Refuge’s response to the ruling

You would go to the directory on Women's Aid (England & Wales) and search on that type of service.

Select "othe options" https://www.womensaid.org.uk/information-support/womens-aid-directory/

Not sure if the federations for Scotland and NI have the options.

If someone wanted to find a women’s refuge. One that is in line with this ruling how hard or easy would that be?

This is the statement from Solace Women's Aid. Slightly less bad than Refuge's. But still colluding with the misrepresentation that the Court ruling was anti trans.

As a service providing women only services you would have thought DV projects would welcome clarity that sex means biology rather than having this (get out the voilin strings) is an attack on trans rights.

(Sorry about only have text captured as an image, which I complain about because people with a visual impairment may not be able to read it, but this is all they provided. Apologies)

I'm all in favour of men having access to any support they need - helplines, crisis centres, refuges, etc - but I deeply resent that they expect to be handed women's services on a plate. There are more or less as many men as there are women in society, so there's no reason why they can't organise themselves and develop their own support networks.
It will be much easier for them to do so, compared with the hand-to-mouth beginnings of many women's refuges and helplines. And there is no problem at all with single-sex men's mental health groups, men's sheds, men's helplines..

I would hope that the funding instructions to LAs will now be changed to anything called a 'single sex' or 'women's' service or group must follow the definition of women and single sex in the Equality Act. And that where tax payer funding is being used by LAs to commission service provisions for groups, there must be accessible options available for all users, including a single sex women's group.

I would hope that Sarah Summers' case (and if not that one then others will come along, I wish no pressure on Sarah), will establish this if the guidelines don't shift as a result of yesterday.

And this is why I don’t donate to them

Indeed. Accessible options available to all. That will involve gatekeeping some of those groups and saying 'no, you cannot identify into this one, this one is not for you, that one is'.

It should never involve traumatised women having to discuss their awful experiences with or live alongside a man who has been permitted to be a special exception to the 'no men' rule, or her access to help being conditional on a requirement that she must engage in a fiction with him whether or not she can tolerate this, consents to it or believes in it. She is there for her, not for him.

No more men must be able to use women in this appalling way as has happened so far.

All those concerned about distressed men in this ruling should be considering how distressed those women were, and why this is not a bigger problem to them.

That is their prerogative. That organization can provide services to whomever they choose. What changes is that another organization can be created that can choose to serve a particular population or that might provide separate services for different populations.

Everyone who needs help should be able to get it somewhere. The point is that the law should allow for options.

I was going to start a thread about this but then thought I cant be bothered.

First of all despite what the MSM (and the Queen!) might imply Refuge has always been a non feminist organisation but the media made out it was THE domestic violence service. (Its founder thought the problem of domestic violence was women, who she said were attracted to violent men as so it was their, women's, fault.)

And for years was not part of the federation of WA projects in England because it failed on so many grounds.

But they are now one of the largest corporate providers of services.

However even though I have a negative understanding of who they are, and am sick to death of everyone thinking because the MSM told them they are important, their statement is so politically clumsy it is hard to know whether it was approve at management level or some intern spewed it out so quickly.

They could so easily have said as one of the main providers of single sex services for women escaping DV we are happy with the Court ruling. And we will of course continue to provide services to other victims of DV including trans women.

Just to add, I dont think any women's aid project offers "mixed sex" services. But many do provide separate services to different groups ie women (biological), trans women and to men.

However, whether they all do this out of choice, or because funding conditions mean they have to offer services to different groups is another question.

As a foot note, Refuge has been so sucessful in misleading cornering the public image as THE DV service provider that they are now able to offer as though it was some amazing political step, rather than because they have so much money, refuge provision that is in individual units whether for a single person, or for someone with children.

So stopping giving money to Refuge is because they dont need individual donations. But your local domestic violence project does.

It is always worth looking behind the headlines. I have never understood, apart from lazy and sloppy journalism, why so many people still think Refuge is representative of WA in the UK.

I can see some men (the other type of MRAs, without the head tilt) taking action against refuges that ignore the SC ruling. If they let in TW but exclude other men then that's sex discrimination. They'll do it for the giggles gruff male chuckle and because they also hate women.

Like many of us I stopped giving money to refuge when it was clear they were not single sex. I would possibly re start if they were clear about having single sex and mixed provisions.

what I would like to see is Beira s place expand nationally and grow to cover refuge. I would very much be setting up a standing order then. We have lost trust in refuge someone we trust needs to fill the gap and now they know they can defeat the push back they will get from TRA

Trans activists.

As long as women's services exist, for women, I am very happy for trans identified people's services to exist, for them.

This relentless pretence that trans people cannot have 'rights' without removing women's rights is ridiculous.

Unless refuge can offer women only services that are safe, then I imagine that side of their work will end, and they can continue to serve men and the trans community as a whole, and we will have a new organisation for women and children only? I can’t see how it is viable legally and ethically as it stands given the ruling.

Any organisation can offer mixed sex facilities but the ruling is clear, if it states services are for women that means female only
Transwomen flock like moths to a flame with any service that is for women only. It's part of the validation. Where gender neutral spaces are created they are nor taken up
I don't believe they will want to access mixed sex spaces

According to the BBC the gvt, EHRC and other bodies are frantically trying to sort out what this means and give guidance - so they're anticipating significant change and need to make sure actions match law.

I have no doubt that we'll see every attempt to prevent it getting too far back into the middle line and equity with women, the bias is part of the righteousness, but equally I have no doubt that some cases will have to go to court for women to prove that they might argue the guidance means x but the law says it's y, end of.

The cat is right among the pigeons though. Panicking pigeons everywhere.

I wonder whether this will give rise to a claim under the Equality Act from men, given that the comparator of one's sex is now that of biology.

If services are being offered to women only that's fine as it satisfies a legitimate interest, but if they are opening it up to some men but not others then all male victims of DV should be accommodated in male or mixed-sex shelters otherwise there is discrimination in the other direction.

Helpline fine. Shared refuge not fine. And they need to make it clear they offer services to women and transwomen as different entities, and what the services are for each group. The ruling doesn't mean we have to stop helping or talking about TW, just we must no longer subsume them within women.

I suspect that these bold statements have not been through their legal departments - let's see what happens when the dust settles and new advice is given to these bullish ceos.

Another thought many refuges (general, rather than the refuge charity) dont allow male children over 12/13 to stay in a refuge with their mother.

I suspect those rules will no longer hold up if refuges are now mixed sex per the Supreme Court judgement because this would be discrimination against a male child.

I think organisations like refuge need legal advice quickly.

Sadly a lot of DEI 'experts' don't understand the law and are instead activists or informed/infleunced by activist. There is a lot of work to do to undo all the bad advice.

That said I have no problem with refuge offering services to trans people. What they do need to be clear on is whether all their services are now mixed sex, or if they do offer single sex services that is in line the the law.

The statement and description don’t match.

They’d have to say mixed sex refuge or similar.

They've snuck in the phrase some accommodation services. I think this is key.

I predict a swift return to offering female only as part of their overall offering and pretending it has always been that way. They are breaking the law otherwise.

I think a lot of these organisations have not got a very good understanding of the laws in this area. Let's hope they get advice from someone sensible and not their usual TRA pals