To think this journalist from the independent is rather deluded ?

Axe to grind against trans people, or boundary pushing inappropriate acting men?

No. It has remained it is perfectly reasonably behaviour because the claims made by the mother that could render it unreasonable do not stack up.

What there indicates a longstanding axe to grind?

Her purported Twitter feed.

I see @PlanetJanette has pivoted from 'this is perfectly reasonable behaviour' to 'the mother is lying'.

In the space of just a few posts 🙄

I find it so interesting that many many posters rush to feel empathy for the Trans employee and fill in the details of the story in their imagination- may not be trans, just offered to help, perfectly innocent, like offering to help with bacon etc.

No empathy for the mother and daughter who have said the employee was a man, he approached the girl who appeared to be alone in the lingerie department.
Those are facts, undisputed by M&S. the details you fill in from context- M&S don’t have staff hanging around offering to help. They are engaged in tasks, you seek them out of you need them; ‘help’ in a lingerie department inevitably means talking about underwear, not bacon; men should not approach young girls under any circumstances but the most dire.

So where is the empathy for a mother and daughter who were alarmed by a man trying to discuss underwear with an unaccompanied child?

Where is the empathy? Why is it all directed to the employee?

Why is bra fitting relevant here? The employee did not offer a fitting service and there’s no indication that they have any involvement with that service, which requires specific skills and training.

I’ve no idea what M&S approach to hiring bra fitters is but it seems entirely irrelevant to this particular employee.

I don’t think that gets away from the fact that safeguarding training now needs to be considered by retailers. It is far too easy for those with inappropriate intentions to access young people and I am not saying that this was the case in M&S.

There have been far too many instances of paedophiles hiding in plain sight, sometimes with police friends eg Stephen Ireland of Surrey Pride and the Surrey Police

clearly has a longstanding axe to grind against trans people

This is absolute nonsense, where are you getting that from?

Whatever happened to “We believe you”?

This is the thing. Do these women not understand what they're doing to their children? Or do they understand perfectly, but do it anyway?

Have you ever been to an M&S? They do not approach you unprompted, in the main. M&S staff staff have confirmed (on here and on X) that the policy is to facilitate peaceful browsing

The do talk and chat at the till, the changing rooms, returns section, I expect that's what's they mean in the ad. They are very helpful and friendly when asked for help.

Perhaps there are very specific circumstances where they see a customer who needs intervention and they are trained to do.

A man, approaching a 14 year old, unprompted while shopping for bras would not be one of those circumstances.

That is something an abusive parent would do.

I was forever being put in inappropriate embarrassing situations by my mother.

M&S are introducing gender neutral toilets and changing rooms to their stores.

They need to consider the possibility of potential harm to young people and vulnerable adults. It’s all very well being inclusive but M&S now have to accept the other risks that go with this.

It’s interesting that on another thread it was mentioned that Rigby&Peller(?) staff have to have a DBS check for fitting under-16s even with a parent present.

Of course it matters. Because the whole inappropriateness hinges on claims that the employee approached a lone teenager to ask if she needed help.

The only ‘proof’ of that is the claim of an anonymous mother who, assuming the anonymous Twitter handle is actually her, clearly has a longstanding axe to grind against trans people. So if the mother’s story is riddled with more holes than Swiss cheese then it becomes and even less of a solid basis to publicly shame and smear a (probably entirely identifiable) person for doing their job.

okay so her daughter wouldn’t mind being approached by a trans woman in the lingerie department but the vast majority of young teen age girls would

Exactly, it's the arrogance of this kind of reasoning that's so infuriating.

Why does this woman think her daughter's reaction is the benchmark for all young girls? Plenty of teenagers would be made deeply uncomfortable by this. Why does this journo think we shouldn't listen to the young girl involved?

It is not transphobia it is a safeguarding fail.

M&S need to take some responsibility and to introduce safe-guarding training.

So why do their job adverts require staff to ‘proactively’ engage with customers?

This definitely.

A lot of journalists have this privilege and love to ‘virtue signal’. It’s not surprising that some are struggling for readers.

okay so her daughter wouldn’t mind being approached by a trans woman in the lingerie department but the vast majority of young teen age girls would. Some would be freaked out by ‘creepy’ behaviour.

M&S need some safeguarding procedures in place that protect the child and not the feelings of adult workers and shoppers.

I agree, context is indeed everything here.

The context is a lone 14 year old girl having an unwanted interaction with an adult male. About underwear.

14 year olds do not consider themselves “in control” in any interaction with adults.

Children and teenagers are taught to respect adults and do what they tell them. Especially teenage girls.

Even when they are uncomfortable and alarm bells are ringing it’s hard for a young teenager to get themselves out of that situation.

I know, I was that teenager more than once. If you haven’t ever experienced that, I’m really glad but suggest that you are very lucky.

The man doesn’t need to have asked actively creepy questions for the interaction to be uncomfortable and disturbing.

He doesn’t need to have been intending to hurt her for the interaction to have been harmful.

So context is indeed all.

Because the reason men don’t approach teenagers in lingerie departments is because there is absolutely no bloody context in which a teenage girl would be ok with that.

The Indie is missing the direction the trans debate is heading in. I find it hard to believe their (and the Guardian) journos genuinely hold the views they publish.
Zoe Williams wrote that if you know a carer it's because they have cared for your parents. Ignoring the fact that you may just know someone who happens to be a carer as a job. They are all in a highly sanitised, dreadfully middle-class echo chamber, crazy, extreme liberal bubble.

Quite

Well

The senior doctors in Fife A&E were happy to have a woman (who they worked with for years) arrested and loose her career (not just her job) for objecting to a man watching her change her clothes. The whole Board (running a hospital) have allowed a defense where staff (whom they employed in key roles) testify that he/she is not able to work out if a person is female or not.

And Scotland again the nutjobs (which included elected politicians) who tried to change the law to allow a medical examiner (who was informed a rape victim requested a specific sex) to place his/her body parts and objects inside and on the victim while knowing he/she was the other sex, to then go on to use his/her actions to convict someone else of rape. The nutjobs actually believed that people like that should be employ by the State and that that demand was a positive political position for transgenderism.

So while this may be a mother using her child to writing click bate there will be a whole lot of people (including on this thread) who will go

That didn't happen.
And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
And if it was, that's not a big deal.
And if it is, that's not his fault.
And if it was, he didn't mean it.
And if he did, she deserved it.

When it comes to safeguarding they will create a special cast for who the rules should not apply.

I trust the girl to know when she's being made to feel uncomfortable.

Remember when it was fashionable to pretend to care about women feeling uncomfortable? That seems like a long time ago, doesn't it?

How the man was dressed is neither here nor there. The fact he was a man, behaving inappropriately towards a child is the salient fact.