Misinformation correction: M&S Staff

[BeeSourianteAgain]

M&S have responded to people's enquiries, here's one:

https://bsky.app/profile/dpdormouse.bsky.social/post/3lvuzitrplc2f

As expected the staff member was just doing their job, something that happens thousands of times a day in shops all over the country.

As per normal, the trans panic was manufactured.

I fully expect all the GCs and media pundits who were pushing all sorts of hate to apologise, but as a person on their second LGBTQ moral panic I know very well how it goes.

Except it’s there in black and white on actual live job ads for M&S sales roles. I linked to one on another thread.

But sure, random transphobes on mumsnet definitely know what’s in a sales assistants job description than the actual job description itself.

M&S could have killed concerns.

They haven't.

All the speculation about what did or didn't happen, is actually irrelevant in the end.

M&S refuse to engage on the point about training staff in safeguarding customers.

Because a sales assistant of any sex politely checking if customers need help and going about their day if they say no isn’t a safeguarding issue, even if the customers are a mother shopping with her teenage daughter.

Which is why every description of what happened has to outright lie (eg JKR telling her millions of followers that the employee was offering bra fitting, claiming that the girl was ‘accosted’, that the employee was ‘hovering around’), or to use really fucking weird language like the employee ‘made contact’ as if she was an extra terrestrial being bumping into the girl.

The lies are necessary because no one believes that what actually happened is actually some outrageous breach of safeguarding.

Yes it is.

Many many people who have safeguarding training are highlighting it's a safeguarding fail.

May I ask AGAIN, what safeguarding training have you had and why are you seeking to undermine safeguarding principles?

Anyone who tries to suggest that the safeguarding concerns of so many people are not legitimate is a walking red flag.

Or as if those of us who do not want our trans friends to suffer recognise an absolutely abhorrent and dangerous trend of transphobes to identify a specific individual and use a pliant media and celebrity power to actively lie about them.

So what’s your explanation as to why so many people talking about how outrageous this all is have to lie about what happened.

If ‘trans sales assistant politely checks if mother and teenage daughter shopping in lingerie department need help and goes about her day when they say no’ is really an outrageous safeguarding risk, why are so many folk like JKR having to lie and embellish?

There’s a very simple answer - none of you actually believe that what actually happened stands up as anything even vaguely worthy of the outrage.

I believe in a store known for allowing undisturbed browsing that a male member of staff went to a department he was not assigned to at that time and approached and offered help to a minor who appeared unaccompanied, that is completely inappropriate.

How would it benefit M&S to lie about what happened?

Men should not 'check', politely or otherwise, if young girls need help with their bra shopping @PlanetJanette

The fact that you dont get this is a massive red flag for you, let alone the people's you are attempting to cover for.

You keep raising straw men.

The core of this is the following.

Adult males should not talk to lone teenage girls (who are not their own children) about their bras in ANY situation whatsoever OR put themselves into a situation where the conversation is highly likely to talk about bras OR they may be perceived that they are talking to an underage child about bras.

M&S are not addressing this point.

It's not even about this particular incident. It's about a general policy by M&S to commit to informing and training staff about this.

They don't want to.

Attempts to suggest the story is about ANYTHING else is either ignorance, naviety or deliberately and willful dishonesty.

A disturbing number of people are using the story as a way to try and undermine safeguarding principles. Many seem to be doing so in a fundamentally dishonest manner. You are one such poster who has raised more red flags than most on this score.

@PlanetJanette- you have a significant blind spot in dismissing legitimate concerns as transphobia.

I have a lot of compassion for people who experience real and abject distress due to their sex. This is similar to my compassion for those who desperately want to be a parent but, for reasons beyond their control, cannot have children. In both instances, the longing can be profound and the grief difficult to tolerate.

In both instances, we can hold space for their pain, listen with kindness, and affirm their worth as human being. We can also recognise that people with trans identities are not the sex they want to be, without this being a product of transphobia.

At no point did JKR mention bra fitting.

She mentioned the M&S employee offering help with bras.

There's a difference.

HTH.

So now it's "outrage". Based on what we know, from what the mother and M&S themselves have told us, a male shopworker approached a 14 year old girl who appeared to be on her own in the lingerie department and asked her if she wanted help [with choosing her bra]. As a father, I would not have been happy if that had been my daughter. The mother raised this with M&S, and was not satisfied with their response.

Because social media works the way it does, a big debate has arisen around this, and not surprisingly some people have picked up an exaggerated version of events. Some people have concentrated on the man being trans, and this has resulted predictably in the usual nonsense from trans allies who cannot countenance the suggestion that a man (who claims to be a woman) did something inappropriate. But the actual actions of the man were inappropriate and M&S should be ensuring that their staff, and especially the man himself, understand that the likely feelings of a girl shopping for her first bra are to be respected. It is particularly concerning that some adults think that a girl should be taught to suppress her feelings of alarm and embarrassment in this situation.

I ask again can you explain why you think M&S is issuing statments which contain lies?

A male, with any gender identity, who proactively approaches a women or child who is browsing bras and not seeking advice or guidance, at best shows a remarkable lack of insight and empathy for how this behaviour could be perceived or experienced by a woman or girl.

The fact that you might not find this a problem should not be your ‘north star’ for considering why and how others might object.

Honestly it pathetic! Sad adult male with hurty feelings versus an embarrassed 14 year old adolescent.

He is the adult and should have emotional maturity and awareness of the situation he put himself into.

What comes first in you world?

Safeguarding and child protection or the rights of a TW to approach a young adolescent in the lingerie section?

Unless you're in a bank, where you will immediately be accosted by a tablet wielding staff member to ensure you don't approach the counter, where there is one member of staff on duty despite it being lunchtime when customers need to carry out their business before they're due back at work.

Looking at you Bank of Scotland.

Sorry for the derail. As you were.

I work in a different store we are also expected to "proactively engage" customers, basically means try and upsell once the customer makes first contact.

You need to use a Halifax branch if you can, your BoS card won’t work in their automated machines so you just go to the counter. My local Halifax branch staff are brilliant.

Sorry but that's a tra tactic including doxing them organising a pile on of them, their family and jobs.
Davro is a well known tactic aswell you might want to try it on somewhere where you'll find people nieve enough to fall for it

A male person in a (short) skirt approached me and DD in JL underwear dept in Leeds a couple of years ago and asked if we needed any help.
I was pretty unimpressed and have never bought undies there since.
I didn't find the person intimidating but I thought it was incredibly inappropriate and was glad DD wasn't on her own.

Although it has just dawned on me that perhaps men do always get asked if they need help, so this TW thought that wasnt strange behaviour?

You might be on to something there, @illinivich . I expect men hanging around lingerie departments are often met with a pointed "can I help you?" as the more socially acceptable way of saying "what the fuck are doing here?"

So no explanation on why so many people feel the need to lie about what happened?

What a surprise?

We can surely agree that lying about what a trans person did in order to whip up outrage is transphobic though, right?

Since you’re so compassionate and all, I assume you’ll have no problem in recognising that lying about someone from a minority group in order to stoke outrage relating to common tropes about that group is one of the hallmarks of bigotry?