In the United Kingdom this week a story appeared in The Telegraph newspaper reporting that British retailer Marks and Spencer (M&S) has offered an apology to a mother and her 14-year-old daughter after they complained that a employee, who they believed to be transgender, offered to assist them on the shop floor.
It was claimed that the mother and her daughter had entered the lingerie section of a M&S store hoping to arrange an appointment for the daughter’s first ever bra fitting, when a female presenting shop assistant approached them and asked if they needed assistance.
In her complaint the mother said the shop assistant was polite, but they were upset because they believed the employee was a “biological male” arguing that this was “obviously the case” because they were quite tall.
The mother said her teenage daughter was freaked out and distressed to be approached by the employee and they left the shop, writing a complaint about their experience. They suggested the retailer should implement a policy preventing any transgender staff from offering assistance to young girls.
The following day the retailer wrote an apology to the customer saying they were sorry she’d had a negative experience, and offered to arrange for a female worker to serve them if they returned to the store.
The story has quickly spread around the world, author J.K Rowling has called for people to boycott the store, and conservative pundits have filled the airwaves with their takes on the tale, each time the details being slightly changed, warped and altered.
As British outlet Pink News has highlighted the known facts are limited.
While the mother complained about the employee being transgender, there has been no confirmation that the employee was trans.
In subsequent instances of telling of the complaint it’s been suggested the employee had offered to fit the teenager’s first bra, or was in the process of fitting a bra. This was never claimed in the complaint – they were just upset that a person they believed to be transgender asked if they needed help in the lingerie section of the store.
It’s been highlighted that bra fittings at Marks and Spencer are by appointment only, and specially trained staff undertake this work. There complaint is not that the staff member offered to undertake a bra fitting, their complaint is just that they encountered an employee in the lingerie section who they believed to be assigned male at birth.
As discussion rages on about the incident its been suggested by some commentators that the lingerie section of department stores should be protected women only spaces, which is not the current law in Britain, and leaves you wondering if this would rule out men ever buying lingerie for their wives, and also how transgender women as customers would ever buy bras.
Marks and Spencer have issued a statement on the incident with a spokesperson noting that their colleagues (how they refer to their team members) usually work across multiple areas of the store.
“We want our stores to be inclusive and welcoming places for our colleagues and customers. We have written to this customer and explained that our colleagues typically work across all departments in our stores and customers can always ask to speak to the colleague they feel most comfortable with.”
Here in Australia on Sky News, where Danica De Giorgio was hosting The Rita Panahi Show, she commented on the incident during a discussion with Stephanie Bastian from Australian Women’s Forum saying that the case is an example of why there needs to be legislation that ensures transgender people are not allowed in spaces designated as a women only spaces.
On The Late Debate host James Macpherson said the M&S employee has “harassed” the 14-year-old, despite the original report saying the mother had described the staff member as having been “polite”.
While Author J.K Rowling has claimed that M&S are “flouting” the recent UK Supreme Court ruling on protecting women spaces, Macpherson acknowledged that the incident had actually occurred five months ago in March, a month before that decision was handed down.
On the UK’s Talk TV host Mike Graham spoke to Heather Binning founder of the UK’s Women’s Rights Network who said that she believed there were no circumstances where a man should talk to a teenage girl.
“Good men do not approach fourteen-year-old girls in any circumstance, but particularly in a lingerie department.” Binning said.
In other reports from Talk TV the girl is described as be “pre-teen” although she was fourteen, and in an interview with ‘gender critical’ author Helen Joyce, host Julia Hartley-Brewer commented on the M&S employee asking “Have we checked his hard drive? I would like his hard drive checked.”
The reality is an employee asked a customer if they needed help. Maybe she was trans, maybe she was just tall.
