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

I have been in a shop with my teenage daughter standing two feet away behind a rack as a man approached her and started asking her questions. I could plainly see them both but he didn’t see me. As soon as I emerged saying “excuse me” he immediately walked away without a word.

He was a customer, not an employee, and he was old, she could have outrun him no problem.

But it was still a really creepy experience for her and she hasn’t returned to that store since.

What is not beside the point is that an employee - regardless of sex - asking an adult and her teenage daughter if they need help and withdrawing when the help is declined is perfectly normal customer service

No. A man approaching a 14 year old girl, unprompted, in the lingerie department when she's shopping for bras, asking her if she needs 'help' is not normal customer service at all.

We all know that, including you,

Regardless M&S do not have a policy of approaching their customers unprompted. The policy is allowing 'peaceful browsing' and offering help if asked.

I was thinking this. It could have been offering to help as in find a particular bra in her size or colour preference, or locate a woman who is available to carry out a bra fitting. As long as he stayed out the changing rooms what’s the problem?

Oh come on

Would you honestly have been comfortable with any of that when you were a teenage girl?

Would you really be comfortable with a man looking through the bras with you and discussing your bra size with a man as an adult woman.

Ofcourse you may be a male poster - because that’s the only way I can account for such wilful naivety.

Also rolling my eyes at the accompanying photo. Have we gone back to 1987?

There’s an awful lot of people who choose not to see a sacred caste possibly perving on teens, isn’t there? When I’m looking out for my daughters, I choose to err on the side of protecting them, rather than potential paedos. If I make a mistake by being overprotective, it’s a bloody damn sight better than being wrong in the other direction. Men perving on teens is hardly a rarity, is it? Not in a shop, not in a frock, not buying a bra, not buying a sock.

The teen quote sounds like the teen version of that posh mum skit where mums boast about their toddlers saying extremely profound implausible statements

And employees never act contrary to how they should? If this person has, isn't that just another red flag rather than an excuse?

I'm 5' tall - I'm hidden behind the stands in clothes shops by virtue of that - it's easy for someone to see one person, but not another when shopping FGS - that's why it's so useful now that my son is getting taller, my younger son and I can finally find him in shops when we've all wandered off and lost each other.

I think you're mixing up who said what, and who was doing what TBH - although also, I don't think it matters if she saw him when he came up, or only when she heard his voice - it's the approach that was innapropriate

Awful article. Urgh.

Male staff members should never, ever approach young women or girls in a lingerie department. My blood boils at the thought. Well done to that mum for protecting her daughter. It surprises me that M&S apologised, if have thought them more woke as an organisation so that at least is refreshing.

I’m not a man and have never needed to be fitted by anyone other than my mum for my first bra many years ago. I’d have probably coped on my own but mums tend to like being involved.

I think context is everything here. Obviously if he was approaching her in a darkened corner and asking her how big her new breasts were and what type of bra would suit them, that is grotesque. If on the other hand he merely asked if she needed any help - how is that predatory? She was in total control as to what went on after that - asking for a female assistant, where the changing rooms were, or a simple. “No thank you” would have ended their interaction or God forbid helped her in the purpose of finding underwear. He wasn’t going to grab her by the wrist, march her behind a curtain and rip her clothes off. Wasn’t he just asking if he could be of any help? He should be nowhere near the changing rooms but the shop floor, what’s the problem?

It is common practice for staff to cover multiple departments and areas. It really is getting to the point where simply offering customer assistance isn’t ok by some people now.

Shop layouts can be confusing so offering basic help, regardless of shop area, is basic customer service.

I am calling this out for what it is, transphobia.

I work in retail, we have male colleagues in the prep area behind the scenes working deliveries. That includes unpacking and handling bras and underwear.

We have male colleagues specialised in baby car seats and working in the children’s departments.

Being male or female, trans or not, has no effect on their ability to do their job. Believe me, colleagues would talk and report if there was any concern over a colleague.

The girl was there. She was approached by a strange man in the lingerie department, and she felt threatened.

A man who thought she was alone, and who didn't work in that department, in a shop where the policy is to be available, but not to approach customers. That's 3 little bells ringing already, and I trust the girl to know when she's being made to feel uncomfortable.

Just like there are times when a man has approached me and it's been fine, and other times a man has approached me and it felt off.

M&S confirmed to the mother he shouldn't have been there. He should have been on another floor entirely.

Its not M&S policy to offer help unprompted either.

It certainly shouldn't be any store's policy for male staff to approach young girls, unprompted, while shopping for bras and ask if they need 'help'.

By trying to cast this as 'transphobia' you are facilitating predatory behaviour by men, with a teenage girl as the victim. Can people please wake up and apply their common sense here?

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.

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?

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.

Quite

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.

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.

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.

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

It is not transphobia it is a safeguarding fail.

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

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?

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.

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.