The employee asked the girl and her mother if they needed help shopping. That’s it. That’s all. The misinformation, the insinuations (because the facts are inconveniently benign) are EXACTLY what was done to lesbians in the 80s. This is the product of hate and fear, not reality.
📌
I'd love it if we were offered help in M&S - near absence of staff generally & bra shopping is confusing for girls. The changing rooms are all individual cubicles. Ridiculous and offensive (and also can't stand the way people take their cues from Daily Mail campaigns and use it to harass targets).
Ill
Sorry to all the visibly uncomfortable cishet men who dutifully followed behind with the shopping the cart while their partner shopped for bras; we will be escorting you to prison now
Haven't her cult already boycotted there at least twice?
Yeah, last time it was because they sell wide-fitting shoes.
What the Cinderella-ing fuck?
what REALLY posses me off is that M&S has released an official apology. This woman was literally doing her job, and they are apologising like she did something wrong.
Sales assistant does her job, M&S apologies and promises it’ll never happen again.
In thr Olympics this would be the Triple Jump of What Ifs. They take "can I help you?" and end up in "assault" and boycott.
I’m happy to vote with my wallet and stop shopping somewhere that doesn’t have the balls to support its trans employees. 😡
I can not find amy reporting on what M&S have or have not said in regards this is have a feeling that it's absence meen they did clarify that the employee did nothing wrong.
They make it sounds bad but read the articles it's only "appolagice" about that the customer felt unconfertable, did not appolagice that the employee did their jobb or criticize the employee.
If the goal is that women and men is to be acting more natural together, without remarks, uninvited flirting or harassment, I think the solution is MORE interaction and daily communication, not less. Start early, accept mixed groups with all sorts of kids, and continue with that as adults.
But I am Scandinavian, so I realize I will never be able to understand american culture. At all.
* With women I also ment trans women. With men I also ment trans men. And anyone with floating gender identity too. Here the employer can ask for criminal records (some types of workplaces, and they will be given only records for crimes relevant to the work they will do, so not whole record).
Wich solves the problem of some people being scared at all times that someone will attack them.
JFC
When the wealthy eventually gets taxed at the rates they should, make sure there's an extra 25% added on for hateful bigots like Joanne.
"undress near" As in... in a separate changing room? I live in flats, and don't know how old my downstairs neighbours are. I could well be undressing near teenage girls right now!
I’ve always believed that Rowling’s hatred of trans women is a result of the abuse she allegedly suffered at the hands of her ex husband, who I might add, denies sustained abuse. That being said, being angry at your ex is no justification for targeting another vulnerable minority.
My biological father is now post op, was very abusive but did that make me transphobic? Nope, even my partner is pre op. It is the fundamental of racism to say that just because one of x type of person gave you a bad time that all of x are like it. She's just a hateful, spiteful bitch.
Strong Father Ted vibes here... its the underwear section of a large store. Stores have employees of every sex/gender. If you then choose to take your clothes off behind a curtain, your protections are a curtain. Just chill out!
Just realised the irony of immediately thinking of Father Ted considering who wrote it!
I feel like it’s still OK to like Father Ted as long as you don’t do anything that might cause Linehan to get money. It was written before he became a hate-filled lunatic, as far as I know.
He only co-wrote it, though
Just like that it’s time for M&S Mozzarella Sticks again
And yet the highest form of entertainment in Britain for many, many decades has been drag. Where does she think drag queens buy bras, the Gay Men's Warehouse?
Since when did any area of M&S's shop floor become women only? Heavens, if my husband goes with me to buy underwear, is he violating the sacred sanctity of M&S's girlie gusset grotto? Is it wrong for me (a cis woman) to mooch in the man-drawers department? The world has gone mad.
I once went into a fancy lingerie shop, a married cishet man. To buy a surprise present for my wife. I should be banned according to their logic. Claiming spaces that are not single sex, not for themselves, but for the exclusion of others. So transparently nasty.
I saw a female lady woman hanging around the Y-fronts rack at M&S last week and I passed out. I may never fully recover.
"girlie gusset grotto" is SENDING me 🤣 cheers
I used to be paranoid that shopping in the ladies' section (would've been Walmart; this was the late 1990s) would raise the employees' hackles and get me kicked out.
I still have that feeling in 2025
"Girlie gusset grotto"! 😂 💀 In all seriousness, are they going to have a go at a bloke who's buying his OH some lingerie for her birthday/Christmas? It's bloody ridiculous.
The cravenness of businesses towards this kind of thing - "m&s has apologised" - serves only to embolden these fuckwits
So NO bra fitting activity involved?
I remember when Richard Dawkins had his meltdown over a woman who described being propositioned in an elevator at a conference, and she said, "Guys, don't do that." That was it. 25 minute video about the conf, of which 30 seconds was about being propositioned. Absolute overreaction nuttery.
30 seconds that basically slow killed the atheist community in the USA, the male Atheist never recovered from the grievous injurie it was dealt then and there, no longer able to be creeps and assholes to women, no more sleezy propositions.
who scene slowly tore it self apart was insane to watch. she still gets death threats over that BTW
I saw one video clip of Dawkins making a small flirty comment to a young woman getting her book signed. At the time, I thought he was joking since he's obviously too old for her. Now I realize he was joking in the "Haha, just kidding... unless?" way. It probably wasn't his first or last time.
He was fine before he became celebrity famous, he did not have the opportunity to express his old man's opinions on women or be a shovanistic pig in public where others could see him.
He is absolutely responsible for his own actions but I would be willing to say that the over all experience of how he was idealized by his fans, and some women fawning over him did not help his disposition, and at the same time how that sort of behavior was encouraged at conventions.
Yep. I remember saying, "I miss the time before Richard Dawkins got a Twitter account." It's better to know what a repulsive asshole he is, but it was still a disappointment.
So many of the early "hero's" of the skeptical community either lived long enugh to become the villan or left in disgust. And slot of the young people who were genuinely curious about skepticism became recruits of idiots like Jor*dan Fucking Peter*son i am not saying name right on purpose.
Still an absolute disappointment, he had a lot of insightful *scientific* things to say that was so perfect to teardown a lot of younger earth creationism arguments it was fascinating to watch unable to grasp actual science by someone who litteraly wrote the book on modern evolutionary theories.
Lord the sickness of this person. Her bottomless malevolence. She makes me see why Satan is called 'the father of lies.'
