Women on social media are calling for a boycott of Victoria’s Secret after the famous undergarment company responded to a trans-identified male complaining of his experience in the changing room. While the user has now hidden his profile, many became distressed after learning he was producing graphic pornography of himself and questioned his intentions for using a women’s changing area.
On November 28, a post on X (formerly Twitter) by transgender user @Microdragons1 began to circulate in which he complained about an incident of alleged mistreatment at a local Victoria’s Secret store while bra shopping.
“I went through a thoroughly dehumanizing experience today at Victoria’s Secret due to my status as a trans woman,” the user wrote, going on to outline an experience in which he says staff had allowed him to use the changing rooms but only after female customers had finished. He was then permitted to use the changing rooms on his own, with staff reportedly waiting to allow new female customers inside until he was done.
@Microdragons1 then stated he had called in to complain about the behavior of the employees, and a store manager had said they were looking into “better ways of managing the changing rooms.”
After the post began to pick up traction, the official X account for Victoria’s Secret responded to @Microdragons1 with an apology and invited him to contact their corporate office.
Many women were left disappointed by the response from Victoria’s Secret, praising the store employees for what they felt was the right move to protect female clientele.
“I hope you will not make the mistake of prioritizing the demands of a paraphilic man over the safety, privacy, and dignity of women,” one user responded to Victoria’s Secret.
“Hello Victoria’s Secret. Women appreciate sex-based segregation for the purpose of keeping the fairer sex safe from creeps, sex pests, peeping Toms, fetishistic transvestites, rapists, men’s rights activists and the like,” lesbian activist Gaye Chapman replied. “Not every male person fits that description, however they are disproportionately represented by those who want single sex spaces. Respect women, or our money will go elsewhere.”
The concerns amplified after some internet sleuths uncovered the graphic pornography @Microdragons1 had made, fetishizing his transition and identity as a “woman.”
While he has now set his account to “private,” thus limiting the ability for people to view his tweets, @Microdragons1 had posted a number of disturbing images over the past few months, including images of himself nude and in BDSM wear.
The images sparked additional comments, with many women voicing added concerns about having him in a women’s space.
“This man does not belong in any changing room near women much less one where women are trying on underwear,” ICONS co-founder Kim Shasby-Jones wrote.
“Look at who you are letting into the intimate spaces of women, in your stores. What if tomorrow, I decide that I want to be a peeping Tom and declare myself a woman? Do I get to come into the changing room. Your business should be fighting for women. Not doing this,” a man by the name of Leonard Clinton-Williams said.
Following the invitation by Victoria’s Secret to call their main line, @Microdragons1 reportedly contacted the corporate number, which told him that “the behavior of the store was being corrected.”
Reduxx reached out to the press office for Victoria’s Secret to learn what the “corrections” entailed, but did not hear back in time for publication.
This is not the first time in recent months that controversy has erupted following a trans-identified male’s demand to use a women’s changing room.
In August, a trans-identified male in the United Kingdom prompted backlash after he complained about his lack of access to the women’s changing rooms at a Sheffield hotel. Anne Coombes, 65, first made headlines after he slammed a worker at the Mercure Hotel for giving him a changing room pass for the unisex facilities instead of the women-only area.
But shortly after, information began to circulate demonstrating that Coombes had an apparent “breastfeeding” fetish, and had interacted with accounts eroticizing motherhood and lactation.