I recently received an email saying that my local rape crisis centre was looking for volunteers, so I decided to take a look at the application. It had this question:
Do you feel comfortable volunteering in an organisation where our volunteers, staff and the women and girls we support include lesbian, bisexual and trans women, disabled women, and women from a wide variety of ethnic groups, ages, religions and social classes? Please answer here
One of these things is not like the others.
It's fine to have a centre which is for both women and men if you make it clear that that's what you're doing. Everyone knows where they stand. Letting in men who claim to have some kind of womanly soul but not others doesn't make logical sense. Equating opposition to this to not wanting to work with people of a different social class or ethnicity is even worse.
Then I read this:
We especially welcome applications from BME women, disabled women and LBT (lesbian, bisexual and trans) women.
FFS.
Rape crisis centres were set up by women, for women, in response to the problem of male sexual violence. How has it come to the point where even they see 'woman' as a feeling in a man's head? It makes no sense to me at all. I can only imagine how awful it would be to call their helpline after having suffered a terrible experience and being met not just with a male voice, but the voice of a male who insists you call him 'she'
Is there any way back from this?