“Mother of Lies” sounds like a good title for Ms Rowling-in-it
Yes J.K., it's time for readers to vote with their wallets too. You imbecile. You wine soaked troll.
KKKRowling is an unhinged bullying bigot. She needs to be boycotted, not M&S.
It's the religious right. That's why they're following their tried and tested playbook.
Since when is a department store open to the public a “women-only space” anyway?
Because of course men don't shop for lingerie for their female partners, & would not need help from a sales woman if they did.
I'm old enough to remember the transphobes boycotting M&S at least 3 times over 3 different things. They have the collective memory of a goldfish.
This is so funny to me (in a “this is such insane bs” kind of way) because over a decade ago i was given training on how to deal with transphobic assholes in the bra dept. literally some bitch ass customer complained that a transwoman was using the fitting room, and the asshole was told —-
Buy her clothes and go home and try on her shit if she didn’t like that we allowed EVERYONE to use the fitting rooms they were comfortable with. This was a major US dept store and I was working in Atlanta at the time. Its wild we are still dealing with this crap over a decade later.
And to be clear, this wasnt a one on one coaching thing, this was a formal training module, with a reenactment video and pass/fail quiz during the presentation. This was a key part of training and EVERYONE had to take it.
it's shit like this that makes us fear to be out in public, so many people bear such hatred for... people wanting to be comfortable in their bodies? still get people who physically attack trans girls in public and get cheered on by onlookers. ~<3
Its utterly maddening. I cannot understand what goes on in these peoples minds that they have so much hate for someone else just living.
"that person is different/I can't understand them, therefore I hate them" or my favorite "ThE bIbLe!" ~<3
Rich as she is, just as the “Painter of Light” Thomas Kinkade, died of his addictions, his toxic views & large platform died with him. That’s JKR’s legacy, not Harry Potter.
You can't spell "asshole makes row over lingerie" without row-ling.
This reply op-ed in The Independent was pretty good. Of course I’d be happy for a trans employee to fit my daughter’s first bra www.the-independent.com/voices/m-s-t...
I've spoken to my kids about ppl from different cultures, sexualities, genders etc & their reaction has always been "meh". They accepted the idea of trans people in a heartbeat. What they didn't understand is why society punishes those people. Kids are open-minded. They have to be taught bigotry.
If she was "traumatised" by this, it will be because her mother has indoctrinated a fear of trans people, especially if mum is kicking off about it in public.
Also, they were well in to Harry Potter. All the books and movies. I told them the other day about JKR's views and they were instantly and totally behind not giving her any more money. Dropped that bigot without a second thought.
It’s not fear. It’s plain old evil hate
Also if you actually read the mother's post her only basis for assuming the employee is Trans was "she's tall" No evidence it was a trans employee whatsoever
But. They can "always tell." /s 😏 Seriously, they are utterly ridiculous. They create a false, gaslighting narrative to claim their agenda is about women and girls' safety, when it is, in reality, utter prejudice and hate
A couple of years ago Jean Hatchet claimed a friend &her teenage daughter were in a 'communal changing room' in M&S with - horrors - a trans woman. I challenged her about this as M&S have NO communal changing rooms. She was forced to admit that part wasn't true. The rest probably wasn't either
Do those even exist anymore? I seem to remember them at Top Shop in the 90s.
And I think that was a trial run that quickly got abandoned!
Thankfully!
We had one at our local leisure centre until a few years ago. Thankfully it was eventually rebuilt and fitted with cubicles in a changing village.
I've been in only one communal changing room, in the 90s--a Syms (1958-2011) in Maryland. I'd been going into changing rooms since the 70s, so that was a surprise.
There were a couple of stores in my local mall that had this in the 90s. I think most stores realized that it saves space to have one changing room with private stalls anyone can use rather than two large communal rooms. Also probably better for security, since you can see who has what easily.
I REALLY Hope the new HP series flops hard. Like people shouldn't even hate watch.
If a male employee had done exactly the same thing we would never have heard about it because it would be recognised as an obvious non-issue.
The Supreme Court judgment - which was problematic af anyway - has no relevance here whatsoever. JKR knows that (and so does whatever hack wrote this up for the Telegraph). Boycott the malevolent, bigoted and deceitful J K Rowling.
I wonder if any of these people understand that if you don’t need help shopping or in a dressing room you can say the words “No thanks?”
I'm not exactly confident in their ability to understand consent
Since when does a bra fitting involve the EMPLOYEE getting undressed? Maybe I don't understand because I'm a man who has never really thought about this sort of thing
Wait, the woman who is quick to sic her solicitors on anyone who is mean to her on SM is now defaming an employee of a department store by spreading misinformation? Hmm, I think a hefty lawsuit should be that employee's next step.
Not the main thing at all, but in the story I just read their only evidence the employee is trans was that she is very tall. Did they actually meet a trans woman or was it just a very tall woman?
I've said for years that it looks to me like much of the anti-trans stuff is just a repeat of all the anti-gay bigotry from the past.
SSDD. And part of it's because even now, to a lot of people, trans is just seen as "spicy gay".
I'm not joking, there was an interview with Gavin Newsom where he said it's "not homophobic" to exclude Trans Women from women's sports ಠ﹏ಠ
Here is the quote:
Apparently we have to ruin people's lives for no logical reason, through extreme bigotry and hatred, but with grace and humility. It's not just the bigotry that gets me, it's the two-faced shithousery of pretending you have morals as you punish people for simply existing.
I think part of it is due to normie liberals being ignorant on trans issues, where they still think LGBT = Gay just like conservatives do. Newsom might be trying to take advantage of that ignorance ಠ﹏ಠ
It's like Gavin Newsom asked Grok to come up with policy ideas designed to appeal to an electorate that's too stupid to recognize bigotry.
Yo no sé si a HBO Max le vale la pena volver a hacer la serie de Harry Potter, porque seguramente seamos millones de personas las que no van a verla por culpa del esperpento de ser humano que es J.K. Rowling.
per M&S: “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.”
the woman asked the girl and her mother if they needed help shopping
As a single dad buying school uniform at M&S last month, my daughter and I were happily directed by staff to use the changing rooms at the lingerie section, and nobody complained about men in women's spaces. If I'd been a trans woman, not a cis man, it would be pitchfork time.
