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.

On the other thread an ex M&S employee confirmed that it’s company policy not to approach customers. I’ve never been approached speculatively in an M&S ever. Thats over 35 years of independent shopping. So for any M&S staff member to approach a customer is unusual.

The staff member was male. The staff member was not deployed to help in the lingerie department but had gone there on their own initiative.

The customer was an unaccompanied teen girl in the underwear section. The customer appeared to be an unaccompanied minor (parent nearby but not obvious). Any adult male staff offering to help this customer in this specific and sensitive context is putting themselves at serious risk of accusations. Irrelevant that they were trans tbh

Lol.

A cross dressing man going out of his way to walk into a department he doesn't work in to ask a young teen about bras isn't 'normal interaction' in anyone's book.

Apart from yours, obviously.

1. Staff in M&S are not supposed to approach customers.

1. This person was not working in this particular department

1. When spoken to by the mother this person turned away and left the department (because they shouldn't have been there in the first place)

This was a creepy guy acting inappropriately, actually his trans status doesn't really come into it, he was a male acting inappropriately. The only reason this gets defended at all is because 'trans'. We do not need another sacred caste above suspicion

Edit: it changed my numbering:/

This is a total non story and I am entitled to my opinion. Sorry if you can’t handle that and think these boards are only for posters who agree 💯 with everything you say.

Yes - and I suspect that's the experience of so many women on here. Which is why we completely get how creepy and inappropriate that man's behaviour was.

Many men however are completely clueless....

Yes this. Men are employed in stores too. Noone would bat an eyelid I'd a male shop assistant asked a customer If they would like any help. This is pure transphobia

Thanks @KnottyAuty- if that is the series of events then I stand corrected. It does sound like it could have been distressing for the young girl and worthy of an apology. I haven’t seen anything in the press supporting that version.

Poor kid going through that mortifying first experience of unexpected boobage in the chest area would have been uncomfortable talking to anyone (even, as said upthread, her own mother) and was probably taken to M&S specifically because it was a place she could be guaranteed no obligation to talk to anyone.

Except.

We all know that once we grew breasts there was an exponential increase in unwanted male attention, much of it, yes, creepy (is there another word for adult males who view 14 year olds in a sexualised way?). Pity that girl's bad experiences started so soon.

I would. In this context I want trans people to be treated in the exact same ways a everyone else. Same rights, same responsibilities.

No adult men accosting lone teenagers.

Off topic, but why were you banned?

Imagine asking what style bra she was looking for, whether she wanted a full cup, padded, T shirt bra. The type of fabric, lace or whatever. The size she’d want…

All bras are displayed so there is absolutely no requirement for an assistant to even approach a customer and M&S assistants are very scarce on the shop floor. Some are on the check out desk and the auto self service tills.

If you need a fitting, you have to arrange an appointment.

I’d have died of embarrassment if someone offered to help me choose a bra if I was only 14.

The Mum wouldn’t have publicised this event if it hadn’t happened and M&S wouldn’t have responded as they did if it was untrue.

Yep but you are a grown adult.

This was a teenager in the bra section who didnt ask for help. I go into M&S regularly anf my experience mirrors others, I can never find anyone to help me and I have never been approached by a member of staff.

The point is you haven't even bothered to read the thread about why there are concerns and just assumed it was transphobic rather than a safeguarding issue.

I'm not expecting everyone to agree but bothering to actually understand why people have an issue is helpful first.
.

Sounds like you’ve not been in M&S since the millennium!

I did try it for Mastitis too.

Way back in the last century when I lived in a city with an M&S, if the bra you hoped to find wasn't on display in your size there was a deep drawer under the hangers you could check through. Very useful.

No assistants turning up to ask 'can I help you?' - fortunately, because it's the thing most guaranteed to be make me leave any shop of any kind. If I want help I'll ask.

This thread is seeming populated with people who earnestly believe that department stores are still staffed as they were in the 1960s - y’all (sic) should get out more!

Concerned mum raises a safeguarding problem about an incident in M&S, that involves a transwoman.

Cool kids across the internet- TRANSPHOBIA

Mum and other women- erm, safeguarding. Unaccompanied child in lingerie department, and…

TRANSPHOBIA

… underwear, bras, child, safeguarding

TRANSPHOBIA

… M&S policy, safeguarding…

TRANSPHOBIA TRANSPHOBIA SHUT UP TRANSPHOBIA

Similar thing happened to me when I was a teen. I wasn’t in the paper but he asked for me by name. The fact that he ended up slamming the phone down on me (he wasn’t getting the reaction he wanted) is irrelevant. His intentions were totally creepy.

Nope. I have read the full thread (and various news articles). And loads of other threads, front to back, top to bottom.

The point is you are massively patronising and dismissive to anyone who disagrees with you.

In a women's hall of residence and we'd get creepy men phoning up on the payphone asking if our swimming costumes went transparent when we went swimming.
Different decade, same perverts.

Lies from OP. Surprised. 🙄🙄

Your not a teenage girl trying to buy her 1st bra so how you feel is irrelevant.
And btw no man should be approaching a teenage girl in the lingerie department ever

This is not "transphobia". Whether or not the male employee identifies as 'trans' is irrelevant. A male M&S worker, whether trans or not, should not be approaching a seeminly unaccompanied teenage girl in the bra department, offering 'help'!

No adult male should be randomly approaching teenage girls. Full stop. The end. Fck off and take your dicks with you.