New CEO of Edinburgh Rape Crisis

under the guise of increasing trans rights.

I'm fairly sure they did know. I imagine that either they were absolutely fine with it or they weren't confident enough in the law to tell them to fuck off, especially as they had been previously employed in a female only role. ERCC are fairly small and I doubt they could afford to right an expensive legal case. On the other hand I expect Wadhwa has got backing who can afford expensive lawyers.

This isn't about one individual, this is part of the coordinated pushback of women's rights under the guise of increasing women's rights.

Sorry I was presuming that as the trans status had not been declared, the presumption was of a natal female, in line with the job criteria.

Am I being too trusting naive ?

Yet no one on the board was aware that this applicant was in fact a TW.

Why do you think they didn't know?

@AfternoonToffee

We don’t know ? They may have been fully aware ?

Exactly. It is discriminatory that the only men that can apply are men that self-identify as women. It is discriminatory for the CEO position to be only offered to women imho. It’s not a client facing role, so there is no reason to restrict the sex of the applicants. I hope someone launches legal challenges on both of these.

There are lots of reasons to restrict it to females. These include males having access to client records, which women may not want; and staff members and volunteers needing to discuss issues that arise for clients and themselves with someone they feel comfortable talking to, which for many won't be a man.

There are constant warnings on MN about companies googling job applicants, so be careful what you have on SM etc. Yet no one on the board was aware that this applicant was in fact a TW. Did no one Google? Surely for a top role you would want to thoroughly check people out and that their SM backed up their CV (including LinkedIn here)

No one googled, no one? So either they are completely incompetent and didn't..... Sorry just been distracted by the flying pig out the corner of my eye, or did and decided just to ignore it all anyway.

Jesus, they're inexperienced children.

@HerewardTheWoke

Great analysis. I thought the same thing to be honest.

Part of my job is to do with scrutinising and strengthening corporate governance and even for a smallish charity that board is very seriously underpowered, let alone for one delivering a complex service like this.

According to the website, they are mostly recent graduates (or in a couple of cases currently undergraduates!), and only one member has a long-standing career in something that might be relevant to the organisation (HR - which is fine, although it begs the question why they don't know how to operate single sex exceptions properly).

I'd expect an organisation like this to have at least one board member with a legal background, ideally family and/or criminal law, and one with substantial experience in financial management. Then I would want to see other members with long-standing experience in child protection, safeguarding, VAWG sector, local government, public health or other social policy fields, and fundraising. Not people who graduated within the last few years and have spent a few months in another country ... Jesus fucking Christ

I feel genuinely concerned for the board members. They are totally out of their depth for the level of personal liability they have taken on. No wonder they are getting walked all over.

So that’s... what 80% of the worlds population? (Back of fag packet stonewall calculation)

An advocate for all women incl trans and BME women.

all women incl trans and BME women - ?????????????

I'm just ... I can't even ... You could not make this shit up.

Well if someone is an expert in Scottish law and wants to start a fundraiser ?

@Leafstamp

Yes, they’ve messed up twicefold. Another point is that if they always intended the woman only advert to include transwomen, then where does that leave transmen? If experience of womanhood and gender based violence against girls and women is why they restricted it to “women only” ....then in actual lived experience of girl and womanhood, transmen have more of that than transwomen do...so it’s deliberately excluding a whole category of just as qualified (I’d argue more qualified) applicants.

I agree with you @PlanDeRaccordement and @Unsure33

I think they’ve messed up twicefold.

[quote Unsure33]@PlanDeRaccordement

This is a legal question that is important , and I agree would not apply IF the job had not been advertised for women only . In theory there must be a good solid reason for that .[/quote]
Exactly. It is discriminatory that the only men that can apply are men that self-identify as women. It is discriminatory for the CEO position to be only offered to women imho. It’s not a client facing role, so there is no reason to restrict the sex of the applicants. I hope someone launches legal challenges on both of these.

For counsellors, and other client facing roles there would be legal reason too. Because 95% of victims will want a female counsellor/staff member to interact with. So in a staff of say 20 counsellors, 19 should be restricted to females only, and 1 males only. Because you staff to meet demand. This isn’t a profession where you want 50/50 man/woman representation in staff.

What is unacceptable is this person concealing their sex and therefore deliberately ignoring the criteria for candidates as set out by the organisation.

MW may have concealed their sex when applying for a previous position, but for this position it would have been well known, whatever was put on the application.

The NCT had a male CEO for a long time.

The main objection to that seemed to be that the CEO is a figurehead. So, if you've got a bloke leading women and speaking about women's issues, well, that's the same old same old, isn't it?

To be fair, he seemed to do a reasonable job despite his Y chromosome. But, I don't think women LIKED it. And those were women who were pregnant, not traumatised.

It just looks odd to have a trans woman in charge of what happens to the hoardes of raped women in a country where rape is effectively legal.

@Leafstamp

Possibly they have made two mistakes then .

The legal challenge could be interesting.

[quote Unsure33]@PlanDeRaccordement

This is a legal question that is important , and I agree would not apply IF the job had not been advertised for women only . In theory there must be a good solid reason for that .[/quote]
In theory I agree.

But (carrying on in my slightly Devils’s Advocate fashion, and) depending on how large the organisation is, if there is, for example a female “Head of Rape Crisis Services” and also a “ Head of Sexual Abuse” (male or female) sat underneath the CEO then I’m not sure it’s right to specify that the CEO must be female.

Similar to Plan I do not consider it essential that an organisation providing support as per its website has a female CEO. What is unacceptable is this person concealing their sex and therefore deliberately ignoring the criteria for candidates as set out by the organisation.

I do agree with your point about boundaries.

Have they thought that the corollary might also be true? That being a biological woman would give someone a particular insight and ability to support women.

This is why I find most appeals to "intersectionality" dishonest, as being born female is clearly something which needs to be considered as an axis of oppression but it's often presented as solely a matter of gender identity.

In fact they have just placed a transwomans rights above the rights of men and women ?