Surely Mridul Wadhwa has to go now? Report into ERCC out.

A man self declaring themselves as charming (as no woman would!) says it all

“Charming” can be the shiny reframing for frankly coercive or manipulative behaviour. I generally view overly “charming” types with suspicion, at least initially. Longer exposure to them usually confirms my initial reservations.

Yes, though it was more than legal power. MW did what MW did because people like Sandy Brindley agreed with MW to the point where they willingly suspended their professional judgment.

Yes it would have been possible to deliver a separate service. HEAL have a document discussing different models for doing it! But who was listening?

MW got away with it because so many responsible people were ideologically blinded. Even the most charming manipulative person spouting extreme radical feminism (You have a male parter? Your fault! Reframe your trauma and see the light! Men are the enemy!) could not have achieved the traction that MW achieved. Transwomen are women (except sometimes). Men are the enemy (except sometimes). What's the difference? Just that the Sandy Brindleys of this world were willing to go along with the first one willy-nilly.

The key issue here is power. MW knew once they entered employment that they shouldn’t be fired because they would bring a claim for unfair dismissal or discrimination based upon their trans status. It is a shield. They know that. Those working with them know that.

I really don’t see how it’s difficult for ERCC to have certain days of the week or hours which are single sex only. Say 99% of their service users are female, then that should dictate their policies. Instead MW went on a personal mission to do what they wanted based on no evidence or research or basic common sense.

if the employment tribunal had not been raised and ERC not put under review then MW poor performance as CEO wouldn’t have come to light (unless someone went to the press). This highlights that if you’re trans you can not only gain employment not suitable for you but also roles and positions you are under qualified for and lack the necessary experience to deliver successfully. MW blagged their way to the top by being “outspoken” about hot topics. They even said in one interview that they are “charming”.

Our current elected representatives appear to have made a few vague noises in response to women's loudly expressed concerns and issues at the last election and now in power appear to intend to do sod all.

Hm. Do we need to let our elected representatives know that we'll be thinking about ERCC and RCS when we come to decide who to vote for?

I really hope so, but am I right that Scottish Labour and Libs haven’t commented on this? I know they whipped their MSPs to vote for the GRA, but you’d think they wouldn’t want to miss a chance to make the SNP and the Greens Look bad? Who to vote for in 2026?

An election is looming in Scotland.

When it happens I am willing to bet there will be something of a clear out of SNP stooges within government jobs.

I am not convinced that it would be wise for Brindley to cling on and try and find something in time.

Unfortunately I've no doubt that she will quickly find a new scot gov funded job. I'm also absolutely certain that she doesn't give a shit about how much more damage she does to RCSs reputation otherwise she wouldn't have backed MW or behaved in the way she has and the using of rape victims/survivors as human shields shows just how up herself she is. Basically as far as I can tell she is behaving exactly like a family annihilator by trying to take RCS down with her in a if I'm going to be held to account and stripped of the power and accolades that comes with my position then I'll make sure noone else can have it, kind of way.

I’ve got a horrible feeling that she won’t resign until she’s been promised a position in an another government funded organisation.

She can hope but how much longer can she hold out? I don't expect many people are falling over themselves to offer her a position right now. And it must be clear even to her that the longer she stays the more damage that does to RCS.

Well it seems clear that she’s not going to be sacked. I’ve got a horrible feeling that she won’t resign until she’s been promised a position in an another government funded organisation. I’m sure I saw a post here that said that some of the ERCC staff who testified against Adams have quietly moved on to other roles in the sector.

Has anything been heard about MW?

I do not see how Sandy Brindley's position - meaning both her arguments and her position at Rape Crisis Scotland - is tenable now that the mainstream press is taking an interest.

In the Times interview she specially praised the survivors who supported Rape Crisis Scotland over the survivors who needed something that Rape Crisis Scotland couldn't and wouldn't offer and who weren't going to say otherwise. Ouch.

When is she going to resign?

Thank you for the link. As ever, FWS have carefully researched the history and backed it up with links to evidence.

