John Lewis is, to most people, a department store that exists to sell toasters, cushions and lamps. But it turns out we have been labouring under a massive misapprehension all these years. John Lewis’s internal magazine Identity reveals that the shop’s purpose is rather different: it exists to affirm the bespoke identities of its staff.

The publication, created by John Lewis’s LGBT network, contains advice to parents on how to allow their child to express their gender identity. Identity includes testimony from the mum of a trans-identifying girl in a story titled ‘Raising Trans and Non-Binary Children’. She writes that ‘a (chest) binder is always safer than the alternatives. Among the magazine’s other delights is a gender wordsearch – sample clue: ‘Calling someone, often a trans person, by a name or gender identity they no longer use’; answer: deadnaming. A reminder: this is John Lewis, where your mum gets her curtains.

Among the magazine’s other delights is a gender wordsearch

One is reminded of some of the more outré episodes of Are You Being Served?, but at least young Mr Grace’s bizarre executive brainwaves on that sitcom, such as pushing particular lines of imported stock – Mrs Slocombe in lederhosen, Captain Peacock with an Afro in a kaftan – had a kind of commercial logic to them.

Identity does have a clear purpose though, even if its creators might not realise it: magazines like this exist to goad people. John Lewis isn’t alone here in doing something that winds people up: such goading is particularly common in institutions with a somewhat conservative brand: the National Trust or English Heritage, for instance. It’s the fatal result of a smash up between well-meaning but clueless executives and the shameless chancers at the exhibitionist end of what we used to call the gay scene.

But what spurs this goading in the first place? I think you can divide it into two types, like diabetes. Type 1 goading is mostly harmless, a game of being safely outrageous in a liberal society because there are no consequences. Type 2 goading is more sinister – part dominance display, part wounded cry for attention. Type 2 is acceptable, and often quite funny, in children. ‘I will kill myself if I’m not allowed to watch the Eurovision Song Contest!’ I shouted to my mother when I was seven. But this way of thinking is no longer isolated to kids.

Let’s take two famous examples of the same vintage: Mick Jagger and John Lennon. Jagger was pure type 1. He was playful, blatantly inauthentic; a middle-class Kent schoolboy who pretended to be a poor boy from the ghetto and said and did slightly outrageous things. It was all a healthy game of a wind-up, and tremendous fun. Lennon was extreme type 2 – given to grievance and pointless statements and hurt gestures. We tolerated this because we were getting fantastic tunes. Without the music, Jagger would still have been fun. Lennon would’ve been unbearable. (For confirmation on this point, see what has happened to Yoko Ono.)

In its purest and most sociable form, the impulse to be noticed is the spur for art and achievement of all kinds. The deal is that we pay attention because we get something good in return. But the goading of Type 2 – of the Identity magazine sort, of dyeing your hair pink and pretending to be oppressed – offers only a continuous toddler screech.

My theory is that so much of type 2 is, like a toddler’s tantrums, designed to get a reaction. Why? Because the hoped-for backlash to it at least shows that someone notices, that they care what you do. It proves that you are there. Unfortunately for those seeking attention in today’s world chastisement no longer comes. Take Sam Smith, the gender fluid singer prone to wearing increasingly bizarre outfits. The truth is that Smith is never put on the naughty step. Instead, he gets just enough attention to reward his antics and confirm him on his regrettable tasseled-moob path.

The trouble is not that these people are being exhibitionist and irritating – because attention seekers will, after all, always be with us – but that the institutions take them seriously. ‘We have an ambition to become the UK’s most inclusive employer, because celebrating diversity will make us a better business,’ says James Bailey, Executive Director of John Lewis. ‘That means creating an environment where everyone feels welcomed irrespective of their backgrounds or beliefs.’ That all sounds very sensible and level-headed, doesn’t it? Until you wonder whether he’s talking about bondage gear in the haberdashery department.

So John Lewis’s Identity might seem like a throwaway publication that doesn’t merit a reaction. But it is far more revealing than it realises: its goading exposes one of of the many interesting ways that society is gradually breaking down. In short, publications like this are all about grabbing attention. Once, a suitable response would be to say ‘that’s nice, dear’ and to change the subject, as my mum did to my Eurovision threat of 1976. But now, these attention seekers are indulged: they get their own magazine – and woe betide any John Lewis employee who calls this nonsense out for what it is.