To think this journalist from the independent is rather deluded ?

[JifNtGif]

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/m-s-trans-employee-teenager-bra-fitting-rowling-b2802822.html#comments-area

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Exactly

Except she isn’t doing that, is she?

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?

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

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.

That is exactly what she is doing.

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.

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

What a mess the article is - probably was just a tall woman ie women can't tell by looking if a person in a skirt is a man or a woman; it's totally normal that a random MandS staff member will offer to help you, even when it's not a department they work in, and so wouldn't have any idea of the stock; that MandS would give exactly the same apology if a white customer complained about being approached by a black staff member.

The papers really will publish any old shite, especially on this issue - yeah for the Independent, super allyship.

But this staff member didn't work in the lingery department, so really wouldn't have known any of the stock and wouldn't have been able to help.

So why did he offer his assistance? Why was he in the lingery section when he didn't work there - and MandS have clarified that he didn't.

And indeed, why offer any assistance at all? I shop in MandS quite often, and I have NEVER had a staff member approach me to ask if I needed help finding anything. Does this sales assistant generally aporoach customers offering help?

Her consent is not mine.

Not the point, I know, but who has ever been offered help in M&S while just going through the rails looking for one in the right size?

During decades of buying bras at M&S, starting when I was about 14 (on my own) I never have!

My teenage dd would have said the same. She would also have said that of course a TW should be allowed to do bra-fittings. Dd was (still is) entirely Koolaided.

But given how upsetting she found bra-fitting even with women fitters, and given her rabbit-in-the-headlights expression while we queued among men inside a 'cubicles' toilet, while simultaneously saying how wonderful this was, it is entirely obvious that she would simply have been reciting the required catechism.

Dd tries so hard to believe the catechism while suffering the cognitive dissonance of being entirely aware of the biological basis of misogyny.

I would assume all bra fitting employees have had the relevant training and employers wouldn’t choose anyone to do the role if they had suspicions over conduct and abusing their position.

In terms of shop floors, I work in retail, and it’s common practice to cover various departments and to offer assistance. Our changing rooms are unisex and we have male and female employees working in them, all we do is offer help in fetching different sizes. There’s no malicious intent here. However the only people in lingerie fitting rooms will be people with bra fitting training and experience.

We are about fifty years away from Are You Being Served?

The issue is that by offering help to the child in a bra section is that the trans identifying bloke was sizing the child up as to what she might be trying to buy. That’s the issue. If the bloke was asking if they were interested in shoes or salami, or he was working behind the till there would be no issue.

Last time anyone offered to help me in M&S was 1991, so baffled by this.

@JellySaurus Ah yes. The cognitive dissonance. There's a lot of it about. Made me laugh.

Surely it is not for the author to decide this. It is up to her daughter to decide if she is OK with someone doing a bra fitting.

But anyway this whole story is a storm in a teacup. Nobody actually knows if the staff member in question was transgender. And even if they were they were never going to be conducting a bra fitting. You have to make an appointment for that service at M&S and only certain trained members of staff can do it.

If the story isn’t as told by the mother, why did M&S apologise to the mother?