Since tweets are to short to express my worries and thoughts about your gender rules for fitting rooms, I decided to write you an open letter.
I tweeted you earlier about my worries that these rules are indeed sexist, to which you replied: "The decision to enable separate fitting rooms for each section in our stores is based on many of our customers' demands."
Although this is indeed an argument for why these rules originated, it isn't an argument for why they aren't sexist.
FOr example, if customers in a restaurant are bothered by a mother breastfeading her child, it might be a logical business decision for the owner to ask her to stop doing so, but it wouldn't make it right.
Since people are changing their outfits in cubicles, I can find no good reason why there should be seperate areas for men and women.
Although you say a lot of your customers have reason to object, I sincerely doubt if they outweigh the problems they create for other people.
How do you determine who can change in the female area? Does one need a vagina to be female? Or are all people who consider themselves to be female allowed to change in this area?
And what about males who like to dress in female clothes? I presume the seperate areas were created for females to feel more relaxed and safe? In that case, don't you think a man who wants to try on a flowery dress feels safer surrounded by women rather than just men?
Who are we – any of us – to decide which person fits in the "female" or "male" cubicle?
By trying to fix quite a non-issue (since a lot of other stores don't seperate their fitting areas and that works just fine) one creates a whole new set of problems which may not be issues for your mainstream costumer, but by neglecting minorities – based on gender – you are, in fact, being sexist.
And since your policy is to be non-discriminating, I think this might be something your company should thouroughly think and talk through and probably reconsider.
Sincerely,
Stefanie