Misinformation correction: M&S Staff

Yes, this was like a toddler having a tantrum, rather than targeted abuse.

I agree that it's better to Let Them Stupid, but MN has spoken, so hey.

I've been driven back to my old Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary (1983 edition, so obviously old-fashioned, but language sits on its foundations).

Thelarche: the word used by the now-deleted poster to describe the process of breast development. Not there at all, evidently a medical coinage either very rare then or not yet in use (Chambers is generally good on technical terms, if it was in regular use it would have been included).

Gender: noun; kind: grammatical; a distinction of words roughly answering to sex; loosely or jocularly; sex.

So that's that. As we have pointed out, there is a new usage to go with the new word. Orwell thou shouldst be living at this hour.

and further:

Accost: verb; to approach and address; to speak first to, to solicit as a prostitute.

Approach: to bring near, to come near to in any sense, to come into personal relations with, to resemble.

So that's why I didn't use approach - it carries a connotation of not necessarily speaking, of stealth. Accost is honest and direct, and describes what happened without value judgement.

Yep agree on a personal level (and may report on that basis) but the posts involved were rather generic yelling at the sky type 👀 so its always down to the readers choice.

It is abusive posting. It might not be aimed at individuals but it is abusive none the less.

I think the excellent post showing the DARVO highlighted it well.

We can retain the posts in our own for coherency, but why should women have to think we accept this abuse to make our points when we don’t have to?

I think that's a good way of putting it tbh.

Ta👍

True, but I never really see it as abusive as it's so evidently mad and frothing with no points to make.

I think of it more like the god botherer who used to hang out at 0xford Circus with a megaphone. Just walk on by.

Tbh I really didn't take offence because it was so bloody laughable and ridiculous.

The intent might have been abusive, I guess but honestly, I just thought it's really really pathetic.

I don’t think women on this board need to accept abusive posting though. Even if it is highlighting Operation: Let them speak.

You can self report but it gives a message that a post is removed at the users request - or at least it did for a similar one a few days back.

So who reported our friend? Sigh. Way to ruin Operation Let Them Speak. Bummer.

Or did they get a pal to do it so they could go, 'evil men MNHQ banned me' for their other social media friends? As they'd planned all along...

Yep just checked the thread about seahorses and eggs has been removed which was sad as it has lost all the ways MN posters can laugh at silly posts😀

Yep I agree
(or it could have been a self report after nobody else reported it ? Dont know if that is possible??)

This is where the old requirement of copy the relevant bits and paste works well. As we had to do before quoting functionality was brough in. It helps keep the record so readers can still keep track.

Fear not; MNHQ will be along shortly to ban the horrid account that doesn't agree with your shrieking and dares to suggest that maybe, just maybe, the circus of moral outrage over this incident isn't quite as founded as your echo chamber is telling you...

I suspect NatalieWynch, if all your posts have been deleted it is statistically more likely (to use your theme of posting) that you are a previously banned poster than you will be deleted due not agreeing.

I really do wish some of the more egregious posts and threads by transactivists could be left to stand

#OperationLetThemSpeak is very useful.

I am completely gobsmacked by this.

It is not discrimination or pearl-clutching if a 14 year old girl doesn't want to discuss her bra requirements with a strange man. A 14 year old girl is not breaking the law even if that man says he is trans. An adult man should not be going up to a 14 year old girl and trying to speak to her about bras and there is no end to the fuss that should and must be made about it. And that's before bringing up the fact that he wasn't working in that department so left his own job in homewares to follow a seemingly unaccompanied 14 year old girl into the bra section and talk to her about bras. Again, we are not making anywhere near enough fuss about this.

Well aren't you just delightful!

Men should have their own bra shops supplied by separate manufacturers. No bras are really designed for their usual proportions. None will usually really fit.

Non-binary is either an ordinary real woman/girl
or a man.

Gender non-conforming - ditto.

The men are fetishists imo. No fitting will genuinely be a fitting.

Bravissimo has only female fitters but they still have to do fittings on men who want them, according to their inclusion policy.

“All of our shops teams have access to training to ensure we are able to offer inclusive and welcoming fitting experiences for everyone:
• Fitting those who identify as transgender, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming”

It’s not offered among their main services, so they aren’t pushing it, but don’t know if there’s any policy for their staff that sifts out any bad apples who fancy indulging a fetish.

Ha ha ha! Did you note the cliches:

bigots

transphobes

pearl clutching

shrieking

moral outrage

DD is 22 and wears crop tops and has never had a bra fitting. Do we need family therapy? 🙀

Bravissimo do a good product and have respect for customers.

It's not really amazing that none of our resident TRAs have felt able to say, "Hang on, we're always arguing that the trans community is totally safe and unthreatening, this kind of thing is a really bad look for us."

I mean, even on the Trans UK subreddit, which is ground zero for craziness, they'll sometimes say "this is not a good look for us".

But here we have total intransigence in defence of the absolute right of blokes with special identities to approach underage girls and strike up a conversation about underwear.

Good for Bravissimo. I was looking for an alternative to M&S and I’ve now found it.

Oh here we go with the misogyny... "bigots", "transphobes", "pearl-clutching", "shrieking". Eh no. We just don't want to be harrassed by males of any variety, whether trans, not trans, tall, short, wimpy, aggressive. None of them, thank you very much. A male asking a teenage girl about her underwear is harrassing her, and if you can't understand that how about you read, actually properly read, the many posts describing women's experiences.