Head of Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre :'Protesters against gender reform ‘give platform to fascists’

We had an ex colleague of MW's on here recently who had worked with MW around the time of employment at Shakti. Said ex colleague had thought MW was female (and was shocked to find out otherwise).

I understand why you feel it was dishonest, OnlyTheLangOfTheTitberg.

There is no question about the legalities involved - it is neither dishonest nor unlawful for a candidate to apply for a position he or she is not qualified for as long said candidate does not misrepresent him- or herself. The Legal Feminist explored the legalities in this recent article:

legalfeminist.org.uk/2021/09/12/fostering-good-relations/

MW has been working for RCS for over seven years. MW has been working closely with the senior leadership of RCS for years.

MW cannot get a GCR in the UK, because MW was not born in the UK and the UK does not have an agreement to recognise the GRCs issued in India.

Be in no doubt whatsoever that those who employed MW knew exactly who they were employing. And why.

In my view, this appointment was a foregone conclusion and I believe it happened because of not in spite of who MW is. I think of it as an internal promotion. Hence dishonesty is not what springs to mind as there is none - MW's employer told us in a meeting that a male person becomes female (not merely a woman) on making a verbal statement of identity. They require no changes whatsoever, that is their minimum standard for trans inclusion. And MW meets it.

They also disagree with the Equality Act. Frankly, I'm astonished they even applied the occupational requirement at all, given that they believe there are no legal exceptions to trans inclusion and there was no need to apply it.

If you're in any doubt as to where the senior leadership of RCS stands, do remember that the CEO of RCS opposed giving female survivors the legal right to request an examiner of the same sex.

I have a few choice thoughts about a) any male candidate who applies for a job limited to female candidates under Schedule 9 and b) any employer who first invokes the occupational requirement to be a woman and then ignores it, but I refrained from expressing my rage because it's neither a helpful contribution to the issue nor is this good for me. (And I'm not talking about the MN moderation rules here.)

So please don't mistake my preference for an accurate assessment of the situation for even a fraction of acceptance for what is going on or an ounce of respect for any of the people involved. I have none.

We could say, without fear of contradiction, that MW chose not to divulge their true sex when initially entering the sector.

We could also state that MW is male, as he does not have a GRC.

We could also state that RCS advertised his current position as a female only post, citing the correct sections of the EA2010 to do so.

We could therefore assume that something is happening that we are unaware of, something that places both MW and RCS in a less than secure position and undermines the work RCS do.

As others have said, quite elegantly, if MW was as bothered about trans people and the violence done unto them then he would be using all of his contacts to provide adequate care and support form them. That he chooses instead to undermine the trust so many women placed in a number of crisis centres tells us a lot, probably more than MW would be able to understand or acknowledge.

Edinburgh Rape Crisis provide services to a variety of people, including transgender people so it could be argued that there is no requirement for the CEO to be female, given the varying demographics using the service.

However, those in charge of recruiting for this post chose to invoke the single sex occupational exemption. Meaning that only females were eligible to apply for the post. Wadhwa is not female so was not eligible to apply for the post - it doesn't really matter how well liked or hardworking Wadhwa is, they should never have been offered an interview.

However, I believe this situation was allowed to occur because the organisation is completely captured. There seems to be strong links to the SNP and as we've seen with other services, funding can be very contingent on how 'inclusive' the services offered are. The fact there are now no single sex services available at Rape Crisis Edinburgh means that it's not meeting the needs of women, but as that doesn't seem to have any bearing of funding, who cares right?

It also seems to me to have discriminated against other transwomen who may have wished to apply for the post - they would have seen the occupational exemption and thought, correctly, that they weren't eligible to apply for the post. Why was an exception made for Wadhwa?

I agree. The legality is debatable, but the gross misconduct of both Wadhwa and those involved in the recruitment is not.

Still, Charlie's right that framing it as 'lying to get the job' is unhelpful. It was simply applying to a role they were not qualified for, with the recruiter complicit in ignoring the unsuitability.

The lack of honesty isn't the fundamental problem here - it's the undermning of women's space and services.

Charlie, I think you are one of the most articulate posters here and I agree with 99% of whatever you post but on this last point: no. Wadhwa applied for the job dishonestly.

It’s nothing to do with how well or otherwise MW passes. They applied for a job that was reserved for a woman under the single-sex exemption, knowing 100% full well that they do not meet the biological or legal definition of woman. That is dishonesty. That is a lie.

Yes, there should be as much opprobrium heaped on those who made the appointment, because they will have known throughout that MW was male - although I suppose it’s possible they may have assumed he since gained a GRC and neglected to carry out any kind of check because “gatekeeping”.