So now JKKKR wants to segregate the women's clothing section...??? 🙄
No, its simpler then that she wants us all to dr*p d**d if we do not conform to her gender norms, helped along if we do not do so willingly.
Since when was the M&S bra department a women only space?
but I wouldn’t even consider a bra shop to be a “women’s space”??? Is this like a Victoria’s Secret type place? Bc those kinds of retail stores still hire cis men all the time, and I’m sure cishet couples go into these types of stores TOGETHER a lot, right?
M&S is a British high street department store, popular with middle-class, middle-aged women in particular. It's not a "sexy lingerie" specialist shop, and the women's underwear section is not separate or even screened off. I've been served by cis male shop assistants there before.
That’s what I mean, like I HIGHLY doubt this hag would’ve thrown a fit and gone to the local news if a cis male employee had spoken to her daughter. Makes me wonder if this insane witch just been lying in wait and preparing for a moment like this where she would encounter a clockable trans woman :(
Jk is another nosey, body parts obsessed, control freek, who needs to mind her own f’n body
That bitch needs to just shut the fuck up. Like she even knows the inside of a M&S these days. Billionaires. Fuck.
It's the announcement that the ladies' underwear section in M&S is now a single sex space.
Weird. In US clothing shops the underwear departments are right out in the open, with the bra displays right there in the aisles. Is buying underwear in the UK some sort of shameful thing that has to be done in private where men won’t see it? It wasn’t when I visited many years ago.
They are open but they are policed by judgemental older shop assistants.
"I'm free!"
ahaha
The lingerie section is now a single sex space.
if you think that's bad, I once saw a kids movie in which boy wizards sneaked into a women's toilet looking for a secret chamber, what kind of sick mind comes up with stuff like that??
Wow, what a disgrace. Whoever wrote that scene is clearly a gender ideologue that deserves to be endlessly harassed and ostracized for all of eternity. I look forward to #slayqueen Joanne to call for a boycott of that person's work.
Nice one!
Where they encounter a ghost who, the next time she meets that one boy wizard, she's spying on him naked in the bath and creeping on him.
Do we actually know the details of what happened? Shop floor? Near/outside changing room? M&S probably even have it on CCTV!
The confidence in themselves these TERFs have, to see conspiracies at all times, people plotting for years just to have a glimpse of some skin or see them washing their hands in the bathroom 🤷♀️ I mean, what the actual?
What really confuses me over this women-only space nonsense is it involves ignoring the existence of gay and bi women 🙄
What scares me is that it threatens to demonize us as well. It’s not coincidence that I stayed closeted as a teacher & only began to come out once I stopped teaching.
Oh don't worry they'll be after them just as soon as they've finished chasing trans people out of any kind if public life or employment and denying them healthcare.
I suspect a lot of these Concerned Mumsnetters were homophobic bullies back during their childhoods. They’re trying to relive the power trips of their glory days by going after more socially acceptable targets since it’s not fashionable to obsessively bully cis lesbians anymore.
Wait so we've gone from trans people can't use women's restrooms to trans people can't work at stores that sell underwear? It feels like there's a common denominator here, and it's not safe spaces for women.
when people resort to reality distortion and employ easily disproved hyperbole they destroy their credibility and defeat their own goals, and make the thing they’re against more likely to persist, and they’re reputation never recovers
I didn't realise women only spaces also included the *checks notes* the shop floor. JKR is advocating for the kind of segregation that the Civil Rights movement fought against. But then she'd be one of those white women who shouted at black kids.
Please can we have women only spaces in the food hall, no kids especially would make it so much quicker.
She’s a white woman who shouts at Black kids right now
I don’t think segregation is enough for her. It really feels like she wants a “final solution” level ending for trans people.
She is no question a foaming-at-the-mouth woman shouting at kids or whooping at public executions under a billionaire's skin.
I didn't know Goodwill was doing something radical by putting all the changing rooms in one part of the store. Trying on clothes only a couple walls away from a woman is such an unhinged thought.
isn't JK Rowling the same author who outright championed Lolita?
"...plot that could have been the most worthless pornography becomes, in Nabokov’s hands, a great and tragic love story." -JKR 🤷 Not so much championing it as completely missing the point, the plot, and the nature of evil...
you'll have to forgive me because I haven't read lolita, but it also tracks that the point of it sails over her empty gaseous head much like a satellite.
She really has no clue how the real world works.
There's also absolutely no evidence that the woman shop assistant was trans. Simply that it was "obvious" because she was “at least 6ft 2in tall”. Something we only have the mother's word for.
Taylor Swift is taller than that ...
Really the only part of this story that even might be true is that there may have been a trans woman working there. She waited months to complain; that's her building herself up with a grandiose lie while making it harder to refute because everyone else already moved on.
That and that her daughter absolutely “freaked out” when her massive TERF mother decided to make a scene.
Heck, the way these people are, the whole scene might have been completely quiet and the daughter normal, and then the mother completely made up the "freaking out" later.
my MIL is tall, very tall, and she looks taller as she is skinn...so no tall women accepted in M&S now?
The desire here is to delete trans women from society. As others have said it’s not a woman only space.
One article said had trans in quotes. Did they actually confirm the employee was actually trans or was she just a tall woman?
Rowling thinks it's a sin to exist while trans, and she will staunchly attack literally any trans person she can, let her attack me, in person, alone. ~<3
She’s obsessed with this shit.
*pink* !!
I unfortunately reads some of the comments online. The absolute hatefulness and panic in them was bananas.
she's the answer to the question "what if anita bryant was even wealthier and even more vile"
Someone needs to throw a pie in her face too.
If a cisgender male employee asked if someone needed help it wouldn't be news. Transphobes don't think trans women are men, they think they're inhuman
Outrage for the crime of existing.
She won't be happy until trans people are being openly murdered. And even then she'll say "oh but I never condoned violence!"
Did you mean “*more* trans women” there?
Meant more in the sense of "being killed with no consequences" or "the media openly defending the killers" which has maybe happened once or twice, but isnt the norm. For now.
She'll be sad she didn't get to witness it. She would love to see a woman burn on a pyre, we all know it.
Trans people are being murdered - Breanna Ghey was killed because of the exact hatred and dehumanisation she stirs up - and she isn't happy. For all the boastful pics with cigars and booze on her private yacht, it seems she won't be happy unless/until all trans people are dead.
