Times article Mridul Wadhwa placed on 'leave' in May.

I wasn't referring to systemic misogyny, but to the specific movements of MRAs, incels etc, which were being openly mocked online a decade ago. We didn't get attacked by corporations or governments for pointing and laughing at those men, but the moment they claim to be women, it's a different story. I'm all too well aware that systemic misogyny has never gone away, that women are not liberated from it, and that it's the basis of this movement, which is busy undoing what gains we've made.

And isn't that the huge question at the heart of all of this? Why does a man's feelings of gender, which by the very existence of trans women are undenably something that is not driven by sex, qualify him to be treated as if he were the opposite sex?

Thanks for sharing. Agree ERCC have kept MW's suspension quiet, especially given the profile of the tribunal. Hope they are now getting watertight employment law support, I think they will need it.

I’m so glad I managed to avoid donating to the ERCC when someone was fundraising at my work. How terrible that such an important charity is in such a mess. This wouldn’t have happened if more people had focused on the women the service is for rather than their own egos.

The context of this statement was fascinating, wasn't it?

The insistence that 'rape victims need to reframe their trauma' was solely so that they could not escape or refuse consent to men who wished to be in this job and have access to them. It was a statement in fact that women, who had been harmed and abused by men, must in seeking help put the needs and wishes and experiences of other men above themselves, their trauma, their distress, their consent. As the price of being helped. By men who had taken over the women's service and redirected it to primarily serve the needs and feelings of said men.

This by a male who quite intentionally went to get this job that had been specifically reserved for women only, and when this went to court, sent women in to bat for him.

The true horror of it is quite boggling.

Women weren't sacked, arrested, banned, for speaking against them.

Not as overtly as used to happen in the past but thinking that women are treated equally is just not what is happening.

The TRAs get away with being so openly hostile against women because to MRAs this is there culture. They are enjoying this younger brasher branch of men's rights going all out to undermine women, but overall it is MRAs that are in charge of the institutions the TRAs are using to attack women. And as such could stop this use of the police etc.. But they dont. Because they see woman as being less worthy of respect.

The TRA culture that is so overtly hostile to women could never have suceeded without the fact that society as a whole is hostile to women.

A society that valued women would never have allowed the attack on women's rights that TRAs promote every day.

So for instance a group that is some attacked the rights of Black communities in the same would never (well apart from a few) have gone unchallenged by the establishment.

It is because the victims of this are women.

YY @Catsmere

Never forget the success of the TRAs is that it is built on the far older, and far more wide ranging MRA culture

It's far more insidious and successful, too. It was always fine to criticise or outright mock MRAs, PUAs, incels etc. Governments and institutions weren't captured by them. Women weren't sacked, arrested, banned, for speaking against them.

I only noticed it when you pointed it out, but you are totally right.

And that after all the "people who menstruate" and "pregnant people" when it came to the reports on lead and arsenic in tampons and period underwear.

When you add in to this mix, the relentless targeting of charities by transactivists... Anything devoted to women or children accused of transphobia if they retain sex based language, fail to centre trans in everything they do and being relentlessly bullied for any independent thinking that centres women or children. Just look at what happened to women's gynae cancer charities.

It's no wonder that women - especially younger women - look at it all and decide to comply.

iirc, a fair number of posters mentioned the inexperience of the board members and their relative youth with compassion but also some understanding as to why this is a disastrous mix for a board.

As an after thought maybe the timeline of changes to the constitution should be compared to when and how much money came via the SNP.

ie not mission drift or hijacking but funders basically undermining the independence of groups by insisting they behave in accordance with the politics of the funders.

Thanks to all posters who have put together the timeline of changes in ERCC.

There's lots of talk in the voluntary and charity sector about mission drift ie that you dont stay alert your organisation can "drift" from it core aims.

What I am not aware of is how earily an organisation can be hijacked or cuckoo-ed. eg the Feminist Library.

Or maybe in the instance of the ERCC that younger women are if not more ruthless, so absolute certain that their politics is better and more just than the politics of the dinasours, that they have no qualms about achieving a victory for "their side". Even if it is at the expense of the actual beneficiaries that the organisation is for.

It's more that if they were claiming to support everyone, why were they making a big deal about not having any men working for them?

I think at that time not just ERCC but other groups (not just Scotland) either were so Stonewalled, or as a point of political activism, deliberated used the SSE knowing they would misapply them.

And the point, as made upthread, was nobody challenged them or if the did the relevant authorities didn't think it important enough to bother correcting.

Never forget the sucess of the TRAs is that it is built on the far older, and far more wide ranging MRA culture

Yes, a man is barred from a room, a job, a sport because he is a man. But, especially with self ID, these same rooms, jobs, sports could be open to this same man literally minutes later because he has been given a piece of paper. How does that make sense?

I think this bears repeating. How does one’s legal sex change when one’s gender changes given that GI proponents argue for these to be distinctly different concepts? I’d be interested to know the basis of Haldane’s judgement when everyone within the GI camp argues gender does not equate to sex.

Ha! As if MW would put the charity (or indeed rape victims) ahead of himself.

Grifters, grifters everywhere.

Melanie Reid has written about this in her column in the Scottish section in the Times. I've copied the relevant bit

Charity’s crisis puts heavy burden on young team

Charity’s crisis puts heavy burden on young team
Mridul Wadhwa, who has been absent as chief executive at Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre for more than two months over a ‘heresy hunt’, should resign
Melanie Reid

Sunday July 21 2024, 5.30pm BST, The Times

The great sadness about turmoil at any vital charity is that it jeopardises its reason for existing — in this case to protect women at risk of serious violence.
The Times revealed this weekend that Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre (ERCC) has been without a chief executive for more than two months. Mridul Wadhwa, who identifies as female but is legally male, was sent home after being identified by an employment tribunal as the “invisible hand” behind a “heresy hunt” designed to force out a counsellor who had sympathised with a victim’s wish to have only a female counsellor.

My biggest fears are for the charity’s clients, women who seek support when in danger. But as an unpaid director of another charity, I sympathise greatly with the all-woman board of ERCC, responsible for managing what’s become an unprecedented crisis.

Three directors are in their twenties, one in their thirties, the other, a charity worker, in her fifties. Only one, who’s 27, has been on the board for longer than three years. Two have been there only two years; the two, aged 24 and 26, joined just over a year ago. And they don’t appear hugely experienced. None predate the decision to appoint Wadhwa in 2021, when there were six directors, all of whom have since resigned.

If I dwell on my legal and moral responsibilities being on a board, I find them mildly terrifying. Among other things you’re responsible for assessing the charity’s ability to continue as a going concern and safeguarding its assets. I only cope because I sit beside experienced, high-flying co-directors with skill sets in vital areas of governance, finance, risk, HR, stewardship of resources and legal obligations.

Wadhwa, it strikes me, should resign for the sake of the charity.

Can guarantee behind closed doors MW will be ranting about these white cis heteronormative lawyers and judges and how the court case reinforces that people in positions of power will commit “acts of violence” against migrant trans women. MW won’t resign because that would mean admitting they did something wrong. And they won’t believe they did

God I'm so tired of these fucking grifters.

Agreed.

Jeez - I didn't realise he didn't even have a GRC!! Wow he pulled a blinder on them, and by extension on the vulnerable women who use the service.

A cheat, liar and manipulator doing his thing in plain sight.

From the Companies House info, ERCC have 6 officers at present, all appointed since 2021.

Since 2005, there have been 53 officers, with 47 resignations.

This turnover seems...high.

Well, who’d have thought that would go wrong? 🙄