Latest news with #brafitting
Telegraph
6 days ago
- General
- Telegraph
Young girls find bra-buying excruciating enough without ‘help' from trans M&S workers
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.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Voices: Of course I'd be happy for a trans employee to fit my daughter's first bra
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.
The Independent
6 days ago
- General
- The Independent
Of course I'd be happy for a trans employee to fit my daughter's first bra
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.
Telegraph
04-08-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
M&S 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 trans 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 transgender shop assistant in the lingerie area of the store, 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 part of the store. 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. 'Visibly upset' 'This is obviously the case: he is at least 6ft 2in tall... My daughter recoiled, so I politely declined the offer and we left immediately. She was visibly upset and said she felt 'freaked out'.' The following day, an M&S customer service assistant replied, apologising for the incident. 'Thank you for reaching out to us and sharing your experience,' the email said. 'We deeply regret the distress your daughter felt during her visit to our store. 'We understand how important this milestone is for her, and we are truly sorry that it did not go as you had hoped.' The retailer said it took her concerns 'very seriously' and would ensure her daughter 'receives assistance from a female colleague during her next visit'. 'We want to make this experience as comfortable and positive as possible for her. Please let us know when you plan to visit again, and we will make the necessary arrangements,' the email said. The Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that trans women can be excluded from women-only spaces because equality law protecting women refers to biological sex. Britain's highest court ruled that transgender women are not legally women, and that 'sex' in equality law refers only to biological sex. The incident in M&S, in March, came a few weeks before the ruling. In her complaint, the mother argued that the retailer's response fell 'significantly short of the response that was required to satisfy me that M&S takes seriously the safety and dignity of women and girls'. The mother, who asked to remain anonymous, said that the retailer had acknowledged 'this colleague is not female' but this was 'not sufficient to offer just my daughter the protection of not being approached by him'. She asked the retailer for confirmation that it would not happen to any other teenagers, and that M&S would implement a policy to ensure that transgender staff would not approach young women. It is understood that the staff member involved works across the clothing section as well as other parts of the shop and is not one of the staff members who carries out bra fittings. 'Entirely inappropriate' 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'. '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 is entirely inappropriate for a man to approach a teenage girl in a lingerie department. Being dressed in women's clothes doesn't change that. It's extraordinary that a man would regard himself as entitled to do such a thing; most men know how unwelcome that would be. '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.' An M&S spokesman: '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.'
Daily Mail
02-07-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
Hate underwires? Feel intense relief when you take your bra off? You could be making the same mistake as 85% of women, according to a lingerie expert
Wearing the wrong size bra is incredibly common; in fact, some estimates say up to 85% of women in the UK aren't wearing the right size. This is partly because many women think bra fitting is a one-and-done experience. You get your bra professionally fitted in your late teens, for example, and then stick with it for years. However, women's bodies change and fluctuate - not just over years but even within the same month, thanks to the menstruation cycle. That's why it's best to get measured more regularly, if possible. If you're hesitant to commit to regular fittings, it's at least worth arming yourself with the knowledge of what an ill-fitting bra looks and feels like. Below, Alexandra Cracknell, Senior Designer at lingerie brand Dorina, shares her expertise on the signs you are wearing the wrong size bra. You avoid underwire at all costs Underwire isn't supposed to hurt you and if it does, that is a sign you are wearing the wrong size or style for your body type. A well-fitting underwire bra should feel effortless and like nothing at all on the body. If an underwire bra is hurting, it is likely the wire is sitting on the breast tissue rather than the body. Not many women know where breast tissue starts, so when you press your finger on the wire of the bra, if you are not feeling your ribs, you are feeling your breast tissue. This breast tissue needs to be fully in the cup for the correct fit. You feel intense relief when you take it off Feeling really intense relief at the end of the day when you take your bra off should not be a normal feeling; a well-fitting bra shouldn't feel like a cage you're escaping from. The underband of the bra should sit firmly on the body if it is fitting correctly. It should not be too tight or too loose. The band should be parallel to the floor all the way around the body. If you sigh with relief at the end of the day when you take your bra off this is a clear sign to go and get measured! You have neck pain or headaches An ill-fitting bra, particularly one with a loose band around the torso, can cause neck and upper back strain, which can lead to tension headaches. To negate this, find a bra with a better-fitting band, as it distributes weight more evenly and relieves pressure on your neck and shoulder muscles. Wide, adjustable straps can help this as it reduces straining on the shoulder. A clear way to spot your bra is too loose on your underband is to check in a mirror how it is sitting. If it is riding up your back with the back clasp sitting higher compared to the front of your bra then you're in the wrong size. You constantly feel tired Yes, that is right - your bra can be making you feel tired. If you are physically exhausted by the middle of the day and it feels like your upper body is dragging, your bra might be the reason. A supportive, well-fitting bra should make you feel lifted, not weighed down. You have red marks or dents on the skin Dents in the skin from bra straps are common, but red marks under your breasts or on your ribcage can mean the underwire or band is too tight or not sitting right on your body. Breasts should be fully encased in the cup and the wire resting on the ribs rather than breast tissue. The correct bra fit should not be irritating and causing skin indentations. Your clothes aren't fitting right If your top isn't fitting right, sitting oddly with buttons gapping or you have to keep adjusting your neckline, it might be your bra underneath. A correctly sized bra should give a smooth fit and flattering shape under your clothes. You are always pushing your bra down If you feel like you constantly have to readjust your bra, because it is riding up or shifting, it is because your bra doesn't fit right. Your bra should stay put and should feel secure even without adjusting throughout the day. When a woman comes in for a fitting, typically she is wearing a band that is too big and a cup size that is too small. If the underband is lifting and riding up her back, the bra is the wrong size and the breasts are not supported as they should be. Bras also have a shelf life - if your bra used to fit perfectly and you haven't changed shape, however you find yourself having to tighten the straps or it no longer supports you as it used to, this is a clear sign to invest in a new bra. The fibres in the elastics break down with washing and over time it doesn't feel as supportive.
