I’m grateful to Lesley for granting permission to publish her resignation letter. For over 70 years, John Lewis has had a unique ownership structure in which staff members collectively own the business through a trust. However, it now seems that trans activists within the company are compromising the safety of female staff and customers, and many partners are not happy.
My name is Lesley Pickup. I am employed as a Selling Partner on the first floor in your Cheadle Branch.
Married, male colleagues, with full male genitalia, not transitioning to female, who live as husbands at home but choose to dress as women at work, assuming female names, and expecting full access to toilettes and locker rooms which were previously female-only employee safe spaces. This regardless and without one moment of thought or consideration for any negative effects and consequences on their female colleagues.
Female colleagues who I know to be triggered, caused anxiety and mental distress by these men’s presence in previously safe female spaces.
Female colleagues who live in fear of dismissal if they speak out. So just like home they put up and shut up and acquiesce to the demands of men.
Their oppressive home lives being replicated at work.
Just like home they don’t matter because JOHN LEWIS has never sought their INPUT or CONSENT for this intrusion into their safe spaces.
Nor has JOHN LEWIS ever sought the CONSENT of its female employees whose faith forbids them from being in such close intimate spaces with men who they are not related to or married to. It’s one thing being on the shop floor surrounded by customers and colleagues its quite another to be in a locker room or toilette.
Likewise, JOHN LEWIS does not inform nor seek the CONSENT of the parents and carers of young female work experience students below 18 YOA to permit their daughters to be in female-safe spaces with men with full male genitalia. I can find no written available safeguarding policy acknowledging John Lewis’s duty of care to safeguard and promote the welfare of these young female students, or any students for that matter. There is no commitment to ensure safeguarding practises reflect statutory responsibilities, government guidance and are in line with Ofsted requirements. A Policy which should recognise that the welfare of young female students is paramount in all circumstances which includes female safe spaces.
Dismissively, John Lewis state female employees can use the disabled toilette and be provided with a small locker for a purse and car keys away from the female changing rooms. Nowhere to hang their coats up or deposit wet umbrellas etc and only the disabled loo to change in which quite rightly they can only use after their disabled colleagues. Why is it that your female employees have to change their behaviour to concede to the demands of their male colleagues? You instruct them to discuss this matter with their manager. Managers who have no authority and dare not challenge the company line.
Therefore, please accept my resignation from John Lewis with effect from Wednesday 07 August 2024. I will not be serving out my two weeks’ notice as I am not prepared to set foot in an establishment, either as an employee or a customer, that chooses to treat its female members of staff with such disregard when it comes to their safe spaces, placing the demands of men above all else.