But their failure of process does not change the fact that a man who knows he is a man applied for a job that he knew was reserved for a woman. Where I work, misrepresenting yourself on an essential non-negotiable criteria of the recruitment process - including where the lie is by omission, as it is here - would, if it subsequently came to light, result in dismissal for gross misconduct, and the grounds for the gross misconduct would be dishonesty at the application stage.

I agree I've seen no evidence of a false claim to be female, or that Wadwha was ever appointed to any post under the belief that he was female.

But he did apply to a post advertised as being open to females only, and the application was accepted, and he ultimately got the post. Other people were complicit in this process, so he didn't need to lie to them, but it was a joint fraud, almost certainly unlawful. You cannot advertise a role as being single-sex if it is not.

Before proceeding with the application, the placement should have been reopened without the single-sex stipulation, giving other better-qualified and less ideologically-compromised men a chance.

As it stands, the rule was just waived for Wadhwa. Which smells like corruption.

We need to stop claiming MW lied to get the job. The facts don't bear this out and those who need to listen to us never will if we continue with this claim.

MW started working in the VAWAG sector while still obviously male.

MW was employed in a role that was not frontline work but training outsiders (employed to train people, both male and female, who in the course of their work.- police, courts, NHS, social work, housing - would come into contact with ethnic minority women who had experienced male sexual violence).

This was in 2005, five years before the Equality Act and crucially after the Gender Recognition Act had disapplied the Genuine Occupational Requirement of the Sex Discrimination Act from those in possession of a GRC. Many people had no idea how that worked and wouldn't have known how to navigate this.

But as MW has said, it never came up. Now most people assume this means it never came up because MW passes so well. That wasn't the case in 2005 though. MW's sex was obvious back then. It is much more likely that it never came up because MW wasn't employed to work with female survivors.

And once you've got to know someone (and MW was very well liked, effective in the role and hardworking - in short an asset to the employer), you assess risk differently. It is clear from MW's own words about working at Shakti that there eventually was an intense focus on "reeducating" the survivors at Shakti that TWAW, said reeducation delivered by MW.

According to someone who met MW at the time, MW was not shy at declaring a trans status back then. Even when literally no one actually cared to know. (MW seems to not have been living "in stealth" at any point.)

By the time MW took up the post as manager of Forth Valley Rape Crisis, MW had already accepted a national award for campaigning for LGBT rights and had given an acceptance speech mostly about being trans.

There was no lie. It is difficult to accept this, I know, because MW likes to play up the whole I pass so well, they didn't know I was male that being accused of lying about being female seems to be taken as a compliment. It looks very much like even us "evil TERFs" believe MW passes so well that this lie is even feasible.

I've met MW. Hence I don't believe it is.

And every single time we repeat the claim that MW lied to get the job, those who should listen to our justified complaints about MW's comments will dismiss us as liars. Because they know MW didn't lie to get the Rape Crisis job. And if we're seen to be making false claims about that, why should they listen when we make claims about anything else to do with MW.

I would not be surprised if donations have taken away. Maybe only a bit but every penny counts to these orgs. I would guess that most donations come from women (female). To deliberately make a hire that they knew would upset/ anger some or many of their key individual supporters seems frankly insane.

The majority of funding comes via grants not individual donations. The system has already been captured so there is more grant money available for organisations that are TQ+ inclusive than for supporting girls and women. In fact, as has been demonstrated, many sources of grant income may be denied to services that offer single sex support to girls and women and/or risk being defunded.

CharleyParley, I get what you mean, you and I both don’t believe that he is a woman, however in my opinion you are giving him some validation in your comment by respecting his delusion, but that’s up to you, we agree to differ. MW is an adult human male who lied , by omission , to get a post that, by law and correctly, is reserved for adult human females.

Surgery etc is irrelevant.

This is a person who lied to get a job that had criteria for the applicants that they did not meet.

This is a person who is causing a lot of media attention around a service that is highly sensitive and all this attention and argument etc may well put people off accessing the service.

The act if hiring such a divisive person who had a certain amount of notoriety was obviously going to attract criticism argument. Heated argument and anger. Taking the spotlight off their core remit and putting it on a different area altogether.

The statements from this person clearly show their focus to be on an issue not related to the orgs aim to help rape victims.

I would not be surprised if donations have taken away. Maybe only a bit but every penny counts to these orgs. I would guess that most donations come from women (female). To deliberately make a hire that they knew would upset/ anger some or many of their key individual supporters seems frankly insane.

