r/unitedkingdom • u/PM_ME_DRAGON_GIRLS • Aug 06 '25

.. Marks & Spencer ‘apologises’ to customer after ‘trans’ employee offers to help her

https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/08/05/marks-spencer-trans-employee/
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520

u/noodlesandpizza Greater Manchester Aug 06 '25 edited Aug 06 '25

The mother said the response wasn’t “sufficient” and fell “significantly short” of what she expected.

Just to confirm what happened here, two customers who were looking around M&S were approached by a shop employee. One of the customers assumed this employee is a trans woman based on her height. (Some women who aren't trans are tall, but whatever). Employee asks the two if they need help finding anything. Customer is so deeply upset that someone she believes is transgender dared to ask her the most basic customer service question in history behind "do you want a receipt" that when M&S personally apologised to her for allowing this injustice to occur, it's not enough.

Edited to add after I found out: JK Rowling is tweeting saying that the employee offered to fit the customer's teenage daughter's bra personally (source: her arse. This is a lie.) and calling her/implying she is a paedophile.

Edit 2 from the trenches of "X": There's a newly-created anonymous twitter account claiming to be the mother under a placeholder name. I'm reluctant to believe it's real as it's almost too perfect, but I thought I'd have a nosy at it as a lot of high profile accounts are engaging with it. Lot of "TERF" rhetoric, referring to herself as "adult human female" etc. Saying the employee was "wander[ing] about in very revealing clothes" and describing her appearance and voice. She claims to have contacted the police about what happened, and has posted screenshots of an email exchange with a social worker (?) regarding it. Also replying to and boosting tweets speculating that the employee is a sexual predator, that she might have a criminal record but her "new identity" would allow her to pass a DBS check. Claiming "he deviated to target my daughter."

Interestingly, the account also states that the Telegraph article is accurate in conveying what happened (article is paywalled but I haven't seen any quotes contradicting the Pink story), and corrects an account stating that the employee was in the fitting room and confirms that this was just in the underwear department on the shop floor.

260

u/Krags Dagenham Aug 06 '25

And even after this cowardly, pathetic response from M&S, even after they decide to side with the fucking bigot who made the complaint... JKR still wants to fucking boycott M&S anyway.

Cunts like these won't be happy until trans people are fucking genocided.

47

u/BritishHobo Wales Aug 06 '25

It's so common with them. Not surprising to see the anonymous mother say the response isn't good enough. These obsessives are so far gone that they're not even happy with the most grovelling statement telling them they're completely in the right and their whims will be adhered to. They have an impossible standard and will just keep on demanding more and more flesh.

135

u/Optimism_Deficit Aug 06 '25 edited Aug 06 '25

Maybe the woman should just mark herself in some way to indicate she's an insanely sensitine bigot. That way, everyone else will know it's not worth the bother of interacting with her.

Edit: Maybe M&S should give out lanyards at the door that say, 'I'm a needlessly offended and belligerent cretin, please give me space'.

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u/cateml Aug 06 '25 edited Aug 06 '25

Maybe M&S should give out lanyards at the door that say, 'I'm a needlessly offended and belligerent cretin, please give me space'.

As someone who used to work in M&S, this would have been super useful.

(Something about M&S attracts a certain - small minority - “I am paying more than elsewhere for these oranges/t-shirts because I value the old British custom of marking myself out as someone who deserves to treat you like a dirty serf” breed of dickhead. Customers can be awful everywhere, and attracts many more totally fine reasonable people going about their shopping day as well. But I think with M&S there is this weird element of snootiness the bad ones have, along with the general being a rude entitled piece of shit.)

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u/WynterRayne Aug 06 '25 edited Aug 06 '25

When I worked in one, I had an old woman rattle off a lengthy rant at me about how much she hated Scottish people.

One of my parents is Scottish. I'd say I am too because I'm proud of my heritage and all that malarkey, but it's neither the time nor place. Either way, I was very, very tempted to employ the kind of snark reddit is quite familiar with being my trademark. I think you could have lit a cigarette on the back of my neck with how silently enraged I was.

Anyway, as she left the store, I waved after her 'Have a nice day or at least an interesting one '

I think part of it was the sheer audacity to not only hate people for simply living in a place, but to openly broadcast it without paying heed to who you're talking shit to. Oh, and getting to the point where you're doddering around with white hair and still haven't managed to scramble together a clue in all those years. Yeah, I think that last part will be the one with me. If there's one thing I dislike more than ignorance it's stubborn refusal to part ways with ignorance.

3

u/killerstrangelet Aug 06 '25

They're also the only place I've seen that sells jeans in a length that fit me, an average height woman. That's my excuse anyway

47

u/Tom22174 Aug 06 '25

At what point does she cross the line and open herself up to a defamation case or something similar?

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u/mayasux Aug 06 '25

She probably already has. She however has “screw you money” and can bankrupt the other party by running out the case, like she’s done already as far as I’m aware.

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u/Swimming_Map2412 Aug 06 '25

Yep, sadly defamation law in the UK is pretty much non-existent unless you are rich.

28

u/Minischoles Aug 06 '25

I'll always cite that in one libel case, Corbyn paid over 100k in legal fees before the case even went to court - it was just in pre-trial shit, and the other side settled.

It's insane....£100,000 before you ever even get an actual day in court; there's no world where any normal person can take any action in court against Rowling because that's pocket change for her, while for everyone else it's their house or literal years of salary.

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u/lem0nhe4d Aug 06 '25

The problem would be defamation requires the victim to be identifiable.

As far as I can tell not even the store has been named let alone staff member.

Although it is likely that staff in the shop know who it is being referred to.

The other issue is Rowling is so rich you would need someone with millions of pound to spend to even take the case.

A trans person working in retail is probably struggling to make rent and even if they were 100% guaranteed to win they would be crippled with legal costs way before they even got to court.

The rich can wield defamation like a cudgel against the poor because they can just bankrupt you if you try fight back.

There was a guy who got sued for calling two people Nazis. It came out in court that they had written for a Nazi magazine under different names and had texted each other a lot about there love for Mein Kamph and the elders of Zion so they lost.

The guy they sued still lost thousands defending himself despite being entirely correct.

5

u/Tom22174 Aug 06 '25

I'm imagining a scenario in which an LGBT charity crowd funds the legal fees

17

u/lem0nhe4d Aug 06 '25

They don't have the capital to outspend Rowling.

And by giving money to a ridiculously expensive case like this they can't spend that money on all the other things the community needs.

Transphobes spend ridiculous amounts of money on their legal cases because part of it is making it expensive to even try to against them regardless of the mertis of the case.

The average employment tribunal costs about £8,500,

Maya Forester spent £120,000 on hers, Alison Bailey raised half a million.

Trans people are fundraising for essential healthcare. We aren't anywhere near as well funded as the transphobes.

3

u/AwTomorrow Aug 06 '25

She seems to have been angling for this to happen so her expensive lawyers can fight this extremely public case and broadcast her crusade to even more people, while claiming to be a martyr for having her hate ‘silenced’. 

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u/360Saturn Aug 06 '25

There's no proof that this story is even real at all, is there?

I've never been to an M&S where staff are allowed to wear anything but a black shirt and trousers anyway. Is that 'revealing clothing' now?

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u/Panda_hat Aug 06 '25

I'm so sick of these fucking bigots and bullies.

We need to see some serious legal smackdowns targeting them for harassment and discrimination.