New CEO of Edinburgh Rape Crisis

unbelievable just unbelievable

why did I get myself whole for this?

not once not twice but three times I put myself back on my feet to act positively,,
what a total total mockery of my life

They have no intention of learning, as they are zealots. This is a moral, religious crusade and they are the righteous.

Considering Scotland's religious history, the trustees of this organisation are simply following in the long tradition of religious evangelism. In previous generations it was witch trials, later on Presbyterianism and denouncements of those that didn't follow the true faith.

Interestingly you now get a 404 when looking at the meet the team page on their website.

as a “diverse organisation”, applications from “trans women” (i.e. males) are “especially welcome. Diversity speak for 'if you're a transwoman and you apply, we'll give you the job'

Today, ERCC is advertising a post for a chief operating officer. In the blurb ERCC refer to the single-sex exemption in the Equality Act 2010 explaining “only women need apply”, before adding that as a “diverse organisation”, applications from “trans women” (i.e. males) are “especially welcome.
They dont learn do they.

Especially welcome? Especially welcome?

I have no words.

Times Scotland
'Mridul Wadhwa, rape crisis boss, under fire over challenge to ‘bigot’ victims'
by Marc Horne
Thursday August 12
(extract)
"Wadhwa left the SNP after MSPs overwhelmingly backed an amendment allowing survivors of rape and sexual violence to choose the person examining them on the basis of sex rather than gender.

Roddy Dunlop QC, dean of the Faculty of Advocates, challenged her comments, tweeting: “Rape Crisis does amazing work and I do not have their expertise or knowledge. But in my respectful view, there is nothing ‘bigoted’ in a victim of sexual violence wishing a say on whomsoever is to provide counselling at what must be a horrendously traumatic time.
“The issue is not who can access counselling; but rather whether those in need of counselling can choose who counsels them. Important distinction.”

For Women Scotland, a feminist campaign group, claimed Wadhwa’s comments had caused distress to many survivors of sexual violence.
“The ‘bigots’ Wadhwa identifies are women who want female-only spaces in rape or domestic violence shelter and female-only counselling,” a spokeswoman said. “It also concerned those with a background in counselling and mental health who wondered about the professional qualifications of one who apparently failed to understand that therapy must be non-judgmental.” (continues)

archive.ph/gezUd#selection-873.0-899.364

“Reframe your trauma”
Rape survivors are not “bigots” for wanting female-only spaces

ARTILLERY ROW
By Josephine Bartosch
11 August, 2021
(extract)
"Amanda (not her real name) was sexually assaulted in 2005 by a former partner. She told me:

“For a time, I was fearful of all men. I even struggled to spend time with the supportive men in my life. I would attend what had once been a woman-only safe space in the attic of a sexual health service. I remember holding my breath and rushing through the lobby up the narrow staircase where I could finally exhale, safe in the knowledge there were no males there. I needed the compassion and empathy of my female therapist to work through that fear of men, acceptance that this was ok and part of the process. I needed the space to be women only, and by women I mean female.”

Should she need help again today, Amanda wouldn’t be able to rely on Rape Crisis Scotland (RCS) to refer her to a women-only service. RCS is an umbrella organisation working with a network of 17 independent local Rape Crisis centres across Scotland, including Edinburgh Rape Crisis (ERCC). (continues)

When asked about “building bridges” between those who believe that women’s spaces should be segregated by sex, and others who believe they should be open to men if they identify as transwomen, Wadhwa opined:

“Sexual violence happens to bigoted people as well. And so, you know, it is not a discerning crime. But these spaces are also for you. But if you bring unacceptable beliefs that are discriminatory in nature, we will begin to work with you on your journey of recovery from trauma. But please also expect to be challenged on your prejudices.”

Wadhwa went on to argue that such bigoted survivors of rape and sexual violence should work to “reframe their trauma” adding: “You also have to rethink your relationship with prejudice.”

A plea to the Equality and Human Rights Commission to investigate the appointment of Wadhwa to a female-only post was dismissed on grounds of lack of resources. Today, ERCC is advertising a post for a chief operating officer. In the blurb ERCC refer to the single-sex exemption in the Equality Act 2010 explaining “only women need apply”, before adding that as a “diverse organisation”, applications from “trans women” (i.e. males) are “especially welcome”. (continues)

thecritic.co.uk/reframe-your-trauma/

born male die male, this character doesnt even have a GRC.

