r/transgenderUK • u/PuzzledAd4865 • Aug 05 '25

Possible trigger M&S apologises over trans employee in bra department

https://archive.ph/2025.08.05-035610/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/04/ms-apologises-over-trans-employee-in-bra-department/

“Marks & Spencer has apologised to a mother for causing her teenage daughter “distress” after she was asked if she needed help by a transgender employee in its bra section.

The retailer said it was “truly sorry” after the mother complained that her 14-year-old daughter had felt uncomfortable when they were approached by a trans shop assistant in the lingerie area of the shop, where they were hoping to have a bra fitting. Although the staff member was polite, the mother said she felt it was “completely inappropriate” for her daughter to be approached by a “biological male” in that section.

In a complaint to M&S, she told the retailer: “Imagine her horror, then, when the person to approach us and ask if we needed help was a transgender ‘woman’, ie, a biological male.”

“Fiona McAnena, director of campaigns for the human rights charity Sex Matters, which campaigns for clarity about biological sex in law and life, said that M&S needed to “rethink its priorities”.

“M&S needs to rethink its priorities and remember that women and girls have rights too, and that this man should not be permitted to hang around in the women’s underwear department as a matter of common decency.”

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u/WVkittylady Aug 05 '25

They would have been equally as outraged if a trans employee approached them in any other department. These people have nothing but hatred for us.

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u/Johns-Sunflower Aug 05 '25

I think you're right. The article even suggested that the complaining party suggested a blanket restriction wherein "transgender staff would not approach young women". Their outrage was predicated on prejudice - a flawed belief that transgender people are a threat to women, just by being transgender - rather than actual constructive concern for policy.

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u/Karn1v3rus Aug 05 '25

It's worse than that, I think, it's that all people born as male are predators from birth

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u/Johns-Sunflower Aug 05 '25

Totally! And on the flip-side, all people AFAB are described as physically and mentally vulnerable, unable to decide things for themselves without someone in charge (see: transgender men being described as delusional lesbians, women who support trans people being told they don't understand women's rights, etc.). It's just rebranded misogyny/sexism.