Shoppers Drugmart is at it again, virtual signalling gender inclusivity with ads celebrating gender divergence, while failing to train front line staff to serve said gender minorities. I do love the ads featuring nonbinary model Myles Sexton, and it is a fact that many Queer people and cis men I know looking for makeup for personal use or help in the theatrical world use Shoppers. But the transphobes backlashing against the nonbinary model and ad campaign can stop worrying – cisgender binary folxs still reign supreme at Shoppers. As I detailed in previous posts,
I applied to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal in 2022 about the misgendering and cissexism at Shopper’s Drug Mart and the resultant transphobia when I complained about it.
Shopper’s Drug Mart has clearly known about the issues of misgendering and transphobia for several years now. Based on my experience being misgendered again in 2024, it is clear Shoppers failed to take any rectifying action it make it safe for all shoppers. If they had listened to me at our Human Rights tribunal mediation in 2024, this following misgendering, burden shifting and invasion of privacy would not have happened.
While I was buying some products, and one employee had to leave and referred to me as the gentleman to the employee taking over. Yet somehow the new employee misgendered me as she. When I told her I was not she, the new employee corrected it, said she was sorry and should have said “they”. I felt miserable but let it go because I figured at least she corrected and apologized (but I did wonder if she had been trained).
Shoppers Drug Mart staff are not trained to provide equal service to all genders but instead rely on cisgender/cissexist norming when dealing with customers. So they basically look at you and guess what’s in your pants when you are buying shampoo. Staff ought not to assume genders and should be aware of how to correct and apologize if they make mistakes. A common transphobic experience is being rendered invisible by cis binary gender assumptions followed by displays of cis fragility when corrected. Cis fragility looks like false truth claims, denials, redirecting the issue to make the complainant at fault, and overly apologizing to shift the emotional labour to the misgendered person.
But I digress, you would think that being misgendered was enough. It does get better cause later that night the Shoppers clerk tracked me down using my confidential optimum points information to send me a message on Facebook. My Facebook name is a pseudonym, so she really dug me up to keep the trauma alive. This employee had good intent, however, let’s think of the impact of me, a normal shopper, getting misgendered, experiencing negative health ramifications from gender dysphoria and then having my information used to contact me at home later that night.
This is not normal customer service – part of training is correcting, apologizing and moving on.
Contacting me in private is invasive and shifts the burden to me. It is also disturbing that this employee randomly sent a message to me not knowing if it was me, thereby potentially outing me to strangers and discussing me with others with the same name. All because I was Shopping and minding my own business.
I am very nervous about my safety as trans people are statically more likely to experience violence than cisgender people and most trans people will experience sexual violence at least once in their lives (Stats Can, 2018). It was very disturbing that this person was able to find me thanks other job at Shoppers.
The following is the Shoppers employee’s message, her punctuation included:
“Hey! I hope this message finds you well it took me forever to find you. I hope you’re who I am looking for if it seems like you’re the wrong person please disregard this message. I work at shoppers drug mart red hair if I found the right person I served you in the cosmetics dep this evening. I wanted to properly apologize for the incident of me misgendering you. I wasn’t really thinking but that’s no excuse. I wanted to tell you personally I apologize for that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it and I feel very disappointed in myself. I will make sure in the future unless someone tells me what they would like to be referred to I just keep it neutral. I just wanted you to know I realize how what I did is not ok and I wanted to formally let you know I am sorry.
You have always been so kind at my store and I don’t want you to ever feel uncomfortable shopping here!”
Needless to say, I won’t feel comfortable shopping there! It is not this employee’s fault but the fault of her employer who should have trained her. Shoppers Drugmart is knowingly not a safe place for gender minorities to shop. So rest easy transphobes backlashing against the Sexton ads, next time you buy some toothpaste, toilet paper or toiletries, staff will still try to guess what’s in your pants in order to gender you and serve you better.