M&S Colchester claim mixed changing is ‘completely safe’ for women.

[PeachOctopus]

How is it that M&S can continue to flaunt the high court ruling and do not offer single sex changing rooms?

Abouterf in this video confronts the store manager and is fobbed off and told that it’s head offices policy:

Colchester @marksandspencer I asked where the women’s changing room was to try on swimwear. Manager Andrew (he/ his /him) says gender neutral changing areas are “completely safe” for women and girls. For asking him this question, he told me to leave the store.

Abouterf x account

A few months ago my local M&S told me the changing room in the women's department was a women's changing room not a mixed sex one.

Interestingly, 60% of transwomen in custody only started transitioning after they were imprisoned.

I suspect that there is a majority crossover in the 62% you quote. It's almost as if they can't hack it in the male estate and think this is an easy way out. I expect the transwomen who are walking amongst us on the outside are not representative of the 62%. I wonder what percentage detransition on release.

There are about 17000 men serving sentences for sex crimes and around 150 transwomen (who statistically were likely not living as trans at the time of their crimes). 97% of women contacting Rape Crisis have been assaulted by men they know. The boogie (wo)men aren't transwomen.

Are you certain of that? When I worked for them around 12 years ago, the fitting room signage literally just said Fitting Room. There was definitely no redesign of signage for many years after I left and I don't remember that ever changing in my local stores. M&S was massively into consistency and policy so individual stores wouldn't have deviated from this. At the time, the fitting rooms were split by gender (I happened to notice a reference to trans people in policy long before it hit the news) and I remember occasionally men being disgruntled when they accidentally tried to enter a Female changing room, pointing out it didn't actually say as much. As was fairly typical at that time I'd say, it was assumed you would know the fitting room in Women's or Lingerie was the female one.

The boogie (wo)men aren't transwomen

The one who raped a patient on a single sex NHS ward was.

Go check the online store guide - it is Fitting Room (men) and Fitting Room (women)

Exactly this. The video of this and the BA duty manager this week have really irked me. These are ordinary people going about their jobs and both of the people recording completely invaded their privacy in an attempt to make a point to strangers online. It’s revolting and FWIW I think they both handled themselves far more graciously than I would have in the same situation.

I was in M&S earlier. All of the signs simply said fitting room. Upstairs children could try on school uniform with their mums to hand. I didn't have to fight my way through hoards of men queuing up to use the fitting room upstairs on the lingerie, children's & women's wear floor. I also didn't see women causing a scene at the fitting room downstairs in menswear & home furnishings. I suppose they could have wanted to try on a bath sheet or tea towel.

Agree these kind of tactics turn me off completely. If there is a point to be made there are so many better ways to do this without attempting to humiliate someone while they are at work.

We have years of evidence that transwomen have illegally filmed women and little girls in changing rooms and M&S have done nothing to help avoid this. Transwomen have shown off online about masturbating in M&S women's changing rooms.

Now a woman has legally filmed a man when she's trying to prevent transwomen from illegally filming and watching women and girls.

Some women are worrying more about the man who was doing an objectively poor job at customer service.

Get your priorities straight.

Just repeating this for anyone who missed it.

"Marks & Spencer is pushing back after campaign group Sex Matters claimed its changing room policy could be unlawful. In a letter to the retailer, Sex Matters argued that advertising male and female spaces while operating them as mixed-sex facilities could amount to discrimination and create a “hostile” environment for women. M&S rejected the claim, stating the group has been misinformed about its approach.
The company said most of its stores have long used unisex fitting rooms with private, lockable cubicles, and that this policy has not changed following recent legal rulings. It also denied removing gendered spaces, noting that many locations historically used generic Fitting Rooms signage, with new Try On signs part of a broader redesign. The dispute comes as debate continues across the UK over single-sex spaces."

Personally I don't think Sex Matters would be suggesting a policy could be unlawful unless there was reasonable doubt that it was, indeed, unlawful.

Now that this has gone viral, M&S will have to release a statement and we can all make a more informed decision about how many of their stores use generic 'Fitting Rooms' signage, and whether or not they have removed gendered spaces.

Citation not assertion needed

So M&S’s policy is ‘we do not provide single sex facilities for customers to try on clothes; our fitting rooms are unisex’.

That’s legal, no problem there. Not sure it’s what their core demographic would want, or expect, though. They’d probably hate lots of publicity about that policy.

Incidentally, I live overseas. M&S are absolutely 100% crystal clear that their changing facilities are single sex here. I know because I emailed them about it a few years ago.

One of the best things about Mumsnet is the way we check every claim. Here's a link to a previous thread that has lots of helpful links:

Does anyone actually fully support trans people in women's changing rooms and loos? | Mumsnet

Where have you got that from?
She doesn't mention anything about filming (other than her filming him). She only says "why should I have to change in front of a man?"

Which she doesn't.

There's no evidence there was any specific man (trans or not) in that changing room at that time, and she doesn't 'have' to use a changing room at all. It's not like a toilet, which is linked to a universal biological function, trying clothes on is completely optional.

She also says that it is illegal to not provide a space for women to change. It isn't. Shops can decide whether to provide sex specific changing rooms, GN changing rooms or no changing rooms at all.

So for someone who is so keen on supporting women and girls you think she'd a) get her facts right and b) prioritise her efforts on actions which might actually achieve her stated aims. A random shop employee is never going to override store policy on the say-so of a customer ranting at him, and, on a wider scale, do you really think M&S head office, or similar shops, or even ordinary, non 'peaked' members of the public are going to watch this video and think 'Yes it's the shouty woman making stuff up and incorrectly accusing people just trying to carry out their job of breaking the law who is in the right and who I sympathise with here, I'll reconsider my previous view on the subject.'

It's a complete own goal.

This is an issue of such little urgency I can’t even fathom why it has spiralled the way it has. Disagree with M&S policy all you like but nothing was immediately and pressingly wrong. Posting this poor chap on social media was highly unwarranted. Customer service roles are terrible as they are without people shoving phones in your face, which by the way many stores have policies against filming their staff.

Yes, exactly. And they have security cameras outside the doors which are constantly monitored so no one steals anything.

Those changing rooms are safer than the streets, where (let's not forget) you can be raped, the attack filmed and no one jailed for it.

If they have one set of changing rooms which specifically say they are for men but don't have the equivalent for women then they are breaking the law.

This applies to several branches of M&S I've been in.

Have you got some stats for this? Can we have stats for mixed sex changing facilities versus single sex changing facilities?

This wasn’t the case in this store though. They had unisex changing rooms.

So there isn't any shoplifting from M&S? Their security is that good?

I didn’t know about this but that’s gross! I’m assuming people reported the reviews and they did nothing?!

I haven’t been in M&S for a while but I wouldn’t want to use a gender neutral changing room even with locked doors

When a company goes all-out on an unpopular policy you need the proof, though.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

He could have said "I note your concerns and will pass them upward". Instead he invited her to leave the store.

But in this situ the menz have one to themselves, but not us. It is not fair or right ( or legal?). But, hey, just accept this discrimination.

Do those who object to these changing rooms also object to the changing villages at swimming pools? I can’t see how they’re any different, and the changing villages are at all the pools near me.