Higher-end retailers often offer bra fitting services to their female customers, helping them find undergarments that fit and support them correctly. It's an intimate moment that requires the clerk to touch a woman's body to get the necessary measurements, and a woman -- or a teenage girl -- is well within her rights to request a female clerk.
In the U.K. however, retailer Marks & Spencer (M&S) ignored the country's Supreme Court ruling on gender and still had men who 'identify' as women working in the bra department.
Now J.K. Rowling is telling women to vote with their wallets until M&S change their tune:
It's time for women to vote with their wallets. If stores like M&S continue to flout the Supreme Court ruling on women-only spaces, prioritising the wishes of men who want to undress near, or help fit bras on teenage girls, a boycott seems appropriate.https://t.co/9RsUetLEVA
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) August 4, 2025
Here's more from the Telegraph:
Marks & Spencer has apologised to a mother for causing her teenage daughter 'distress' after she was asked if she needed help by a transgender 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 trans shop assistant in the lingerie area of the shop, 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 section.
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.
'This is obviously the case: he is at least 6ft 2in tal l ... My daughter recoiled, so I politely declined the offer and we left immediately. She was visibly upset and said she felt ‘freaked out’.'
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So M&S either assigned him to that department, knowing he was trans, or he asked to work in that department, and the retailer was fine with that, too.
It’s time for lawsuits. This is sexual abuse. Lots and lots and lots of lawsuits.
— Jennifer 🟥🔴🧙♀️🦉🐈⬛ 🦖 (@babybeginner) August 4, 2025
We were told for years not to let strangers touch us without our consent, and now we're expected to let men touch us because they say they're women.
— Gender Receipts (@GenderReceipts) August 5, 2025
An archive of all the times M&S bowed to the woke mob.
This has always been my stance. Boycotts and the free market will solve the issue itself. Any government that can ban things you like, will also ban and make rules you don’t like.
— Sara Higdon (@SaraHigdon_) August 4, 2025
Sometimes the government needs to step in to protect rights, as the U.K. Supreme Court did when it said the word 'woman' has a distinct biological meaning.
If men want to pretend to be women, why don't they open their own womanface stores & start their own womanface sports leagues?
— cindi c (@cindicheever) August 5, 2025
Because forcing women to share spaces with them -- a form of abuse -- is the point.
'This is not any predator. This is an M&S predator'
— Just Jayne♀️🐝🦖💚🤍💜 (@canthelpmenow7) August 4, 2025
Well played.
We did a Christmas boycott of @marksandspencer last year.
— Yang-MM (@MMYang434) August 4, 2025
I was in an M&S lingerie fitting room in Chester and discovered two men were in there with me. That kicked it off for me.
M&S do not care. Their policy is for men to use which ever changing rooms that they wish. There… pic.twitter.com/tnkxYYpLRh
That is unacceptable.
This doesn’t surprise me. A Bradford M&S (since shut down) had a 50-something AGP serving at till for years. Always immaculately made up, wig, nails, heels etc and polite enough. But so clockable. I imagine some women felt uncomfortable, particularly when buying underwear.
— Jill Foster (@JournalistJill) August 5, 2025
It would make this writer very uncomfortable.
I struggle to understand the retail model of ‘inclusion’ which prioritises the feelings of a trans-woman employee over the customer experience of a 14-year-old girl. In what world is it conceivably tolerable for a 6ft biological male to assist a child in the selection of a bra? https://t.co/OUQKGrf3h5
— Adrian Hilton (@Adrian_Hilton) August 5, 2025
The trans activist Left have been making this calculation for years, they put the feelings of a small 'trans women' (men) before the safety and feelings of the majority of women and girls.
Because they don't care about women and girls.
Dear male shop assistants:
— Emma Hilton (@FondOfBeetles) August 6, 2025
1. Don’t hang around lingerie departments.
2. Don’t talk to teenage girls in lingerie departments.
3. Don’t even tell anyone you’ve spotted a teenage girl in the lingerie department.
Nobody will think you’re not doing your job if you walk on by. https://t.co/hFsV8XwHy5
THIS.
It seems that @marksandspencer just don’t want to learn or listen to customers
— Nil 🎗️🧡 נילי RELEASE OUR HOSTAGES! (@SaarNil72) August 5, 2025
I think it’s time to boycott them https://t.co/gAe78ITl3k
Hit 'em where it hurts.
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