My point really was that shes not happy that the killers in that case were rightly jailed for a very long time and weren't defended by the media.
"can you point to one actual thing she's ever done or said that's transphobic!? I keep asking this question and no one ever gives me a straight answer that is under a hundred characters and includes any proof that I seem actually transphobic which is limited to a direct quote admitting it!"
Yup. She will point to that one tweet from years and years ago all of her terf followers point to and pretend that absolves her of all of the deliberate incitement she has caused.
I condone violence against bigots. It's self defense.
And it's the bloody telegraph again spreading lies
JK Rowling is such a wank stain. She has to be mentally ill, right? Imagine having her resources and wasting your life on genitals and bathrooms. Or maybe when you have that much money but still get called out for a bad take you get angry because the poors shouldn't be allowed to treat you that way
And many including Shon Faye have been calling this out for a long time www.theguardian.com/commentisfre... It’s precisely the same bigotry and othering that we all knew in the 80s
Rowling is utterly radicalised and a purveyor of hatred against minority groups. She’s careful not to cross legal lines but my guess/fear is that someone will be motivated to do something ghastly as a result of her messaging against trans people. She knows better but chooses to be so hateful.
does rowling ever shut up...
Why did M&S apologise for having a helpful employee?
Rowldemort and the torygraph, the axis of bigotry. I thought recently, even when she's dead, her bigotry won't stop, hateful cow she is, she'll have set up foundations or trusts or whatever rich arseholes do to continue their hatred past the grave.
bsky.app/profile/reds...
We are currently now witnessing the erasure of trans people from public spaces and society and it’s not a hypothetical anymore or hyperbolic to say so.
Nick Ferrari #LBC was shit-stirring over this this morning and there was one particularly vile caller who was very anti-trans and v rude. Yet it was v clear no one had the full facts.
Can we boycott M&S for apologising?
Just seen a comment further down ... I suspect it was the latter.
Was it a real apology, or was it a "Thanks for your letter, duly noted, now fuck off" 'apology'? I used to be quite good at the latter.
I had this thought too, but then I thought, would they have said they were "very sorry for the distress caused" if someone was horrified at being approached by a disabled employee? I feel like they might have made a statement about diversity or something in most other cases
They didn't say that, though. “We are truly sorry and deeply regret the distress your daughter felt during her visit,” Not quite a heartfelt apology. The way they worded it puts it back onto the daughter. 'We've done nothing wrong, she's the one with a problem'.
I think you are giving them a lot of benefit of the doubt, which given they apparently confirmed the employee is trans (ie outed her) I am not inclined to
Fair enough. Have you a link to the full letter, I can only find carefully chosen snippets?
no, only the quotes in articles
That's the problem. Can't find a full copy anywhere. The coverage seems to be from the mother's perspective, and I get the feeling she's not the most broad-minded person. "She claimed the retailer acknowledged that “this colleague is not female” ..... I'm holding my opinion until I get all the facts
For me, their first and foremost duty is to their employee. Any appeasement of the customers outrage fails in that duty.
No, I like their chicken and leek pie too much 😂
Fair enough.
Start a campaign to bombard her timeline with the Fr Ted Christmas special sketch, the one where they're trapped in the lingerie Dept, and written by.... Glinner
And she tweeted this while vacationing in British Columbia, where we celebrated Pride this weekend, and hate speech law says you can't just tar LGBT people as predators.
I personally believe she is truly radicalised into the GCIM and that facts and logic no longer apply to her.
It’s such a bizarre intersection of misandry, misogyny and transphobia I can’t even get my head around it. This idea that some entire groups of people are inherently predators is so vile.
Why do shit people win everything
That eposode of Father Ted must have her in an apoplexy (how Lineman managed writing it I've no idea)
JK needs to go away, nobody cares about her hateful, bigoted opinions. 🙄 She’s a slime ball. At the end of the day, if you don’t want help in a store (regardless of the gender of the employee) you just say no thank you. Don’t get bent all out of shape that they have the audacity TO DO THEIR JOB.
Can honestly say, at no point in my life (or any shop), have i had a man offer to measure me for a bra or work in the changing rooms. This includes a major retailer I worked at that had trans people working there. Customers always picked who they wanted to help with this.
Also we never saw anything we didn't want to, as we would let the customers change themsleves in a new bra, then offer to measure if it didn't fit right. We always asked the customers if they were comfortable, and the mums were always present if needed - for assurance!
The Trans woman I worked with respected privacy and didn't want to go into the changing rooms by choice. If she ever needed to, she would wait by the entrance, but wouldn't assist anyone unless they asked her. She was a very well liked member of staff by our customers too.
If anyone wants to complain to M&S about them throwing this employee under a bus for simply doing her job, the email address is ceo@customer-support.marksandspencer.com
Thanks for this info.
Thank you!!
They didn’t throw anyone under the bus. Their “apology” was a boiler plate response, basically saying “sorry you took offence”.
Their ‘apology’ made the story headline news. An employee who did nothing more than politely ask a customer if they wanted help now has a media frenzy in which she is accused of being a predator and continually ridiculed and misgendered. It made every trans person in a public facing job less secure.
I’d argue it’s more to do with deranged bigots and their compliant press outlets which made this headline news, not M&S. The headlines would have likely been immeasurably worse if M&S hadn’t said what they did.
They had a responsibility to their employee. You think they’d have issued an apology if the mother had refused to be served by a person of colour?
Can we start re-writing these headlines in the form of Jim Crow era headlines? “M&S apologizes for allowing TRANS employee in the CIS-ONLY section of the store” Call this shit what it is: segregation. Separate but equal is never equal.
It's just a functional article of clothing, and it's suspicious that TERFs repeatedly insist on sexualizing young people. Further, an adult trans woman on hormones has had to learn an awful lot about the arcane and inscrutable world of bra sizing.
Good sued costs less at Sainsbury's.
Lots of things for high profile people to encourage people to mobilise about. This seems like a bit of a performative waste of her capital.
J.K.Rowling is so full of hate it's disturbing. She has so much money, she could do almost anything but she chooses to spend her time persecuting a minority group who needs help and understanding.
J. K. Rowling has transformed herself into a hate filled bag of spittle.
I suspect this is how she always was deep down. I'd say "in her heart of hearts" but she don't got no heart.
She was already a bigot, but now she has leveled up.
