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.

Really doesn't matter if the man was acting out a sexual fetish of him being a woman or if he genuinely believes he has a female soul: he's a man and shouldn't be asking you g women if they want to talk about their bras with him.

Claiming that transphobia underpins this mother’s concern reflects paranoid thinking. There are sound and well reasoned arguments for not wanting males, however they identify, offering help in this context.

Most posters believe that sex is significant in some contexts and males with trans identities should not be classified as females in this context.
Maddy believes that males with trans identities should be classified as women in some or all sex significant contexts.

These are 2 world views can be debated and contested on merit. To try and dismiss or negate arguments on either side by claiming they are based on fear or hate is ridiculous. The people doing it are clearly failing to understand the arguments if this in the conclusion drawn

The thing that strikes me is that TRA are annoyed that the girl and her mother didnt follow the script.

Regardless of where he was supposed to be, the man asked a leading question to the girl. She's looking at bras, and he asks if she needs any help. So hes manufactured the situation where they are both thinking about bras at that point, and both know it.

She's likely to be embarrassed and her mother furious.

But what TRA want is the girl to acknowledged his femaleness at that point, to reassure them that her reaction is the reaction she would have to a women.

But hes not acting as any women would in that situation. Her mother and M&S recognising him as male, so theres a good chance she would also. Her reaction cannot be the same because hes not a woman behaving like a woman.

So the TRA have to pretend that this is exactly the same as someone in harrods helping an old lady buy a kettle. And that the girl needs to be less socially awkward and her mother less hysterical.

Are you seriously suggesting that Marks and Spencer employ men to harrass women and girls in their bra department?

Who are you talking to?

@Brainworm These are 2 world views can be debated and contested on merit.

Once upon a time I'd have nodded along, but at this stage it's Young Earth Creationism vs Science in general, Geology in particular, and soddit. Not doing it.

It's a dog.

Flat earthism is a world view that can be debated based on argument and evidence…pretty much everything can.

I’m happy to engage with people who hold the view that transphobia underpinned the mother’s (and girl’s) objection. They need to present reasoned argument and evidence against the explanations put forward as to why it isn’t an issue if transphobia for me to do so

In my experience of at least 35 years of independent shopping in M&S - I don't go as regularly as I used to because there isn't one close by - I can confirm, I have very rarely been approached by staff offering help, and that's been when there was a visible disability issue i.e. me trying to wrangle a basket with one arm in a sling.

Sometimes that policy of not approaching customers is exactly what you need. If I were to go into a specialist lingerie shop I'd expect to be asked if I need help. M&S on the other hand is a good place for a young girl who may be embarrassed to even talk to her mum about boobs, and certainly doesn't want to have that conversation with a random stranger.

If I were working in the bra department it would not occur to me to go up to a random unaccompanied minor and strike up a conversation about what would look good on her. The chances would be good that she would be mortified. If she were to approach me that would be a different matter.

If I weren't working in the bra department it would not occur to me to go into the bra department and strike up conversations with random customers, especially if they were unaccompanied minors.

If I were male... well, fill in the blanks wims, this looks like classic male pattern behaviour. Even if we're very charitable and it's just a TIM massively misreading the situation, that's what it looks like.

If you see it through the lens of male pattern behaviour, glibly saying that the girl could just say "no thanks" is a bit like saying a teen boy accosted by a nonce in the public toilets can politely say "no thanks" and go about his business. You have to be able to see it from the perspective of the person who is approached. Which some of our PPs seem to have a problem with.

If I were M&S, I'd be worried about the frequency of TIM staff popping up in lingerie departments. How many stores did we identify on the other thread, 8 or 9 at least? That looks like a disaster waiting to happen.

Would the argument for transphobia be that the mother would be happy for any other man to approach her daughter, or that she was transphobic for seeing the TW as male and not a woman?

Would TRA be happier if the report was about a male employee, or is that worse?

Im not asking anyone, im just thinking aloud.

I think the second one, with a side order of “you can’t tell what sex they were”.

Let's consider another scenario.
A 9 year old is playing in a park. Maybe they are entirely on their own, maybe their parent is somewhere else in the park (let's say they are with a younger sibling).

Consider you are a random adult not known to the child. You have no children of your own with you. Is it ok for you to go up to the child and offer to push them on the swing or help them on the monkey bars? After all the child could always say no, and it's not like you are doing anything suspect, you are just being helpful.
Now let's consider that this adult is trans. If the child's parent kicks up a huge fuss and tells you to get away from their child, is this because they are being transphobic or for some other reason?

