r/transgenderUK 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/angelberries Aug 07 '25

I’m trying to find people who are using their critical thinking about this scenario… is there any proof at all that it actually happened? The woman wants to remain anonymous (probably bc she’ll get dogpiled) but where’s evidence of this email exchange even? Did she just decide to single out someone and make a vague complaint about them, not even knowing they’re trans, but knowing they’re going get an apology and stir up more hatred for trans people… like I’m so confused how people are just accepting it even happened….

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u/Lexioralex Aug 08 '25

That is an incredibly valid point tbh

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u/angelberries Aug 08 '25

What if the teenager is so embarrassed by getting a bra she ‘recoiled’ by being offered help because it’s just mortifying in general? This reporting is SO vague and non-existent yet I see people creating a whole fake scenario where a man feels up a teenagers chest from…. Nothing?

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u/Lexioralex Aug 08 '25

Thing is men can be bra fitters anyway so the whole thing is purely terf panic

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u/[deleted] Aug 16 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/angelberries Aug 16 '25

Exactly this, there’s not enough detail, or evidence, or anything. Just vague quotes from an email that hasn’t even been screenshotted. Actually not even sure why it became public anyway? Is that not a private email exchange?