Mridul Wadhwa

As Renton said in Trainspotting (1996):

"Times Change. People Change. Soon, there'll be no men and no women. ....Just wankers."

Don't get me wrong. Life can be great for women - some women. But there are still massive issues if you scratch the surface. Even for those of us who are relatively privileged (you can even make FM - if you play by the rules...). For many in poverty and in less tolerant communities life must be very difficult.

Either ignoring or forgetting the deep rooted sexism and many ways in which women have been historically discriminated by the church and state.

I do think there is also the factor of Independence, and the need to show how Scotland can forge its own identity away from the UK. I see this in Ireland also, we are so quick to point out how we do things differently from England, with the inference being 'better'. It's nauseating.

Especially as some of those women wouldn't even think of approaching a rape crisis centre in the first place, the violence and abuse they face is so endemic it probably wouldn't even occur to them that this isn't normal and that they deserve help and kindness themselves.

I'm so angry.

Also having grown up around girls and women from some of the most deprived areas of Scotland, and having seen the sexual and physical violence, the lack of any respect and daily economic hardship they face I find it staggering that someone like this dares to call those girls and women "privileged".

I am sickened at what is happening in Scotland. This is a country that, sadly, is still full of toxic masculinity, sexism and real vicious bigotry and hatred - but the Scottish Govt is in some kind of fantasy la la land where this is our biggest issue.

I think what angers me the most is that rape survivors have likely already been lied to and gaslighted before they approach a rape crisis service. They have probably been told by their abuser and even friends and family that the rape was consensual sex or it never happened. Some will not have a single person who believes them or whom they can trust.

Rape survivors already need a very deep conviction that they are right and the perpetrators are wrong before they can even approach a female only recovery service.

To then have that female only service run by a male CEO and to have males welcomed into the group recovery sessions is additional trauma. I am not sure how many rape survivors are strong enough to keep the conviction that they are right and the perpetrators are wrong when they are being lied to by the very organisations that are supposed to help them.

Can someone tweet this to Deborah Frances White? It probably won’t change her mind though sadly.

You have large groups of survivors, some are not using our services because they see us as trans inclusive and feeling that they may be exposed to… er… to an issue that they are not prepared to deal with

And look at the blaming and attacking language Mridul is using here.
Rape victims are not prepared to deal with. M. does not see that they are too traumatised to want to live with males, that they are too fearful, but that they are not willing to put in the work they would need to do ' deal' with this. It is clear M. is really contemptuous and angry with female rape victims. They are a blockage to M's utopia.

On the plus side, Mridul is doing a very good job of illustrating how people who are born male cannot understand or empathise with women's experiences of males: particularly women who have been assaulted by males.

I can't think of a clearer example of why some jobs need to be reserved for female born and lived people than what Mridul has said in this interview.

Yes indeed Fariha31

The problem with rape crisis services offering female only spaces to all 'self-identified' women is that people appear to have very different ideas about what being a woman is.

@SapphosRock Yet none of these true believers seem to be able to explain how a man is a woman?

I swear, if I had the money, I would start an ‘exclusive’ rape crisis centre in Scotland.

Women should never be in the position of needing to self exclude from support. The appropriate support (male free) should be available without question.

We saw there what zealots believed in for impure women who'd lost their rights.

Makes me sick that these males use all of their very male privilege and entitlement to tell us that our bodies, that they have been using forever to oppress us, are now a 'privilege' that we are using to oppress them!

The whole narrative is vile.

I wonder this too. Having spent a lot of time with TRAs all I can say is that lots of people truly, honestly and absolutely believe that trans women are women. They don't have the patience or capacity to entertain the idea that not everybody feels the same way.

So what’s the story with their husband and contracts?

Can't help seeing the religious dimension to all this talk of cleaning and purifying, particularly in a Hindu context.

There was a very distressing article by a rape survivor explaining how traumatic she found the whole 'service is unclean/these women need cleansing' phrasing. It's insensitive and tone deaf in the extreme when you are talking about women who had to sit in police suites, with the smell and filth of their attacker all over them for hours, unable to wash, unable to rinse their mouths, unable to change their clothes while evidence was taken.

This individual has shown a really appalling lack of regard, sensitivity or even basic awareness of what their basic job involves and to the females they are supposed to be serving.

Retraumatising female people in the name of a political agenda has no place in women's services. None.

The term 'unclean' brings to mind women and girls who are cast out of the community during menstruation because their bodies and bodily functions are 'unclean'.

God I am so angry reading that article and I can feel Jean Hatchet's fury. It's unbelievable this is happening.