There is a bit of an overlap with the collective crisis of faith the left had after the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

So instead of pining for the collectives they took to desperately analysing episodes of Teletubbies to deconstruct class relations and declaring that Crossroads was in fact deeply subversive etc.

If anyone remembers Laurie Penny, very much the right side of history, pal of Owen Jones at the guardian and Queer ally par excellence, she was All About Foucault (father of post modernism and ultimately name checked a lot by Queer theorists) and didn't take kindly to ppl pointing out he went to north Africa mainly to molest the local kids

https://lauriepenny.substack.com/p/what-foucault-got-right

Another good article, this time from For Women Scotland, who have been excellent at highlighting the issues surrounding ERCC and RCS overall.

https://forwomen.scot/24/09/2024/edinburgh-rape-crisis-rape-crisis-scotland-mridul-wadhwa-and-sandy-brindley/

I very much like the expression “online jelly brained nonsense” and intend to use it myself at every opportunity.

What amazes me is that the left think they are immune to the rise of online jelly brained nonsense.

What's needed, to advance knowledge, is a disciplined challenge to received wisdom, ie one that respects evidence. Where do we actually find that disciplined "queering"? We find it in the scientific method, which above everything involves challenging every hypothesis at every stage, subjecting then to interrogation, seeking to falsify them with new research and only then accepting them.

Yes!

This transgressive aspiration of queer theory seems to be the allegedly leftist mirror image of the 'disruptive' aspirations of populist right-wing thinkers such as Dominic Cummings.

In both cases there is this idea that it is intrinsically progressive to challenge and upset some perceived set of received wisdom. On the alleged-left the received wisdom is conceived as socially constructed boundaries; on the right it is conceived as the product of a political establishment composed of elites.

In both cases, there is a mistrust of expertise. On the right Gove spoke that literally ("this country is sick of experts") and Cummings performed it in his politicised challenge to the civil service. On the alleged-left of queer theory it is expressed (for example) in the idea that you can critique biology not on the basis of biological research but on the basis of ideology.

Of course there is something to be said for shaking up received wisdom, but it isn't productive of new knowledge unless it is done from a position of sensitivity to evidence and reason. This is lacking in both right-wing 'disruptors' and allegedly left-wing queer theorists, who both rely on the populist assumption that expertise as such is suspect and that every alleged application of evidence and reason is distorted by some version of establishment bias.

What's needed, to advance knowledge, is a disciplined challenge to received wisdom, ie one that respects evidence. Where do we actually find that disciplined "queering"? We find it in the scientific method, which above everything involves challenging every hypothesis at every stage, subjecting then to interrogation, seeking to falsify them with new research and only then accepting them.

But the scientific method (Gove's expertise and the queer theorist's pre-post-modernism) is exactly what the populist disruptors of left and right want to undermine. Not surprisingly because it has the gratifying effect that from day one of your undergraduate class in gender studies or whatever you have greater insight than people with a huge, hard-won hinterland of knowledge.

Depends whether your cause is 'improving things' or 'fucking things up'.

This is fucking insane! Surely an activist with a genuine cause would rejoice that their efforts had been ‘accommodated’, not be frustrated that makes it ‘difficult to remain radical and transgressive’! It’s so topsy-turvy. Surely the raison d’etre should be the goal, not the process of transgressing. My gob could not be smacked much further.

Yes, that piece of paper does not make any fucking difference. Especially worrying as getting one is going to.be made easier and whether a TW had one or not has to be keeped a secret anyway. If MW had kept their mouth shut instead of bragging about not having one to bask in his duppers delight would that have made what he did all Ok?

Another good article.

Although...

"Ms Brindley leads an organisation which allowed a trans woman without a gender recognition certificate, Mridul Wadhwa, to be appointed as chief executive of the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre (ERCC)"

... this repetition of 'no GRC' is getting worrying.

it's nothing to do with a bloody piece of paper.

Thank you for posting that.

I don't think this article from the Scotsman as been linked yet

https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/rape-crisis-scotland-chief-sandy-brindley-victims-phone-numbers-lost-moral-compass-4792958