#AskRapeCrisisScotland

[quote FOJN]I've not read anything by this writer before but she has a very funny turn of phrase even when she is clearly raging.

badhijabi.substack.com/p/reframe-your-identity?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=twitter[/quote]
Thank you for sharing that article, it’s excellent, she is raging and she isn’t the only one! More sunlight, more raging, more people seeing what is going on, the better.

I've not read anything by this writer before but she has a very funny turn of phrase even when she is clearly raging.

badhijabi.substack.com/p/reframe-your-identity?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=twitter

Congressdingo It's reassuring that something is being done

Happy LA saves money by withdrawing funding; women are back to raising donations instead

A tad farfetched but I wouldn't be surprised if this were the case

“Much of the funding comes from government who put conditions on that funding, it's why we're where we are now. A female only service would be unlikely to receive funding in the current climate which means that all women only services would have to be funded by donations.”

I do wonder if that’s what’s behind so much of the official acceptance:
Force funded refuges to take males to comply with funding - many women stop using them.
Refuges then can’t justify their funding due to lower numbers using them.
Happy LA saves money by withdrawing funding; women are back to raising donations instead.

[quote WeAreTheWomen]This is informative. Follow the money - talk about vested interests!
grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/mridrul-wadha-sacro-and-the-14-million[/quote]
Bloody. Hell.

TWO separate vested interests.

TWO.

Are we bothering with the Nolan principles or ethics or basic standards in positions of responsibility any more, or is that now bigoted too?

Is it just me that screams Fox / Hen House at that?

Not just you. Jeezus, the truth really is coming out now 😲

Does anyone know if anything came of Posie Parker's plan to fundraise for an all female refuge?

And yes, this:
The contract for domestic violence services now sits with SACRO instead.
MW's husband was a director of SACRO until last March.

Are Sacro the Scottish equivalent to NACRO? Cos I understand Nacro do good work but as stated, their focus is offenders, most of whom are male.

MW's husband was a director of SACRO until last March.

THIS!!!

This needs to be shouted long and loud

SACRO is not a specialist in this area, nor was it local to the Lanarkshire site it took over, despite that looming large in the funding criteria.

It has 50 years in supporting prisoners and their families, running drop in centres of offenders post release. The vast majority of their previous clientele have been male offenders, plus travel arrrangements for access visits.

So offenders... not victims.

Is it just me that screams Fox / Hen House at that?

Glinner Update has just posted about this too

The msm need to make this front page news over the weekend - absolute scandal in the making

grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/mridrul-wadha-sacro-and-the-14-million?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=copy

Have you seen this?

3 women's aid groups in North Lanarkshire had all their local authority funding removed because they would not admit men to refuges or work with perpetrators of abuse. The contract for domestic violence services now sits with SACRO instead.

MW's husband was a director of SARCO until last March.

twitter.com/VerdiMurray/status/1425946091749617672

It’s a shame that TRAs don’t direct all the energy they put into invading places set up for women into setting up separate places for trans people. It’s almost as if they don’t actually care about the vulnerable trans people that they cite as the need to be allowed into women’s spaces, they just don’t want women to have something of their own.

There was a Twitter post the other day where someone called for re establishing female only services. There was an immediate demand in reply: Will that be inclusive of TW?

Yes. The woman who disingenuously asked got ratioed and eventually flounced.

Yep, I've seen comments of "go and find a female only service then!" Only when these services appear they get piled on by "is this inclusive to TW?" all wide eyed and innocent, but we all know that undercurrent of "because if they aren't you're gunna get it"

But this is a recurring pattern. Males getting into "women's officer" or similar roles, and being 100% trans focussed, and using the position to basically block female activism. Barely the slightest hint of actual interest in anything to do with female reality, just minimal signalling about things like period poverty.

From what I've seen a random non-trans male would likely do a better job than transwomen in these positions. They're less likely to have an actively anti-female agenda.

Female and male transactivists have undermined women's services and rights as well as sex-based Safeguarding.

