M&S apologises over trans employee in bra department (Telegraph)

[WimbledonWhites]

How many “cis” male members of staff do you suppose would approach teenage girls in the lingerie department?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/04/ms-apologises-over-trans-employee-in-bra-department/

https://archive.ph/nTDB9archive.ph/nTDB9

Stores tend to send a generic ‘response to complaints’ out though, don’t they? Rather than arguing with customers via the Telegraph newspaper.

@ItsFridayIminLoveJS was he pretending to be a woman at the time?

They use the single sex exceptions in the equality act.

I think a lot of young girls would feel uncomfortable with a young man carrying out their intimate personal care. If they're comfortable with it, that's fine, but I imagine a lot would not be.

Of course the same can apply at any age.

Sorry, academic. Yes, obviously not as intelligent as you.
Profound apologies

How dismissive and frankly belittling to women and girls who DO feel uncomfortable and do feel vulnerable if put in this situation by a clothing retailer.

Yes it is unacceptable.

Teenage girls should be able to go shopping freely for a bra without feeling like this and becoming distressed. Buying a bra can be sensitive for many even if it's a woman.

The fact you are utterly tone deaf to this, and seek to shame women says more about you than us.

All the posters here who are trying to make false equivalents to nurses or saying that he was just being friendly have seriously lost the plot.

In plain sight, defended by enablers.

okay, but then there's this bloke for whom being in the women's underwear section is a sex game, and interaction with the non-consenting saleswoman is part of the act. He specifies that her discomfort is part of the fun.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/nov/03/my-life-in-sex

There used to be a shop in our town where a security man stood in the women's underwear section all day, watching the customers. Just doing his job, but I never shopped there, and was glad that when they moved premises he didn't move with them.

Please note - neither the creepy security man (20 years ago) nor the creepy underwear fetishist (8 years ago) were any sort of trans. Then.

The response is basically that M and S consider inclusivity of their staff more important and it's up to the customer to ask to speak to someone else. What a shit response. So basically they are expecting a teenage girl to speak up when she may be feeling very intimidated and have no intention of telling these creeps to stay away.

This exactly. I also have shopped in M&S for decades and have never been approached while browsing whatever the department.

Yeah, I was replying to a poster who said ALL men in lingerie dept are sus.
I have no words about the logic behind M&S employing a male in lingerie dept. and approaching young girls. That's disturbing.

Its not generic. Generic would be "We're sorry your experience fell short of the high standards we expect. Your feedback is important to us". This is a specific response to the incident complained about. I'd be very surprised indeed if no one at M&S was aware this sort of issue attracts publicity. If the opportunity was there to put a positive spin on this, as a 'misunderstanding', and the TW had merely been offering general help, they'd have taken it. Or, given this happened prior to the SC ruling, gone down the 'We are inclusive, the staff member was a woman' road.

Sexual assault is a crime so the shop can point out that they can sell more items when the customer is not filing a police report.

So the single sex exemption could be applied.

Another one thanking the mum for complaining and staying with it.

I have not set foot inside an M&S since they left all the male reviews up about their underwear. What business thinks that women want to know they are about to purchase a piece of clothing for themselves that ‘fully support’ men’s penises and testicles? Or that make a man feel so much of a woman?

M&S do. They keep FAFOing.

Would you allow a strange male shop worker into a bra fitting area with a teenage girl? Of course not. The risk of voyeurism or sexual assault is far too high.

So explain to me why allowing a a male shop worker in feminine clothing into the range changing room would ever be acceptable.

The point is that many men are sexually perverted.

Your comment about beards is irrelevant - what difference does a not having a beard make? As for someone 'passing' it's both factually incorrect as women can tell who's male with astonishing accuracy, and more importantly a man who can make himself look feminine is no less of a risk to women and girls.

The idea of Marks letting men work in the lingerie department makes me SO mad.

I don't even like seeing male customers there, and never have. They should all stay away. I don't want men looking at what underwear I'm buying.

I applaud the mother in this scenario for a) making a fuss on behalf of her daughter and b) reminding us about ‘common decency’.

I think the idea of common decency has fallen by the wayside for far too many organisations in the pursuit of employees ‘expressing themselves’ and ‘bringing their whole selves to work’. There are many occasions where this is not desirable or appropriate and we need to wind back in that quite a lot.

Just in this thread I have counted 5 reports of men who claim to be women in the women’s section of M&S - 6 if you count the one without a location given (which could arguably duplicate one of the others).

Given the tiny proportion of these men in society and the even tinier number who are M&S employees, I think we could be forgiven for thinking that M&S is being targeted as an employer that enables and defends their fetishes.

It's not that you're not intelligent, it's that you're totally disingenuous. There's no way you're not clever enough to see the difference so all that's left is to wonder why you're trying to pretend you are and, by extension, legitimise men in women's clothing trying to get up close to teenagers trying on bras.

Me neither. It has never happened. My husband has never been approached either.

However, the trans identified man in Boots in Hereford two weeks ago appeared eager to help. However, all the female customers avoided looking in his direction. Funny that. It is almost as if their female customers don't want to talk "girl talk" with some random bloke.

It is the first time I have ever seen a male employee in Boots who wasn't a pharmacist.

A teenage girl experiencing a bra fitting doesn’t owe anyone a lesson in gender theory. She doesn’t exist to validate an adult man’s identity. And she should not be asked to suppress her discomfort and her instinctive, natural boundaries so that an adult man doesn’t feel left out.

Women are being told to sit down, shut up, and smile politely while our daughters are re educated into submission.

No.

He knew exactly what he was doing when he walked into the lingerie department, in full knowledge of how he would be read. He knew it was a space designed for girls and women navigating some of the most intimate, awkward, and vulnerable stages of bodily development. And still, he chose to place himself in that position, offering assistance to minors in underwear aisles.

It is calculated boundary testing.
This is not a nurse. This is a man who likes to wear women’s clothing.

So you don’t have the ability to understand male body cues to correctly sex a male person, and you think that this is the norm?

Please don’t assume your inability is the standard experience. It is highly likely with even a small amount of interaction that a female person will correctly identify the sex of a male person. Even those who have had extreme body modifications. Those extreme body modifications fail to remove all the body cues. For instance, those hips don’t change and they don’t lie.

If a man (who was not pretending to be a woman) approached a teenage girl on the shop floor about a bra fitting - what would you think about that?

Still not a pervert?

As an experienced nurse, I would consider this very unwise and unacceptable practice for both the patient and the male trainee unless the trainee was accompanied by a female member of staff. Patient’s may be uncomfortable but not feel able to object, It also puts the male trainee at risk of unfounded allegations being made against him.

But that is not what happened here. There was no question of the assistant being involved in bra fitting.

This fucking enrages me.

For most girls (the "lucky" ones not to have endured even earlier childhood abuse ) it is growing breasts that brings the arrival of unwanted male attention, harassment and sometimes assault.

That lovely milestone you endure. No matter how much of a child you still feel inside, there's going to be a much older man reminding you of your true place in society.

There's an added layer of sick when that first uninvited male intrusion into your life comes cloaked in the respectability of such a well known department store as M&S. At least everyone despises the guys that shout from vans.