Of course I'd be happy for a trans employee to fit my daughter's first bra

Independent

2 days ago

I remember going to get measured for my first bra in the 1990s. It was in Marks and Spencer, of course, the retailer has had a firm hold on that particular market for decades, and I absolutely cringed with embarrassment.
Honestly, I nearly died. I crossed my arms over my chest and huffed self-consciously; I counted down the minutes until it was over and acted every inch the recalcitrant teenager who hated both the experience and everyone around me, including my mum.
Fast forward 30 years, and when I recently took my daughter for her first bra fitting, I was peculiarly gratified to see that she acted pretty much the same way I did. Teenagers may have smartphones and TikTok and all the tech and street smarts we didn't, but some things really do never change.
The one thing that has changed, on the whole, is Gen Alpha's greater understanding and empathy towards those around them. And so much the better.
Half of my daughter's friends school the adults around them in the right pronouns to use for their peers. 'They/them' is second nature to most of these kids. Us dinosaur millennials and Gen X-ers, meanwhile, should stand happily corrected (and make an effort to get it right when we slip up).
Which is why, when I read the story about M&S – the same M&S who boast about being 'Your M&S,' which presumably includes their own employees – reportedly apologising for 'distress' over a trans member of staff asking a teenage customer if she needed any help in its bra section, I only had one question: what on earth were they apologising for?
The mother of the teenager in question, who complained to the store, said the retail assistant was 'polite', but that her daughter felt 'uncomfortable' with the experience. M&S told her: 'We deeply regret the distress your daughter felt during her visit to our store,' and that 'We understand how important this milestone is for her, and we are truly sorry that it did not go as you had hoped.'
To which all I have to say is: show me a teenager who doesn't feel uncomfortable in the lingerie section of Marks & Spencer, and I'll show you a miracle. Of course, there's more going on here – a lot more.
The mother apparently blamed the reason for her daughter's discomfort on the fact that the staff member seemed to be 'a biological male' – at 6ft 2in, it was 'obvious', she is reported to have said. To that claim, I will now quote my friend and colleague Kat Brown, who wrote after the Supreme Court ruled on the legal definition of a woman in April: 'This ruling also means that any woman who doesn't resemble some mythical feminine ideal also risks being challenged in loos and changing rooms' – and indeed, this has already happened to Kat, who stands at a statuesque 6ft 1in.
We don't know whether the staff member who reached out to offer assistance to this 14-year-old child was trans, and it doesn't even appear that they were offering to fit bras for her. But even if she were trans, she was just doing her job, and doing it well, by all accounts. Doesn't every one of us deserve to be able to do that without discrimination or prejudice, let alone an apology from our employer related to us simply existing?
Had the person offering to help my 13-year-old daughter in the M&S undies department been trans, I would have had no problem with it – and crucially, neither would she. How do I know? I asked her.
My daughter's exact response (with the inevitable bit of exasperated sighing) to being helped, or even fitted, was: 'I'd hate anyone measuring me, Mummy. Why would it make any difference if they were trans?'
When I explained the nuances of this particular situation, she added a cutting: 'Why is this a story?'
I understand those defending personal choice. In an ideal world, nobody would feel uncomfortable – especially children. But isn't it our job, as parents (and members of society at large) to unpick this discomfort and name it for what it really is: prejudice. And to teach our children, just as we teach them to treat others equally, to be kind through our example.
What would you say if you heard, for example, that a person of colour working in M&S had approached a teenage customer and politely offered assistance, only for the teenager to feel uncomfortable, the parent to be outraged and complain about their 'distress' – and the store to write an apology?
In 2025, trans people are under fire like never before. The most recent data from the Home Office shows that offences motivated by hostility or prejudice against transgender people or people perceived to be transgender have risen; at the same time that trans people have effectively been banned from using public spaces, including toilets, thanks to the Supreme Court ruling on biological sex.
There's only one person that M&S has let down here – and it's not a customer. It's their employee.