We are delighted that so many of our members have contacted Macy’s, expressing their disgust with its anti-Catholic actions. We are not happy, however, with the way the mega-department store is responding when challenged. The form response is simply dishonest.
Carrie Anderson of the executive office is replying to those who have written to Terry Lundgren, chairman and CEO of Macy’s. “We do not condone or tolerate discrimination of any kind,” she says. Tell that to Javier Chavez: He was shown the door because he disagreed with Macy’s policy of allowing cross-dressing men to use the ladies bathroom.
“Although our bathrooms may be located in an area of the store primarily trafficked by either men or women, our bathrooms are gender neutral.” This is deceitful. No one objects to unisex bathrooms that accommodate both men and women—as long as each bathroom can be used only by one person at a time. That is not the issue. What many find objectionable, and this is especially true of women, is a policy that allows men dressed as a woman to use the women’s restroom (the obverse is rarely an issue).
Anderson goes on to say that “if a customer does not feel comfortable, an associate can be located to remedy the situation.” What does this mean? It was a woman customer, accompanied by her daughter, that complained to Javier Chavez about a man using the ladies room, and look what happened to him when he tried to “remedy the situation.”
Should he have instead left his post to contact some Human Resources manager to see if he could make the two ladies feel comfortable without doing anything about the source of the problem? Perhaps talk therapy works for Macy’s, but mature adults simply want to be able to go to the bathroom without finding someone of the opposite sex in it. They are not looking for a massage or for someone to explain to them why they are wrong. That’s not a remedy—it’s a dodge.
Look for us to take this issue to another level. In fact, by the time you are reading this, we will be doing just that.