Further the statements interviews etc not only focus on a different issue. But strongly suggest that women with certain views. If raped. Are not welcome.

It's a proper shitshow.

All I can think is that those in charge of hiring took this decision deliberately because they wanted to send these messages.

They are not fit for purpose. In other words. They have sacrificed principles mission etc to show support for an unrelated issue. And many women supporters will have been lost, and their service is broadcasting that it is not open to all. And they did this with their eyes open.

MW claims to have had surgery but I would take that claim, as with everything else MW claims, with a very large pinch of salt.

Birth certificates can be changed to the opposite sex in India by a medical report attesting full surgery has been completed. So why hasn't MW chosen to do so?

An adult human male is a man. No operation changes that fact. No piece of paper changes that fact. I'll respect his right to follow his preferences for femine-coded clothes, mannerisms, behaviours or activities but I do not accept his belief that that makes him a woman.

(I said he was a post-operative transsexual because he is simply that - a transsexual who has had surgery. There is nothing in my previous comment to suggest that I believe humans can change sex.)

MW is still a man, he isn’t “post” anything as he doesn’t have a GRC in India or the UK.

There is a tendency in these here parts to talk about good trans/bad trans and real trans/fake trans that puts homosexual transsexuals (HSTS) into the positive side of those pairings and non-homosexual transsexuals (aka AGP) into the negative side. This leads some people to believe that post-operative transsexuals are never AGP and no homosexual transsexuals are at the forefront of the movement against women's sex-based rights and that real trans people just want to get on with it and not push us out of our spaces.

The truth is that the trans community is like any other social grouping - there are all kinds of people in it with all kinds of interests, political leanings and motivations.

Some AGP push against women's sex-based rights, some push against self-id. Some HSTS campaign against women's sex-based rights and some support the campaign to uphold them.

And this is a case of an HSTS opposing the right of female survivors of male violence to access a female-only therapeutic environment to recover in.

From Joanna cherry

Another thing I wonder about MW is why he hasn't adopted a female name. And I wonder if he was called Andrew Smith or something (and claiming to be female and applying for jobs at women's refuges) if that would have been more of an issue.

It's not that I think changing to a female name makes you more of a woman somehow – I don't. But there's something kind of aggressive about it that ties in with him constantly making his transness the centre of attention and the priority. It's as if what he really wants is to make everyone aware of his maleness all the time. He reminds me of Alex "expand what it means to be a woman" Drummond in that way.

Yes totally. That would be a "rights aren't pie" situation - setting up new refuges that cater for the unique experiences of the rapidly increasing numbers of trans people. TRAs generally seem to think that it's OK for trans people to have their own organisations. So having their own rape crisis centres and refuges also makes sense.

Agree, NiceGerbil. Hell, I'd be right behind TRAs if they were doing their own fundraising and setting up. This glomping onto women's things and changing them completely is unconscionable.

This person could have done a lot of good by lobbying for males who are victims of sex offences to get help.

A group where barriers are different and under reporting is a big problem.

Or trans people.

Or LGBT+ people.

Or wherever they felt the need was.

We are told that TW are at very high risk of sexual assault, rape. And are disproportionately in sex work which is very risky plus often other really awful stuff.

This is what comes up over and over.

It's orgs and sectors that already are in place that are entered and then mission changed etc.

Rather than a focus on providing new services or building existing ones, for the group/s that they clearly are very concerned for.

And that happens over and over and over.

It's invariably about opening up existing things that were created to help women.

Never about services for the group that matters to them most, and that has a totally different set of issues etc etc.

I think that says it all tbh.

Read a bit of thread.

Another thought.

I don't think it's ok for the head of a rape crisis org to be making political statements like this.

These orgs are for all women who need them. Right wing left wing. All women.

This piece is highly political and surely could make the org seem like it is not the place for women with certain views.

That's really really bad.

The message should be support for all women we will help. Anything else is potentially putting women off from getting in touch, when they need help.

Only read the OP and article.

Why isn't this person focusing on their org, their sector. Rape.

???

[quote Whatthechicken]Brodie’s Trust have lost confidence. Thankful they are standing up to this nonsense, but overall quite upsetting that it has come to this. Hopefully ERCC will have to sit up and listen.

twitter.com/thatveganlass/status/1438422792291196928?s=21[/quote]
That’s heartbreaking that Brodie’s Trust are being put in that position, however well done to them for their statement and the wonderful work they do.

Spotted this in a Waterstones in Scotland just now. Quite fitting, I thought.

wonder if it was a staff member or a customer!