Legally male, let's never forget that.

and just in case you might be interested:

Petition at UK Parliament to Require sex of sexual & violent offenders be recorded throughout justice system.

We are well past the 10,000 for a formal response from UK Govt
at ~10,500 in a single day!

but heck let's head for the 100,000 by 7 Jan 2022 and get a debate in the House of Commons! petition.parliament.uk/petitions/590123

Rape and sexual violence are a unique group of criminal offending in which biological sex could not be more relevant. www.womenarehuman.com/transgender-sexual-offending-context-is-all/

Ibid. transcript extract:

^"So I just want to say, as the owner of this podcast,
I feel I need to say that in this space. I also know that there are many people who are concerned that if transwomen can self identify, and come into a refuge, that that may trigger all sorts of things in cis women. Have you come up against this?^

Mridul Wadhwa : Yes, I have. If you just Google my name, you will see evidence of what I've been going through for the last two or three years up in Scotland around this issue. I know you described a situation of a night bus, but actually for transwomen, even the day is dangerous. And I think it's important to acknowledge that because there is such a social licence to be awful to us. And there absolutely is. It really doesn't feel like there is any punishment or any reputement or anything, any consequences in most societies of this world, if not all if you harm a trans person. And that was my experience growing up in India, I transitioned in India before I came here. And for the record I had, for those who are very interested in my, in what happens between my legs. Because that is what the mycology around me has been created. You know, as a wo.. transwoman who works in the women sector is that I don't have a gender recognition certificate, I have never transitioned and usually they want to know if I have a penis or not. All of that happened in India. And if you understood migration, you would know that I don't need a gender recognition certificate. Because I was a woman when I came here, I might be
very successful. [word unclear]

But yes, there are these concerns, misguided, and downright dangerous. So between misguided and downright dangerous, there are a whole lot of opinions and feelings about self identification. I think it's really important for people to hear that trans people self-identified before it was a word in the cis lexicon. Like, I am a transwoman, and that is self-identification. But the state has decided to legislate, or, hopefully in Scotland, that doesn't look like it's happening in England anytime soon, to change the way we can change our birth certificate. That's all that's happening.

But every other experience that we have as transwomen, how we are trans people, and more broadly, how we engage with services, how we go about our life, everything works on a self-id basis, and it's already been working. It is fine. Are there trans people that are dangerous? Yes, there are just as men can be dangerous, and some women can be dangerous. Laws are made and they are broken. But we all know that that will happen. So just to suggest that a few individuals who happen to be trans might abuse legislation or spaces, women's spaces, doesn't mean that you excluded a whole community and secondly, men already harm women, because that's what they're really talking about. Men already harm women without going into women's spaces, or even if they, like they can go into women’s spaces that they like.

And my argument is that men are already in these women's spaces, like, for example, a Rape Crisis Centre or a Women's Aid, because who is making the decisions about how much money we get. About who you know, who gives us planning permission, it is not women alone. So the argument that women's spaces will be somehow compromised, from my perspective as a strategic thinker, that's already happening, because we are functioning in a man's world. But to go into the very specifics about who gets access to these spaces, I
think it should be reassuring that women's services are very private services, we often organise our services, and I can speak to Rape Crisis Centres in particular, that we organise them in such a way that actually when you use our service, you might never ever see another survivor, when you're in our building, or in our space, except maybe in our group. So I don't know, really, what the argument is, anymore. I think the argument essentially is from people is like, we refuse to see the humanity of transwomen in particular, as people, and we would rather that they're not here at all." (continues without reference to the impact on female rape/DA survivors when men are present)

Guilty Feminist - 265. Creating Our Own World with Kemah Bob and Mridul Wadhwa
transcript:
forwomen.scot/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Mridul-Wadhwa-Guilty-Feminist-transcript.pdf

Current thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4318605-I-think-Ive-figured-out-why-the-Guilty-Feminists-feel-guilty

