ON THE HIGH STREET SO WHO’S WELCOME WHERE?

CLOTHING stores with gender neutral changing rooms include Urban Outfitters, Matalan, Primark and H&M.

H&M told the Mail: ‘H&M fitting rooms in our UK stores are not gendered. Our fitting rooms are for everyone and our customers should always feel welcome. We strive to be inclusive and we allow our customers the choice of which fitting room to use. We have no further comment to make.’

John Lewis, meanwhile, said: ‘For many years we’ve said our customers are welcome to use whichever fitting room makes them feel the most comfortable. All our fitting rooms are fully staffed and the vast majority of doors are lockable — with the remainder due to be lockable soon.’

Uniqlo says it has a mix of single-sex and gender neutral fitting rooms. We also discovered that while Zara, Next, New Look, Whistles and Marks & Spencer might officially have single-sex areas, they will also allow in trans or non-binary people.

‘Our fitting rooms are located within our womenswear and menswear departments and therefore are mainly used by customers of that gender,’ said a spokesman for Marks & Spencer. ‘However, in line with most other retailers we will generally allow people to use the fitting room they prefer, with our colleagues exercising discretion and common sense.’ No single store told the Mail they will only cater for a single-sex clientele.

LEISURE CENTRES AND GYMS

THE Mail questioned the five biggest leisure centre companies in the UK — Parkwood Leisure, Fusion Lifestyle, GLL, Everyone Active and 1Life, which between them run hundreds of council facilities — on their policy. Two replied, confirming that they had adopted gender-neutral ‘changing villages’.

‘Over the years there has been a move towards village changing facilities in public leisure centres, driven by reasons of practicality, cost, space and inclusivity,’ said a spokesman for GLL, which runs more than 270 leisure centres under the brand name Better. ‘We have safeguarding training for staff and strong management protocols. If anyone feels threatened or intimidated, staff will assist them.’

A spokesman for Everyone Active, which runs some 200 gyms, added that gender neutral facilities ‘offer a more flexible option for everyone and include cubicles, too’ and that it has ‘strict policies in place to ensure photography and videography is not taken inappropriately’.

Out of ten of the biggest private gym companies in the country approached, two responded. Pure Gym, which has 1.6 million members, confirmed it has gender neutral spaces alongside single-sex areas, while Nuffield Health spoke of ‘focusing on supporting the individual needs of every member so they can enjoy our fitness and wellbeing facilities’.

The 70 Bannatyne gyms, owned by Dragons’ Den star Duncan Bannatyne, are the only totally single-sex gyms.

The upmarket chain David Lloyd, which has 500,000 members, will only allow trans people to use changing rooms in line with the gender they identify with if they can produce a gender recognition certificate — a legal document which officially changes the gender of a person.