A lesbian high street shop worker has hit out at brands that sell t-shirts with the word “femme” on them, saying they are “selling” the word to straight people.

The shop worker, who goes by the name of H Beverley accused shops of appropriating the word from LGBT people to sell on t-shirts

She says she visited branches of stores like Topshop, H&M, Urban Outfitters and Mango to take photos of the products containing the word.

Beverley has since complained in writing to the brands, saying the word is used by LGBT people and shouldn’t be sold on clothing to people who may not understand the meaning of the word.

The 25-year-old tweeted Topshop and H&M saying: “The word femme has a history & meaning specific to LGBTQ+ ppl, it is ours to use – it isn’t yours to sell to straight ppl.”

The shop worker says it is unfair for the word to be displayed as a fashion statement, and for brands to profit from words like “femme”.

Speaking to the Daily Mail, she says: “I think the shops don’t realise what the word means or they just don’t care.

“They’ve just taken a word that has a specific meaning to a specific group of people and sold it to people that it has no relevance to.

“I don’t understand why you would want to wear a word across your chest that doesn’t have a meaning to you,” she continued.

Going on, Beverley says she would “presume” that anyone wearing the t-shirt was LGBT+.

She said: “It’s not necessarily diminishing the suffering of the LGBT community by printing this term on a t-shirt, but it’s serving it up out of context.”

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