JK Rowling is a fearmonging bigoted piece of shit who deserves none of her fame and all of our ridicule. I hope she never finds happiness, and that there are forever mosquitoes buzzing in her ears.
to be fair, JK Rowling has never based her statements on reality
Fuck that mentally ill cunt
I was served by what I can only assume was a cis woman in the menswear department of another prominent high-street retailer only last week! When will this wokery end? BOYCOTT ALL SHOPS NOW!
I recently went to M&S to buy some more bras for my wife. I poked around looking for the right ones without success, (I had the item numbers) so I went to the Checkout and asked for help from the only member of staff there - another manly man. He helped me find what I needed - no one was outraged.
But you see, a man can help a man bra shop. But for a man to say the word “bra” around a woman. Well. The poor dear might break her pearl necklace before collapsing in a faint.
The irony is, they're not bothered about men offering to fit a bra. They're not bothered about a woman offering to fit a bra. They're insanely mad beyond measure that a trans person might have the temerity to say those "can I help you?" words.
I am more inclined to boycott J K Rowling.
It's not even a "women-only space", ffs. Plus, we're like four months off Xmas and what do men buy their female partners? Uh huh. I hope all her bra wires poke into her boobs forever more.
Well, this has gone viral, which I didn’t expect. But it is a twisting of the facts, with well chosen and misleading words, to imply once again that all trans people are sex criminals. As was once done with gay men, as was once done with lesbians, as was once done with black men, and on and on…
this has been done to trans women as long as it has been done to anyone
I made that point once on Twitter and came the response that all MEN are sex criminals.
What’s funny is people like that are who traumatized me as a child. It was people claiming ALL men are sex criminals that made me feel like a piece of meat at 5, made me terrified of my uncles who never hurt me, and made me forgive men who did because “men are just like that”
Twitter is a curious place for people who think all men are sex criminals to be hanging out (though I can certainly see how being on Twitter might reinforce that viewpoint).
It also pits otherwise progressive people against each other and there’s nothing right wing culture warriors love more than the sight of powerless people ripping into each other rather than into the powerful.
As is done to this day in the USA to Latinos and Black men.
And the reason why they run this narrative? CIS STRAIGHT MEN! Because this is how CISHET MEN treat all women, so they assume everyone who isn’t a cishet woman will behave like a lot of cishet men behave towards women. And that gay men will treat other men like cishet men treat women. Projection.
This story is so infuriating. First a shop floor is not a 'woman-only' space and the shop assistant was just doing her job. I hope M&S do the right thing here.
Hey there! Hope you're doing great 😊 I came across your products and I’ve got to say I’m really impressed!
I haven't been in a store in a hot second, but as far as I remember we don't even have gendered changing rooms in most stores in Germany o.o wtf, what else do we want to assign genders to??
Last time I went bra shopping in a place with a real bra department, my boyfriend was with me and no one batted a fucking eye. He had a beard.
But I’m pretty sure trans women with tits know enough about bras to be able to assist people in shopping for them knowledgeably.
And men shop for lingerie for their partners all the time - do these people suddenly think that should not be allowed. Maybe we should go back to whispering about sanitary products too!
And also the last time I went bra shopping in a place with a real bra department, there WAS an attendant who was trained in bra fitting, who came into the dressing room with me, but *at my request for a fitting* and if I hadn’t felt comfortable with her in there she would not have been in there.
Like. You’re allowed to tell the bra fitter that you don’t want a fitting and just try the bras on by yourself.
I’ve also been to a bra department where the attendant was a bearded presumably-cis man who did not offer fitting assistance in the dressing rooms but did bring me several options in my declared size. This was also not a big deal, I can assure you that men everywhere know women wear bras.
Exactly this - by all accounts the parent was simply asked 'can I help you' and she had every right to say 'no'. And that's where it ends. JK making this about 'women's spaces' is so regressive!
An open shop floor is not a sex-segregated space just because it’s labeled by the type of body the clothes in it are meant to fit!
Don’t forget. Rowling herself is a rape apologist in her CHILDRENS books.
The backstory of her villain is his mother raped his father for years, and somehow she’s the only innocent one in the situation while her victim is considered cruel for leaving her and her son is evil because he was “born without love”. Meanwhile she’s still portrayed as a victim
How has no one knocked this bitch tf out yet?
tbf she lives in a castle and the peasants don't have siege equipment
Lmao when did the lingerie section of a department store become a 🌸⚡️women only space⚡️🌸 If that concept had any meaning to begin with, it’s long gone now.
I was in M&S on Monday buying pajamas for a female relative who is in hospital, asked a male employee for directions and we walked through the lingerie section. Weird how Joanne isn't losing her shit over that. Oh wait, we're both blokes and Joanne almost never goes for blokes. Weird that...
Women's changing rooms in stores almost always have a small gathering of men waiting outside: mostly bored husbands and boyfriends. Also M&S stores are open plan, including the respective lingerie sections for men and for women. This is nothing new and is the same in most dept stores.
It's not even a women-only space! Nothing is being "flouted" here!
Exactly. It's a shop. The girl was not even in a changing room.
And the employee is not a bra-fitter!
JKR is just straight-up lying here
Imagine if a single father takes his daughter there to buy her first bra. What would JK say?! Pathetic.
Nothing because the only "men" she really hates are trans women.
Which rubbishes the notion that her transphobia is due to her trauma from domestic abuse by cis men
He's evil for depriving her of a mother and he should hand her over to the first woman he encounters
After inspecting her genitals first, of course
Not likely. She and her depraved cult of personality have zero problems with actual cisgender men. Unless they’re not white.
On the other hand, any man who isn't sufficiently transmisogynistic gets lumped in with trans women, especially if he does something not stereotypically macho like being an involved father
Exactly; look at how she talks about David Tennant.
Nah. JKR doesn’t care about men, kids or women. She only wants to hurt trans people. If a trans person isn’t in the room, she won’t lift a finger to do anything.
JK Rowling is a miserable misanthrope.
She actually has a history of defending male abusers!
Maralyn manson and johnny depp
I forgot she supported Depp and his abuse of women. Shows how much of a sham her “protect women” thing was in reality.
Oh absolutely
I fully believe that.
I hate that this is so accurate.
Me too. Especially because so many companies keep supporting her hate campaign.
