To think this journalist from the independent is rather deluded ?

Unfortunately its a common tactics by the TRAs to equate transwomen with black women whilst accusing GC women of being racist

I don’t see what she is deluded about. She would be fine with it - do you want her to lie? I doubt she is the only one.

That is exactly what she is doing.

The article is not about that. It's about someone complaining and M&S apologising and the journalist saying they shouldn't have apologised and the person shouldn't have complained and saying them complaining about a probable transwomen (not confirmed) giving advice to a 13 year old girl about underwear is the same as complaining about a POC giving them advice. That's what the article is about.

What do you expect, it’s the Independent. Owen Jones reincarnated as a newspaper.

I think the 13 year old daughter, rolling her eyes and going, "Oh mummy...." hammered that home....

Saying that, while this article is complete bollocks, and I refuse to accept that she or her dd would actually have been fine had a 6'2 man with stubble (given that a trans person can be at any stage of their transition journey) wanted to start measuring her breasts, I do actually think this particular incident has been over egged.

Just asking if they needed help isn't in itself inherently sexual or intimidating. Nobody has suggested the staff member was actually fitting bras or supervising the changing rooms or anything that would involve any nudity or potential for intimidation.

I'd hope even the most strident GC person wouldn't suggest that trans people can't work as sales assistants etc. generally. In which case what difference is asking 'Do you need help,' on the sales floor to asking it (or a similar q like 'did you find everything you needed?') behind the counter or at the till?

Anyone, male or female, should be able to answer stock related questions like 'Do you have this in a 12?' Or 'where are your.....' doesn't matter if '.....' is bacon or bras. Acting as though it's somehow embarrassing to ask a man a benign question is in itself sexualising what should be a non-event. There wasn't any obligation to engage with the staff member. Saying 'No we're fine thanks,' isn't humiliating or awkward, doesn't matter if the person asking is male, female, trans, or identifies as a unicorn.

What would they have done if the person at the till when they came to buy the bras was male, if anything vaguely related to underwear or bodies is apparently so cringeworthily feminine only XX chromosomes should be allowed anywhere near the vicinity of the shopfloor? Same when the dd needs to buy tampons? Or get the pill from a male pharmacist? Or talk to a male doctor about her pregnancy?

Except she isn’t doing that, is she?

Exactly

I do hope this is woke rage bait rather than a serious point of view.

So she thinks it’s okay for a biological male to fit a young teen’s bra? I’m was trying to be articulate but I think “fuck no!” sums up my feelings.

That's not what is being said in the article though. The article is criticising M&S for apologising to someone who complained about the person, implied a trans person but not stated, offering to help a 13 year old girl in a underwear section that made the 13 year old uncomfortable. The article basically says why would you complain about that as my daughter wouldn't and they shouldn't apologies to the customer, who it implies is transphobic, but apologise to the, implied, trans member of staff. who is in a persecuted minority, for someone complaining about them. To demonstrate how bad making the complaint was they compare it to someone making a complaint if a POC employee offered to help someone and that person felt uncomfortable about it. That's an appalling comparison to make that completely misses the point and is not comparable, but appeals to emotive injustices around racism and historic prejudice. It's lazy journalism to not even establish the facts but resort back to clichés and tired old lines around trans phobia. 'Quoting' her daughter is a low form of journalism and saying trans people can not effectively go out in public after the court ruling is just ridiculous. Rubbish, lazy journalism that brings nothing to the debate.

Her DD is a teenager so at least has some excuse!

Life is excruciating for teenagers. I’d have been embarrassed by anyone offering to help. But if a man offered I’d have wanted to die. And if my mum had let him I’d have run away from home.

Poor girl, being used as a prop not just by a man but by her virtue-signalling mother.

She has no shame. Equating people of colour with male sex fetishists! There is no bar set so low that these misogynists won’t go lower.

People supporting male employees (however they may identify) offering to help teenage girls in the lingerie section have truly lost the plot.

I was served on a roll by a trans identifying male in a large retailer - I have no problem with that, but his leggings were so tight fitting I could see his meat and two veg, which is inappropriate in a customer service setting.

If he was wandering round the lingerie section (it was not M&S, but did have such a section) it would have been totally inappropriate.

Firstly just using the descriptor ‘trans’ is utterly misleading and she knows it. It’s about a male being enabled to fit a young teenage girl her first bra. Totally unacceptable. A female trans person (a woman) would have been no issue. Thank you M&S for accepting your error.

Secondly What the Actual Fuck was she thinking writing the paragraph comparing the scenario to one with ‘a person of colour’?

The journalist needs to be sacked for that. Absolutely shocking.

Read the article properly, folks!
The (possibly) trans person asked a girl and her mum if they needed help. It is NOT reported that they measured or offered to measure for or fit a bra.
M&S have apologised that the girl's experience was not what she'd hoped for. They have not admitted to any wrongdoing.
All that actually happened was the (possibly) trans person offered customer service - ie they did their job.

Argh, horrible. Hope you didn’t have to see his face again?

Had the person offering to help my 13-year-old daughter in the M&S undies department been trans, I would have had no problem with it – and crucially, neither would she. How do I know? I asked her.

My daughter’s exact response (with the inevitable bit of exasperated sighing) to being helped, or even fitted, was: “I’d hate anyone measuring me, Mummy. Why would it make any difference if they were trans?”

Does anyone believe her daughter actually said that?

She sounds like that Catherine Tate posh mum.

That journalist could be best friends with my mother, who was so happy for kudos from her mates for having the priest over for dinner that she'd say things like "he just loves children so much" when he sat on the sofa rubbing my back and trying to undo my bra. All her maternal instincts and safeguarding out of the window because she was willing to offer me up so she'd get fawned over for being cool.

The one thing that has changed, on the whole, is Gen Alpha’s greater understanding and empathy towards those around them. And so much the better.

⬆️ From the article. It’s more ‘Be kind to men, you nasty women’ bullshit dressed up as empathy.

First post nailed it.

There is nothing normal or appropriate with a grown man asking to assist a teenage girl with her underwear.

I think some of the women who say stuff like this assume that they will have a Haley Cropper kind of demure, gay, male. Which some women might not mind for a bra fitting whatever he was wearing.

When instead they find a large, clearly male, heterosexual person with their 13 year old daughter in the change room, I do wonder if some discomfort might creep in.

Funny how the same journalist admits to being made to feel deeply uneasy by males crossing her boundaries - maybe if they were being equally creepy but wearing a dress it would all be OK, and she’d just be a transphobe.

www.independent.co.uk/voices/stella-creasy-tube-london-underground-harassment-men-misogyny-b2790666.html

Screenshots of the letter from Marks and Spencer are widely available. I saw them on Twitter/X and an online newspaper. M&S didn't deny it.
I saw a reply from the girl's Mum on one of the Twitter threads.