@TheHarpySings* report of 2018 TRA conference organised by Jane Fae, 'We're Still Here'

(extract)
6) GETTING THE GRA WE WANT

This was a workshop with 3 experts sitting with groups and talking through activism. They were:

Helen Belcher (Lib Dems, Trans Media Watch)
James Morton (Scottish Transgender Alliance)
Alex Moore (GenderJam). Moore is from N Ireland.

James Morton gave some insight into tactics the TRAs will probably start using in England and Wales as they were successful in Scotland.

He said the TRAs need to build allies in mainstream women and children’s organisations so it looks like they care about them.

He also said what worked in Scotland's was a “constructive, friendly, innocent” tone when debating or in dialogue with the GC side. To be mindful about who is watching- essentially like what we do with the lurkers on the FWR board. To make the TRAs look like the reasonable side.

James also said that in dialect with elected officials, to clarify that the trans side aren’t silencing anyone but want to clarify the misconceptions being bandied around by GC feminists. (continues)

James Morton talked about how they can get rid of “gender” markers on things like IT systems and places where it isn’t relevant- apparently GDPR might be able to help them here.

JM’s campaigning tips were to gain trust in the local community- and to approach moderate feminists, “correct misconceptions and forgive any ignorance they may have displayed”. They want to gain trust and make themselves likeable.

Apparently small acts like helping to campaign about period poverty or retweeting the local branch of Women’s Aid will make a difference and result in some reciprocation. They want to make it look like they care about Women's issues so they don’t appear threatening"
(continues)
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3398737-We-re-Still-Here-Conference-8th-September-A-report-from-the-inside

When I dream about what I would do if I won the lottery, one of the things on the list would be to set up a service for females only, where I had enough money to ignore the hate, the abuse, the threats from TRAs. Where I wouldn't have to rely on a government which has an agenda for money. Because whatever you set up, TRAs will want to be included and then we will spend more & more time fighting them than providing a service. We need to draw the line here & now and fight the fight.

This.

There was a Twitter post the other day where someone called for re establishing female only services. There was an immediate demand in reply: Will that be inclusive of TW?

Men's services are available to TW
Women's services have been forced to mixed sex in almost all cases and are available to TW

If female only services are (re) established to cater for the women bounced out of women's services and excluded due to their need for a single sex space - why do TW have to have access to that too?

At some point this absolute intolerance of females and the demand to take away resources from them is going to have to be challenged. Along with that weasel word 'inclusive'.

It is not inclusive to excluded women from women's spaces.

MW has not demonstrated - in none of the many interviews given - a fraction of an understanding of that. It's just not there. And I don't think it can, because that's simply not what MW is focused on.

But this is a recurring pattern. Males getting into "women's officer" or similar roles, and being 100% trans focussed, and using the position to basically block female activism. Barely the slightest hint of actual interest in anything to do with female reality, just minimal signalling about things like period poverty.

From what I've seen a random non-trans male would likely do a better job than transwomen in these positions. They're less likely to have an actively anti-female agenda.

I was thinking that it's obviously not easy to build a new prison, hospital, changing rooms when women can't use them as they don't feel safe there.

But these services are different, something more thrifty could be set up without the need for mammoth investments. We, as users, are the ones who can decide where to go.

To be wholly charitable here, MW's words remind me of people who have learned about something, but they don't understand it. They use the lingo, but something's off. They say things that sound good (empowering, positive, beautiful) but it's just meaningless waffle, because they have completely failed to grasp the real issue.

Guilty Feminist transcript extracts:
MW "It happened not to deliberately. When I graduated, I did a Masters at Edinburgh University, there was a job going at Shakti and I just completed a masters in training. And they needed someone to do some training. It wasn't by design. I just applied for this job, it looked interesting. Obviously, I had been around violence. I grew up in a home with domestic abuse. I'd experienced violence as a transwoman in India. And so it looked like somewhere I wanted to work. And I applied and I got the job. And I just stayed.

Like before working in women's services, I used to teach people how to sound American in India, in a call centre. So it is not by design that I got into this work. But I stayed by design because in fact, I moved back to India and then moved back again to work at Shakti Women’s Aid."