And she's supported awful af people like Marylin Manson 🤢
that depends, is he the kind of man who would harass trans women or not. cos the answer is entirely dependent on that
The stereotypical cis man buying lingerie as a gift for his partner might not be buying well fitting comfortable M&S, but it's still quite a stretch to suggest they shouldn't be legally allowed to.
Noooooo it’s a sacred space! For women!!
so much for that fig leaf huh
Dear diary, my clothes are ragged, but I cannot replace them. The women's section is at the front of the clothing store, and I cannot walk through the women-only space, lest a wild Rowling attack me. Winter is coming, and I may not make it.
Where was this? All allies should purposely go and shop there, especially if the trans saleswoman is on duty. Love the ugliness out of this garbage.
If they haven’t they probably will soon fire the employee. And going to shop at a store that capitulated to bigots sounds rather counterproductive.
Ok. I think you may have misunderstood my intention. I wanted to support the store that HAS a trans employee. If they fire that employee, then of course there's no reason to support them.
Is the store in question is the one that issued the apology for employing the trans person?
Ok. I missed that bit. My apologies. You're right. They apologized for having a trans employee. So never mind the support. Boycott instead. My mistake.
Also apparently this happened before the ruling, anyway? And really has nothing to do with the ruling because shop floors aren't single-sex spaces regardless?
It's Rowling again, stirring up hate as she always does. Maybe level headed people should vote with their wallets and boycott her writings and the accompanying merchandise.. Even the cast of Potter have disowned her hateful views, says it all really..
As a cisgender gay man this is one of my favorite memes because it shows they just recycle their bigotry to a new target.
Yes, there was a time when Lesbians were excluded from the feminist movement, a fact which GCs/TERFs will never openly acknowledge (;ŏ﹏ŏ) www.advocate.com/history/bett...
"They can't reproduce so they 'recruit'" is missing.
i mean we can reproduce. two trans people on hrt can absolutely have children! and i know several who are successful happy biological parents with another trans partner and she can’t take that away from them
It's their quote, not mine. They used it against homosexuals in the 1970s and they're using it against us now.
Yep, heard it in the 80s and 90s.
I know transphobes understand so little about biology and transition that they believe that and it def belongs in this list, just wanted other trans people on here to know it’s not true and they don’t have to wait til they’ve had kids to transition because of right wing rhetoric
She's just so fucking weird.
I hate her
She’s totally broken her brain
Is JK Rowling suggesting that the bra shopping area in M&S becomes a gated community? Because that’s what it looks like. Imagining all the dad’s taking their daughter’s to buy a bra being rugby tackled as soon as they cross the threshold.
Mandatory sex testing to enter the lingerie section. Blood test or cheek swab. To protect women & girls.
Shop near me has a decent sized area for bra and knickers so what are they gonna do? Lock off that whole section plus have a security guard there? It’s so pathetic
Obviously a male security guard, who will check you are a real biological female - to protect the children!
I’m still guffawing that Joanne thinks a shopping area is a single sex space. Next step for Joanne is campaigning to have M&S bra area blacked out with no windows and a security key that detects biologically pure oestrogen levels…. Dammit, I’ve just come up what her next book plot could be.
I thought they were all already boycotting m and s as of years ago anyway? Worth mentioning too that P*sie Parker was attempting to have a receptionist at her GP practice fired simply for being trans masc. These people hate us, they simply do not want us to participate in society at all
Also, cis men can go to lingerie departments! They go with their girlfriends, sisters or daughters. They go to get presents for wives. Heck, sometimes they just want a fancy nightie for themselves. This is a deeply insane moral panic.
No such thing as a ‘cis’ man. It’s a word made up by lunatic activists.
Unless old-time radio is lying to me, it was super common for men to buy women silk stockings and negligees as gifts. And they didn't come from the hardware department.
Of course males have the freedom to shop for lingerie. But if a male approaches a minor female and offering to help fit a bra, this is inappropriate.
The employee, a trans woman, asked if the family in question needed any help, in a normal, boring, retail way. It was essentially an offer for directions. She did not offer to do a fitting, nor is she responsible for fittings.
The mother and her teen daughter had an unpleasant interaction with a male employee and brought it to the attention of store management. The business is free to deal with this however they see fit. And other mothers of young teens can choose where they will purchase bras in future.
Yeah, same arguments as the homo-scare tactics in the 80's/90's. Implying any interaction is sexually predatory. "What if a gay person showers with straight people in the locker room and start hitting on them?" "Now lesbian teachers will teach our girls that it's ok to have sex with other women!"
A trans person could accidentally cough near a cis woman in a crowded subway train and J.K. Rowling alongside every other right wing outlet would report SICKENING! TRANS PREDATORS INFECT BIOLOGICAL WOMEN WITH THEIR GERMS AS A FETISH! and then make the "ban biological men from coughing act"
What is it with the right who turn on our beloved institutions? Rees Mogg the National Trust Farage the RNLI now Rowling M and S!
Clickbait, basically
Yep 🙄
It's pretty clear who needs boycotting, and it's not M&S
JK needs to be avada kedavra’d at this point. As the Scottish say, “She’s a nasty cunt.”
I was chased away from the M&S male changing rooms as I wanted to try on a pair of trousers without traipsing to the women changing room, on another floor, years ago. (all changing rooms have cabinets, and the male floor was full of ladies waiting or shopping)
Britain has a history of branding anyone who calls for a boycott of M&S an antisemite, so I’m looking forward to Rowling getting blackballed by the establishment any second now…
Aside: I’d love to see them try boycotting. Maybe big corp will realize it’s just a dozen of bigots in a corporate coat, not an actual movement.
Shut up, #JKR! Keep your #hate, your #incitement, your #transphobia and #inhumanity to yourself! #Trans #Gender #Transgender #TransRightsAreHumanRights #TransWomenAreWomen #TransMenAreMen #ProtectTransKids #LGBTQI+ #nonbinary #Diversity | #JKR #TERF #Misinformation #CampaignOfLies #Insinuations
She’s well-known to be a writer of fantasy fiction…🤷🏻♀️
If Trade Unions have any true loyalty to those who work in the service sector, they'd be calling for employers to meet duties under Health & Safety and bring forward civil prosecutions for harassment against the self-centred egotists who in all likelihood don't even supply custom to their shops.
