Unexpected man in the lingerie section

Having a bra fitted for the first time can be an uncomfortable experience for a teenage girl. Understandably, the last person she would wish to assist her at such a moment would be a six-foot-two bloke. And yet this is exactly what was suggested to a mother who took her daughter to be fitted in a Marks & Spencer store.

The mother claims that, back in March, she and her daughter were approached in the lingerie section by a transgender shop assistant who offered to help them. The mother ‘politely declined the offer’ and immediately exited the store. The child was left ‘visibly upset’ by the interaction.

There is no plausible explanation as to why a male shop assistant – no matter how well he was ‘passing’ as female – should have been giving smiley guidance to a child between racks of underwear. Placing a biologically male employee in such a role is ‘completely inappropriate’, said the girl’s mother.

M&S should have known better. As Fiona McAnena, director of campaigns for charity Sex Matters, explains in today’s Telegraph: ‘This is what happens when a business centres the feelings of men who identify as women, even at the expense of their own customers.’ ‘It’s extraordinary that a man would regard himself as entitled to do such a thing – most men know how unwelcome that would be’, she says.

After the girl’s mother made a complaint to the store, M&S did issue an apology. An email sent the following day said: ‘We understand how important this milestone is for [your daughter], and we are truly sorry that it did not go as you had hoped.’ M&S promised that should her daughter return, she would receive assistance ‘from a female colleague’. It also claimed it would implement a policy to ensure that transgender staff would no longer approach young women in the lingerie section.

All of which sounds reasonable. Yet M&S really shouldn’t have got itself into this mess in the first place. No teenage girl should be approached by a bloke in the lingerie section of one of its stores. Simply being a young teenage girl is awkward enough as it is, even without having to navigate the trans nonsense.

Georgina Mumford is a spiked intern.