Young girls find bra-buying excruciating enough without ‘help' from trans M&S workers

Telegraph

19 hours ago

Taking one's daughter for her first bra fitting is so excruciating that when that time came for my third daughter, I outsourced this rite of passage to her older sister.
Show me a girl who is not self-conscious about her body at that age and I will show you a liar. It doesn't matter how open you have been as a parent, it is all, as the kids say, 'awks'.
Usually, the bustling no-nonsense ladies of John Lewis or M&S take over and thank god for that. For the terminally shy, online purchases come to the rescue.
In such a situation, I have asked for help while my eldest curled up in embarrassment beside me. The idea that anyone would approach us at all is extraordinary, but a big unit in the shape of a 6ft 2in transgender woman, aka a biological man? Just no.
Yet is exactly what happened recently to a mother and daughter in M&S. The mother, who complained, said her daughter 'freaked out'. M&S have apologised. But really what are they playing at? Of course, trans people can be employed in the store. But sticking them in the lingerie section? What could possibly go wrong?
This is a company, after all, that apologised for and withdrew an ad that said: ' First bras for fearless young things.' Note the dehumanising use of the word 'things' – it is as if the words girls must be erased to satisfy the need of some poor boys who identify as the opposite sex.
M&S have yet more form on this. For years it has proclaimed itself as an 'inclusive retailer' allowing men who identify as women into its changing rooms. They claim their changing rooms are secure and private. But why should women even have to think about this? Why this insane tussle over our rights to privacy and safety given this is what most of the public want and more to the point, what most of its female customers want?
The drive from corporates, brand consultants and strung-out ad execs high on their own supply of loopy-loo ideas of diversity is producing a culture that is strangely dated and irrelevant.
What on earth, for instance, was that super-queer Jaguar ad, which featured a range of interesting-looking androgynous models – but no actual car – about? Do potential Jag owners want to 'create exuberant', 'delete ordinary' and 'live vivid'? Do they even understand what this nonsense means?
We are not in Kansas any more. The gender cult has peaked. This has come about through a number of cases, tribunals and reviews culminating in the Supreme Court Equality Act ruling, which clarified the law by explaining that gender identity does not trump biology.
Just as importantly though, as more light has been shone on this subject (often by women objecting to having our boundaries violated), public attitudes have shifted hugely in the last five years.
The most recent YouGov survey shows that the public across all age groups does not want men in women's spaces, understands that there is a clash with women's rights at times and does not support the use of puberty blockers.
I also suspect that many people, when questioned about the rights of transwomen to be in female spaces, clearly did not understand that most were in fact, fully intact men who have not transitioned beyond some poorly applied slap.
We are currently living through a moment in which several of our politicians and much of our culture is not up to speed on this – another worrying sign of just out of touch they are.
Gender-critical views are not some aberration beloved only by middle-aged hags: they have, in fact, become the majority view.
The more informed people have become on this subject, the more they have rejected cult thinking.
The outlier position is now to welcome biological men into women's refuges (would-be Green leader Zack Polanski) or into women's prisons (Nigel Farage, who ended up doing a U-turn on that view 24 hours later).
The case for medicalisation and sterilisation of children we can leave to the likes of deranged fanatics like Jolyon Maugham and Dr Helen Webberley.
Sadly, the cultural establishment also joins those holding out against reality, with writers, academics, novelists, artists and TV types being the most blinkered of all. It turns out that they are mostly gutless authoritarians.
The Edinburgh International Book Festival will not platform any of our excellent gender critical writers, such as Jenny Lindsay (author of Hounded, about the witch-hunt of women by trans activists) or the contributors to the best-selling set of essays The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht: Voices from the Front-Line of Scotland's Battle for Women's Rights.
The festival is operating with basically a No Debate policy. Its star turn is, of course, Nicola Sturgeon – who was brought down partly by her gender lunacy. The festival organisers prefer to stay in their comfort zone untroubled, it would appear, by law or public opinion. These folk are far too genteel to espouse book burning but they don't need to. Their cultural negligence and denial suffices.
In their bubble of faux radicalism, their views (any bloke can be a woman!) have no consequences in the real world. Oh but they do.
They have consequences in small ways – men offering teenage girls 'help' with bras – and in big ways, when women lose careers and credibility for stating the truth. Just last month, at London's Pride rally, we again saw demonstrations on our streets, where signs saying 'Kill Terfs' and threats of violence to women were paraded.
Make no mistake, these people are sore losers in every way. This is why we remain keen to protect our spaces and our daughters.