Guilty Feminist podcast
2 August 2021
265. Creating Our Own World with Kemah Bob and Mridul Wadhwa
guiltyfeminist.com/episode/?episode=323

For Women Scotland
The Real Crisis at Rape Crisis Scotland
Posted on 10th August 2021
(extract)
"But I think the other thing is that sexual violence happens to bigoted people as well. And so, you know, it is not discerning crime. But these spaces are also for you. But if you bring unacceptable beliefs that are discriminatory in nature, we will begin to work with you on your journey of recovery from trauma. But please also expect to be challenged on your prejudices, because how can you heal from trauma and build a new relationship with your trauma, because you can’t forget, and you can’t go back to life before traumatic incident or traumatic incidents. And some of us never, ever had a life before traumatic incidents. But if you have to reframe your trauma, I think it is important as part of that reframing, having a more positive relationship with it, where it becomes a story that empowers you and allows you to go and do other more beautiful things with your life, you also have to rethink your relationship with prejudice. Otherwise, you can’t really, in my view, recover from trauma and I think that’s a very important message that I am often discussing with my colleagues that in various places. Because you know, to me, therapy is political, and it isn’t always seen as that."
Mridul Wadhwa, Guilty Feminist podcast

The passage above is from a podcast featuring Mridul Wadhwa, the Chief Executive Officer of Edinburgh Rape Crisis. The podcast as a whole is a masterclass of gaslighting and features an extraordinary performance by the host Deborah Frances-White, who downplays the harassment women “might” get on a night bus at 1am when compared to the “very structurally violent constant flicks of eyes, and I don’t know, oh, God, and aggressive glares” that she says transwomen are exposed to. Other “anecdotal” assumptions by Frances-White include that of a transwoman’s reception at a shelter: “if they turn up they’re more likely to be vulnerable and fearful of their response. Because if I turned up to a refuge, a women’s refuge, in the middle of the night going, I’ve just had this terrible experience, my expectation would be you would say, Oh, please come in, we’ll take care of you. But I can imagine being trans and thinking I’ve, you know, I know what people say and I know that, you know, maybe this will be an inclusive space for me and maybe it won’t. Maybe they’ll say get out of here. And so this violence will be compounded by more structural violence.”

Frances-White’s naive, factually incorrect analysis of violence against women and how women feel in accessing services and support is never challenged by the supposed expert Wadhwa who is happy to allow Frances-White and co-host Kemah Bob to talk about abused women being obliged to “check your privilege”. A podcast interviewing the CEO of a rape centre becomes an exercise in proving that the person in charge of the centre is a more vulnerable person than the women accessing the service." (continues)

forwomen.scot/10/08/2021/the-real-crisis-at-rape-crisis-scotland/

Wow! Karen Davis' on that podcast was right on! She's usually much lighter and funny, but I think this issue really hit home.

Karen knows firsthand the racism in the US...it's fucking appalling that a man would impersonate a white, southern American woman to feel power over vulnerable people's food benefits. This was chilling.

Wow. What a brilliant break down of this whole shit show of hiring him.

She is brilliant.

As she says why would you reward a male individual who has lied to access vulnerable women.

Yes indeed.

Also, doesn’t this neatly demonstrate how important wording/language is.

Think of the incremental difference in impact, not to mention the lessening of the load for us, if we were able to say simply,

“why would you reward a man who has lied to access vulnerable women?”

But we can’t.

This rejigging of basic concepts of material reality into softened euphemistic workarounds just obscures the facts of any given situation, of the situation as a whole. Every concession we make dilutes the impact further. It costs us, constricts us, clouds the issue.

It sucks.

Nevertheless, we persist!

The power admission is just so chilling, ERC ought to be hanging their heads in shame over this appointment.

She is very good. And there is no getting away from it. As she says why would you reward a male individual who has lied to access vulnerable women.

Gosh, that podcast - she lays it on the line. Wonder how many of the people at Edinburgh Rape Crisis have watched it because they bloody should.

Just listened to the podcast, she is brilliant.

[quote TedImgoingmad]Also (the confessional podcast is linked):

I think one of the main questions that should be asked is if they are continuing to “counsel” victims, what counselling qualifications do they have? Look at their LinkedIn.

Glaring. Jarring. Shocking.