to be female. They cannot separate the idea of being female from their sexual fantasy.

Anyone whose automatic reply to a clear safeguarding concern for young children is to shout insults to try and shut down discussion is waving their own huge red flag.🚩

This poster is doing exactly the same as the people who shouted ‘racist’ rather than investigate and stop the rape of thousands of young girls by grooming gangs.

Write to head office asking what their screening is for employees and the uniform policy.

Say you are a teacher so your training in child protection this would, in a school, trigger an investigation.

BTW the his presence might be the reason there is no queue.

That will be because they want to be perceived as a man for the advantages that being perceived as a man gives them in a world still largely run by men.

Wearing huge fake boobs does not increase your chances of being perceived as a woman, it increases your chances of being identifying as male. The principle thing it achieves is attention, which is of course why it's being done.

It is performative, as is so much of female identified trans behaviour and dress.

You know it’s very risky for people to ignore their gut instincts on potentially dangerous and predatory behaviour, don’t you?

It is quite blatant how certain PP want to shut down safeguarding…

@InfoSecInTheCity yeah this is the state of things. This is where we are. It would really help if people complained more, we know something is off, but we are not allowed to articulate it. I have found this board really important for normalising our dissent, it's so important that women (and men but is mostly women) can have these conversations so that we can really get to the bottom of what's not right here.

1. There is a general wrongness with men dressing as a sexually explicit woman in public, in a children's toy store no less, that we all recognise, but are supposed to celebrate.
2. It is offensive and dehumanising to women, a nasty and unexpected reminder that we are objectified constantly.
3. It is confusing and inappropriate to children (why should a trip to the toy store end up in a conversation about trans ffs)?

These issues become a mental load that we must carry silently, or be told we are bigots, Nazism, over-thinking etc etc etc. Where is our right to go about our day without being confronted by some dudes fantasy about our breasts? Where is the consideration that young teenagers might find that excruciatingly embarrassing? What is the dude actually getting out of it that is worth everyone else's discomfort? How on earth are we going to roll this back? Do my kids seriously have to grow up and operate with this crap normalised? Ugh.