It is commonplace in the few public lavatories that still exist for their economic sustainability to have both male/female attendants cleaning them. I have yet to see a single anti trans activist publicly demand that this should lead to closure of those spaces or toilets left uncleaned.
Do they not close the toilet for a few minutes while the janitor is cleaning the bathroom? That's the norm here.
They usually don’t bother, because sane people don’t actually care that much. A man mopping the floor is considerably less annoying than having to find alternative toilets somewhere else.
Exceptions could apply when they are mopping the floor, and it's afterwards marked as a hazard. Otherwise, the signage is clear. " These toilets are cleaned by both male and female colleagues." There's no expectation, given the limited number of public toilets that they should be put out of use.
What country are you in?
The UK
But those people are invisible and don't count as human! As we all learned during Covid lockdowns.
Oh they will, just give them time. Organisations will have to only allow female cleaners into female toilets and changing rooms otherwise they will be breaking the Law I’m also hoping trans men start using the ladies facilities as they must now do Unintended consequences?
Ladies do cleaning and looking after children, men drive lorries and fix cars. That's just how it is in Terfworld.
According to EHRC, trans men won’t be allowed to use women’s facilities if they “pass” (and trans women won’t be allowed to use men’s facilities). We have to use “third spaces”, which we should advocate for with the enormous power we obviously wield. Something, something, respect and dignity.
They can’t have it both ways. If the use of female only space is now based on chromosomes, trans men go into the ladies No ifs, no buts 😊
Unfortunately the Supreme Court said they can. It doesn’t have to make sense. The judgement doesn’t make sense anyway: it fixes an “inconsistency” by creating another one. It doesn’t even have to comply with ECHR in the short term, because it will take years to do anything about that.
😢
Yes, I see this all the time at swimming spots re changing rooms. Staff always call out, patrons always relaxed about it bc indeed it's no big deal. 🤦
I'm so bored of Jake Rowling and his performanative indignation.
You know who is really good at finding excellent fit and amazing makeup? Our trans sisters. Sheesh.
Feels potentially libellous of the employee too
Sadly, UK law defines "libel" as "making true criticisms of a rich person".
If M&S stands for Marks & Spencer then that means English libel laws would come into play.
The ones set up to make sure money and clout win the day in court so that the upper class can ruin anyone from the lower class who criticizes them too harshly?
Oh well. I figured it would be worth a shot.
More likely constructive dismissal
She's just such a tiresome mole
JK Rowling is a miserable twat
And woman involved that they outed should sue m&s for breaking confidentially and Rowling for being heinous loser who is setting her entire platform against her
M&S now need to sure Rowling.
It's time for women to vote with their wallets & stop buying GK Rowling's books, that's for sure. There's no evidence that the shop assistant WAS trans, except that she was very tall. Completely bog-standard bigotry, as predicted by @goodlawproject.org.
I can proudly say that I never bought into anything of the Harry Potter tripe, never watched the films, read the books and not given a single penny to the terf-in-chief; what a feeling 😊😊😊😊 And I never will....
Me neither... There are much better options!
Genuinely an evil woman
So what's she going to say when the M&S women's dept is flooded with men come December?
Has JKR posted about the Epstein files ?
I wouldn't be shocked if she's in them at this point.
Funnily enough, you aren't the only one to wonder that, why she is throwing so much shit around like a deranged chimpanzee like some form of distraction....
Disgusting that they apologized over this. These cretins are a tiny minority and should not be caved to with their radical transphobic beliefs.
I used to work in the ladies department for M&S High St Ken in the '90s. Gay and an immigrant. Something like a German Mr Humphries. Do you think she would have approved of me?
Why is the store apologizing for its employee being attentive to customers? Stand up for your staff!!!
The same mother takes her 14yo son to M&S for his first suit, and understands that he will need to have measurements taken, including his inside leg. A trans man is working in the menswear department, and asks if they need any help. Would she have kicked up the same fuss? Pretty sure she wouldn't.
Someone take her home please, she is acting up again.
JK seemed a bit late to the hate on this one.
Oh yes that well know female only space “the shop floor”
"women do be shopping," but feministly.
Mountain meet a mole hill. Be warned people in the US voted on this issue against their own economic interest in November 2024. These people are extremely good at making this seem like a widespread issue.
Disgusting, and not surprising. Bigots like this consider any queer person existing in public in any way to be "sexual harassment" to begin with.
Feel nauseous reading her tweet--that degree of irrational hate is terrifying, esp when it's someone followed by millions and has billions of bucks. Jesus wept, turn her the fuck off.
Why would I dress up like a woman to sexually assault teenagers when I could just be a Republican?
30 years in the police and never once came across someone dressing as a woman to commit a crime, despite being in the West End. Never known one to be put off by a "Women only" sign, either.
I hate to say it as someone who's entirely androgynous myself but here in Massachusetts we actually do have a dude who dresses up as a woman to commit crimes against woman tbdailynews.com/2021/06/11/b... He's probably touched as many girls as Trump 🤷♂️
I've said it before but the similarities between the current hatred towards Trans people and the words being thrown around by the GC movement are scarily similar to that used over many years against gay people.
It's the same playbook, almost word for word. And it's very similar to the tactics used against Black people, Jewish people, and whatever other minority wealthy conservatives wanted to focus their persecution on throughout history.
Can this stupid cunt eat a paveway yet?
I still don't understand how someone as dangerous as her hasn't had the stupid slapped out of her yet. We all need to defend ourselves against such bile and that means striking back at those who speak it. Showing them that bigotry has consequences.
These same type of people go on to defend Ghislaine Maxwell and Trump.
JKR is so evil that if i actually got a job (something im struggling to do) and she finds out about it she will campaign against where i work to pressure them to fire me its insane
The one who can’t be named!
Vile creature, she really is the Andrew Tate of white women. Just nothing but bile and gristle in her.
Honestly, I wish she MORE like Andrew Tate, 'cause then her moldy ass would have gotten arrested for something.
Yep and you will also note that since she was publicly endorsed by Tate JK Nazi hasn’t criticised him She’s also not spoken out against the ongoing removal of women’s reproductive choice which will come to the UK with Farage Its almost as if her anti trans crusade was a foil for something else🧐
She’s the modern day Anita Bryant.
Anita Bryant didn't have a multi-billion dollar war chest to spend on eradicating the people she didn't like.
Honestly, she is significantly worse than Anita Bryant.