"So I've worked in the women's sector now since 2005, so quite a few years. And when I worked at Shakti Women's Aid, you know, it was eye opening, not just to see an experience, like what does domestic abuse really look like" (continues)

Wadwha became involved in Women's Services via Shakti Women's Aid. Shakti Women's Aid is a grassroots organisation formed in 1985 and incorporated in 2004.

from website:
Shakti Women’s Aid helps BME women, children, and young people experiencing, or who have experienced, domestic abuse from a partner, ex-partner, and/ or other members of the household.
shaktiedinburgh.co.uk/about/

I am struggling to understand why/how someone male whose previous experience was training Indian telesales staff to mimick Americans came to be employed by a domestic abuse organisation providing specialist support to very vulnerable women and their children.

Karen Davis examines the context and consistency of Wadwha's claims to have imitated an American in a call centre role managing access to food stamps and cash benefits for US citizens. Wadwha describes enjoying the "sense of power" associated with this role in a Provoke interview: www.buzzsprout.com/1219151/4569950-provokecast-episode-1-mridul-wadhwa

'MRIDUL AND POWER. HAVE YOU HEARD THIS, EDINBURGH RAPE CRISIS?'
6 May 2021
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHhOugmuhKk

MW has not demonstrated - in none of the many interviews given - a fraction of an understanding of that. It's just not there. And I don't think it can, because that's simply not what MW is focused on.

Charlie I think your last paragraph hits the nail on the head.

[quote AlecTrevelyan006]The latest statement is no better than what was said on the podcast

edinburghrapecrisis.wixsite.com/ercc/post/statement[/quote]
Yes. What's needed is an apology and a retraction. What we got is a mealymouthed concession to women in acute crisis, who'll not be re-educated when they first attend, but will be re-educated asap, alongside every other woman attending.

And that's final.

That's the statement to clarify the words supposedly taken out of context.

But the thing is, I'm now at that point. No longer in acute crisis. Since WM's interview I've had a persistent flashback again, which I haven't had since Christmas. I'm upset, unsettled and those words bring back a lot of the unhelpful thoughts that I worked on in rape crisis counselling. When I first heard the interview, I felt ill. But I am using what my counsellor taught me so I don't spiral down again. So far it's working, although I have been much better than this.

Which according to MW's clarifying statement, means I'm now ready for re-education about my unacceptable prejudice against males in a female-only therapeutic environment.

I haven't changed my mind though. Neither have my needs. I still need a female-only therapeutic environment and I have the right to access help from the national rape crisis service without being re-educated.

Because the trauma is still there. Counselling cannot make it go away. That was probably the hardest lesson I learned from my counsellor. I've learned to live with it. She helped me find ways to manage it. By all accounts, I had very successful counselling, and it did involve a lot of reframing to help me deal with my guilt and shame. But this passage still makes no sense, even in the context of successful counselling that profoundly changed my life:

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. [my emphasis]

I would like MW to explain to me how I should simultaneously reframe my trauma, have a fucking positive relationship with being attacked as a child, turn that into a story that empowers me when it almost broke me 30+ years later and then, newly empowered, meekly submit to be lectured that my involuntary trauma responses to males are prejudiced and bigoted when they also happen in the presence of males who identify as trans.

I mean I don't even see why that ought to be of any importance to my life or my recovery.

To be wholly charitable here, MW's words remind me of people who have learned about something, but they don't understand it. They use the lingo, but something's off. They say things that sound good (empowering, positive, beautiful) but it's just meaningless waffle, because they have completely failed to grasp the real issue.

And there is a reason why probably 99% of rape crisis services are offered in a female-only space by female-only counsellors - because if you're using a structural analysis of sexual violence as male violence that predominantly affects female victims all of whom have to navigate a world dominated by males, regardless of their trauma, then that is the only logical setup.

Give survivors one space where they know they will not have to be on guard. Where hypervigilant survivors can relax in the knowledge that there are no males present.

MW has not demonstrated - in none of the many interviews given - a fraction of an understanding of that. It's just not there. And I don't think it can, because that's simply not what MW is focused on.