Genderists signed up when the slogan was NO DEBATE (as I've said, I think this was deliberate, to shut up women (mainly) complaining about sexual abuses carried out by men). NO DEBATE was used to shut up any feminist discussion. Or to try to shut it up, thank you MN for letting it continue.

But I fear that that deliberate exercise in narrowing minds to the level of closure left a lot of people unable to debate, they just didn't learn the skills. And now they're going to outsource their opinions to AI.

Some of them will eventually encounter a personal sticking point.

Not surprised who started this thread (eye roll)

as in: 'who else would be so foolish as to draw attention to the issue over the weekend when the people who hadn't had time to read it midweek will be around?'

😁

How about addressing the point that M&S policy is for retail staff to NOT approach customers and ask if they need help?

I think in this is the sort of question that the transwomen posted could helpfully contribute to.

A similar question is: where a female in a sex-significant environment has a preference for service to be provided by a female, what is the preferred way of letting a transwoman know that you do not want service from them and if they ask why you don’t want it from them, what is the preferred way of letting them know that it’s because they are male.

🙃

Still a classic line😉

Its how every TW 'incident' plays out-

How did we know they were trans?

It didn’t occur exactly how someone on the twitter claimed it did.

Its normal behaviour

They were just doing their job

Questioning it is pearl clutching. We are teaching our children to be afraid of strangers or differences.

Its like saying lesbians cant work

Why do we have safeguarding anyway?

Indeed, but if I were on the board of M&S I'd be saying "maybe we shouldn't hire Captain Oveur"

If she has said yes I would expect a shop assistant to assist ....

Eyes?

it’s been confirmed many many times that it’s not M&S policy to approach customers. He wasn’t even working in that department. He approached a lone CHILD for zero reason, stop justifying it.

Please do not try and suggest creepy men are like lesbians.

Thinking about it, its probably an equity issue - the mother wouldn't complain about a passing TW. If happy to be treated by a passing TW, its prejudice to treat a non-passing TW differently.

It assumes not knowing equals consent.

The problem with asking for solutions - what exactly should the girl or mother say, it allows the man to carry on with his behaviour.

Posted this on the other M&S thread but will put here.

Some of the views mirror the official M&S stance; that it’s ok for men to try and discuss underwear with children. The company won’t say men who work for them won’t, or implement such a policy, so essentially saying “children may be approached by men who work in our stores to check if they need help with underwear purchases. It’s fine.”

It seems a company that’s totally disjointed and at odds with itself. The first communication with the mum was apologising and confirming the employee should not have been in the lingerie section. Then it hit the press and the official line dialled back that admission to suggest they should have been and it was a totally normal interaction. They also rather concerningly refused to acknowledge the issue being around the fact the girl is 14 and described the child as a “customer”. How has the issue been dealt with internally regarding that first apology? They’re in a tricky position either way with employee rights.

have pointed out the employee is identifiable. Is M&S leaving its staff open to this? If the mum had complained about bearded Gavin from food approaching her daughter in lingerie would they have said “oh sorry, come back and we’ll make sure Gavin doesn’t ask her about bras (though it might happen again to other girls).” The mum would have gone on X and told everyone his name as a warning, but the company would likely have taken the issue more seriously to start with and it wouldn’t have gone that far. On X the mum described the employee who went up to her 14 year old as a man of about 6,2 in tight jeans and shirt. She doesn’t say if she saw a name badge but whatever additional details she gave to the company were enough for them to know which employee she was referring to.

One pp accused the mum of transphobia, supposing that the mum wouldn’t mind any other man from the store engaging with her child about underwear (🤨). And without a confirmation or policy either way from M&S, the store is actually greenlighting all its male staff to do just that from now on if they want to. “She looked bewildered by all the different styles of knickers, I was just being nice and offering to help, like thingy did in that other store”. Wild.

You've misunderstood my post

This all day long.
The OP started this thread to try to perpetuate the idea that women should never challenge a creepy man and that safeguarding children is a bad thing.

Of course, it's done precisely the opposite as apart from several people with zero interest (or understanding) of how society safeguards young people, they've simply allowed women to highlight how worryingly often certain transactivists are involved in, or promote, dodgy behaviour from men.

This is meant to be our new norm - a continuation of #nodebate with women being too frightened to speak out. It's not working as safeguarding children is built into being a parent while promoting male fetishes, not so much.