I think maybe everyone who has reached a certain level of wealth should be moved to the moon and have no access to Earth's internet or news. We could convince them that it's a reward for having so much money...
A better idea is tax that wealth until they are below that level of wealth
Maybe, but I think sending them to the moon is a more likely to happen.
Well a few are planning on sending themselves
And then price-gouge the oxygen tanks.
Well she's also a colossal cunt bitch, so ya know. Blocking and muting her is the main response everyone should immediately make.
That's all she does. Peddle bullshit, push for violence and discrimination. Absolutely awful person. Honestly I stand with and still support the colleague and M&S~
The end result will be M&S - like most other shops - ceasing to do any bra fittings at all. Yet another own-goal by the "womens rights" hategroup.🙄
That cursed woman has got some monster sized horcrux stuck up her doo-dah. My 3 daughters all now massively regret their earlier HP obsessions.
They know exactly what they're doing, it's coordinated bullying. They're trying to make it impossible for trans women to have a public life - just like what was done to us - and while they ultimately won't win this I can vouch for the psychological damage it does to be constantly under suspicion
This is what is so insidious about the repetition here, that ultimately it's women who don't perform femininity well enough who will also end up being put under the microscope for this. And as I told my former self-described proud butch friend who went TERF... sister, that absolutely includes you.
How do you know that they won't win this? Who is going to stop them and how?
Every single bigot that tried to wipe out the trans community died first.
It's never a matter of "if", but of "when". They couldn't demonize Black people forever. They couldn't demonize independent women forever. They couldn't demonize gays and lesbians forever. They can't demonize trans people forever.
They won't win because Emperors and Kings, dictators and tyrants have tried and failed to suppress us for millennia. You can knock us down, but we get up again.
I care about trans people who exist right now. If future trans people find success and we don't, then we still lost. I want us to win right now. If they end medical transition and our public existence for this generation, that is a crushing loss. I don't care about the future if we lose the present.
It's possible to lose a battle and still win the war. Certainly isn't much solace for the soldiers lost in the process, but it is some measure of solace.
Because they never do. Because trans people will always exist and terfs will die out. Because most people in society are either unbothered by, or actively supportive of, trans people. Because we won't let them.
1,000,000%
Definitely still fighting here in our little corner of Norfolk, Rowling needs to take Peggie and the rest of them and crawl back into the slime bath they came from (not the sewers, I work on the sludge do I don't want that kind of turd there...)
Really don’t understand why J K Rowling has gone down this route. Just so nasty and full of hate.
Have you read her books? This sort of bigotry is embedded in them everywhere.
Because she really hates trans people for no reason there's no logic to ir
This is just, all she does not huh?
M&S kow-towed to the bullies and didn’t support their employee and the GCs are still not happy and plan to boycott. Just goes to show brands should stand up and stop indulging their bigoted nonsense!
Exactly this, they won't get ahead because the bigots will just demand more and they'll either have to stand up to them at some point or become so openly bigoted that they lose all other customers.
JK is a threat to public safety.
JK is a trans wannabe. She used her initials to sell more books because someone thinks fantasy readers don't buy female authors (LeGuin and Pierce would disagree) AND she still uses a male name for her "Adult" series
Around 2020, she even came out and said if she had been born later, she too would have probably sought out gender reassignment. She really is just another self-hating transphobe pickling herself sour in the juices of her own self-hatred.
I have a feeling, if she had transitioned, she'd be gay, and Dumbledore was her way of saying it.....
Rowling doesn't appear to be "enjoying her money", or indeed her life very much.
Yes!! It reminds me so much of the shit talked about lesbians at school I heard in the 80s (and indeed 90s).
"Transphobia is just rebranded homophobia" episode 34456
When I first came out as a lesbian (1994) I honestly felt like I shouldn't be in public changing rooms. It's one of the reasons queer and trans people have poorer health - we are excluded from exercise spaces by this kind of framing of us as sex-obsessed monsters.
I was out as a bi in the 90s and working in women's fashion. I learned quickly to hide who I was at work - if someone asked me if I was dating someone I would change pronouns to male to make everyone comfortable. Now I am at work wearing a pride pin, rainbow glasses, I employ multiple queer folks.
My big fear is that Canada will follow down this path of discrimination too.
Here's how the tabloids framed Martina Navratilova as a danger to girls, back in the day. It was and is appalling, and even more galling coming from a sleazy hate-fest such as The Sun.
Yeah, this is what I was reading then. I didn't know any actual lesbians before I came out so this is all I knew about myself.
This just makes it so much worse that Martina is now a TERF. She of all people should know better.
I wasn't aware of this - thank you.
It's an example of how insidious, relentless, the christo-fascist messaging is, it just chips away at sanity and compassion and saturates timelines. Horrible really, to be turned against yourself by your own enemy.
Absolutely this Kate. Now it’s all coming back again, it’s so triggering.
Yep, takes me back too, & not in a good way. I remember my first gf being scared to hold my hand; I remember being worried that other girls & women might think that I was eyeing them up in changing rooms. It's horrible to see our trans siblings going through yet another variation of this bullshit.
I’m still scared to hold my wife’s hand in public, except at Pride.
I went to a girls school in the 90s and "lesbian" was one of the scariest things to be called. We had communal changing rooms and if a bully accused you of being a lesbian and that made them uncomfortable, a teacher would simply sigh and suggest you just go change in a toilet cubicle. For ease.
Personally, I'd have preferred the privacy of the cubicle anyway but voluntarily doing it would have put a target on my back (because it was tantamount to admitting to being a ✨scary lesbian✨) and I'd have been hassled relentlessly with no expectation of help from any teachers
I think most people prefer to have the option of privacy, but the principle of how you were treated is awful. I'm so glad things have improved, but omg it feels like a constant fight to retain the gains!
I'm so sorry, it's so shit.
(I came out as bi in about, ooh, 1999 or so, and at the time still believed I was a woman. I was on a choir tour that summer and when we were in a hostel with communal bedrooms, it was insisted on that I went on my own. I didn't hate the privacy but ARGH. Exhausting.)
I’m so sorry!
Yes!! All that.
To the tune of TMNT 🎵 Hater in a Castle SHUT THE FUCK UP! 🎶
Make sure to add your name to this open letter: openletter.earth/an-appeal-to...
What happened in her life that turned her into such a spiteful cvnt?
