A woman driven out of her therapy group by a trans woman's presence

We have women's services that have been made inclusive of males at the cost of women's services become inaccessible and unusable by all women.

#FAIL

Women's services should not be entitled to funding unless they can prove they are accessible to all women. This includes the 99% who are female.

I wonder if the person (who drove this women out of a woman’s group) feels any guilt or pity ? Or do they feel hurt and in need of more therapy for being ‘the victim’?

I can’t quite get into the mindset - if I was somewhere when I could see that my presence was scaring people (and my inclusion was not quite in the spirit of the group, and I had alternative facilities specially for me anyway) I would apologise and get the hell out.

If anyone here wants to contact the organisation to complain about this, you can do so at @SurvivorsnetBtn (twitter) and [email protected] (email), they're also on Facebook.

We shouldn’t have to set up women’s only services.

There are already women’s services that are perfectly capable of remaining for women. They have a men’s service and a trans/non binary one already. The women’s one should remain as such.

These services get funds that are for women. It takes a massive amount of money, time, effort and energy to set up such services. Why should women have to shoulder that again only to then be targeted for abuse from TRA’s anyways?

We need to target services that are for women to ensure they fulfil their legal duty to not discriminate against us based on sex.

The other option would be to donate money to rape crisis but with the express permission it is only to be used to find biological women’s groups. Hopefully they will receive the money and spend it as directed. If they refuse the money that would look pretty bizarre. I’m reasonably certain that it would have to be considered restricted funds. Perhaps a charity accountant is lurking and could give more info?

Hi Sarah
You are not alone.

In Bristol, the Womankind counselling service is now avoided by any woman who needs counselling in a female only environment as they welcome transwomen. A friend of mine who needed female only counselling/ group to overcome male abuse/ trauma was advised that transwomen are 'over represented' in their clientele and they thought it would be too traumatic for her to attend.

The Freedom Programme run by Nextlink housing in Bristol also used to treat transwomen as women (I don't know any women who have been referred to them recently) , even though they know women who need single sex support to overcome male coercive control / abuse could not attend.

Nextlink advised women in this situation that women can be allocated a female only group at the point of joining but it may change, and in any case all women must accept that the group leaders are all required to believe and act on the belief that transwomen are women (so if your abuser is a transwoman, for example transwidows and children, who are often referred to the Freedom Programme by police) will have to accept further gaslighting or self exclude.

As well as seeing your input in the press Sarah, this issue was raised by the Children of Transitioners in their GRA submission months ago, and I have seen on the Transwidows twitter feed recently that Victim Support also now state women are abusers if they don't believe or say their husbands and fathers /transwomen are women, so the options for GC women to receive support are few and the problems increasing.

It would be worth anyone reading this sending a short email to the victim's commissioner as she may make a difference: [email protected]

From one survivor to another @IamSarah

@IamSarah you are so incredibly brave about all this & I hope you get support on Twitter

I was offered the same service but didn't want any of their counselling because of this issue. I didn't feel I could trust a service that can't even put its clients safety at the top of their list. I did tell my ISVA why I didn't feel safe with them. Not the person herself, the ethos of the whole organisation. So sorry you went through that

The suggestions about starting our own refuges (again) - Posie Parker recently tried this but didn't get enough support IIRC.

There are still some XX services around. It makes more sense surely to support them to the max.

You are so incredibly brave Sarah, I am angry and sickened by the way you've been treated - shame on all of them, including that FB group.

Got myself on Twitter. Open to speaking to anyone about my experience if it helps women get the services they need.

You did nothing wrong Sarah and you have been badly let down by the people who should be there to help.

I tried posting in a local women's Facebook group to see if anyone knew of women's only services. My post was swiftly removed by admin. Trans activists really, really don't want women to have these spaces.

What an appalling response.

So sorry this happened to you Sarah, but I applaud your bravery in speaking out.

Have you thought about directly contacting Nancy Kelley and asking her to intervene on your behalf? After all it's her organisation that has led to these 'inclusive' policies that exclude women. She's being paid a lot of tax payer's hard-earned cash, and she very clearly said on Woman's Hour that she thinks women ought to have a right to single-sex spaces. If you sent an email then it should end up on her desk at some point.

I'd be very interested to see her response.

I can see the value of these things and can't imagine being crass enough to destroy one by imposing myself into the company.

I think we've had threads about this before - there are relatively isolated incidents of women doing this* but, notably, they don't want other women included because it would ruin their "I'm not like other women/Queen Bee/cool girl" vibe.

*In some areas, women want access literally to a shed of tools and to be around other people with particular craft skills. Understandable, but not a reason to disrupt the ethos of a much-needed male support network.

We often talk about women-only spaces in terms of male violence but what's more common is men as an inhibiting presence. It's just far easier for women to be open and honest and to connect with each other when men are not around. Women-only company isn't actually about being women, it's about being human beings, free from the male gaze or male judgement, and not always having to consider male feelings

Such a good point. It's not just about being traumatised and/or afraid (although those are quite understandable responses, especially in this context). Women-only spaces are a special thing, that all cultures have observed throughout history. Women sometimes just need time away from males. It's not heresy to say so.

Privacy, dignity, peace. The dynamic of a single sex space is different to that of a mixed space.

We often talk about women-only spaces in terms of male violence but what's more common is men as an inhibiting presence. It's just far easier for women to be open and honest and to connect with each other when men are not around. Women-only company isn't actually about being women, it's about being human beings, free from the male gaze or male judgement, and not always having to consider male feelings. You only have to look at how much better girls do in single-sex education to see how damaging and repressing just the presence of males can be.

There are men-only support groups or those Men in Shed-type groups that help men's mental health and provide friendship networks. I can see the value of these things and can't imagine being crass enough to destroy one by imposing myself into the company.

This is just simply not on.

I'm sorry, Sarah. Thank you for having the courage to talk about what happened.

Rape counseling services should centre women.

If transwomen have suffered from abuse then they deserve counseling services that centre them too but not at the expense of women from being able to have single sex services.