AIBU to be asked to reframe my trauma by the trans CEO of Scottish Rape Crisis?

[herewegogc]

The CEO of Edinburgh Rape Crisis has said "Sexual violence happens to bigoted people too. But if you bring beliefs that are discriminatory, expect to be challenged on your prejudice. Reframe your trauma"

Apparently, survivors are to be "educated" in this service.

forwomen.scot/10/08/2021/the-real-crisis-at-rape-crisis-scotland/

Tonight is a really tough one. Women who have been raped or sexually assaulted need females to listen to them. Rape Crisis was that service and used to offer trauma based therapy.

I don't need educating - I know that detailing my experience to a man, or a transwomen is NEVER something I will do.

This is too much.

Bloody autocorrect, Lanarkshire

Honestly if I were raped I don't think I would report it or look for help at all now. The way women are sometimes treated post sexual assault is terrifying.

[quote CaveMum]Apologies if anyone else has linked to it already, but Dr Jessica Taylor has tweeted a fantastic takedown of this. She points out that all counselling should centre the victim and what they want/need. She’s worked in rape crisis centres herself and employs male counsellors who are there IF the victims are happy to talk to them and, because they are decent human beings, those make counsellors are not offended if women are not comfortable talking to them.

twitter.com/drjesstaylor/status/1425009284614610949?s=21[/quote]
Cavemum that's a brilliant Twitter response. Thank you for sharing. Rape crisis centres should absolutely be about centring the victim. Not validating MW and their mates

@PlanDeRaccordement

That’s an awful statement. It’s akin to the head of an NHS hospital saying that racists get in car crashes too and they should expect to be challenged on their beliefs to “reframe their trauma”. Utterly insidious. The CEO should be sacked for such violation of the Hippocratic Oath.

Absolutely this. No thank you!

@FindTheTruth

Karen Ingala Smith "we have created what are now termed “trauma-informed services”. We did not have that language back then, but that is what we were doing, developing an understanding of the neurological, psychological, biological and social effects of trauma, and that has been built into the fabric of developing refuges. Women who have experienced men’s violence often have a trauma response to a male, maybe not always and sometimes for a short time or sometimes periodically, when something triggers them. You cannot educate women out of trauma‑informed responses and if that woman has a trauma‑informed response to a male‑bodied person, that is not her fault. She deserves a safe space, a trauma‑informed space and that is often a women‑only space."

[[http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/women-and-equalities-committee/enforcing-the-equality-act-the-law-and-the-role-of-the-equality-and-human-rights-commission/oral/102570.html Women and Equalities Committee
Oral evidence providers of services to victims and survivors of domestic abuse:Enforcing the Equality Act single sex services ]]

This is something rape crisis Scotland and their ceo should read

I don't for one minute think people who are truly dysphoric would go through transition for nefarious purposes.

This is true only to the point where there will be those who are truly dysphoric yet still have ill intent towards women and /or children.

One thing to be careful of is to avoid creating any subset of people who are deemed beyond the normal level of suspicion when considering boundaries for women and children. It is exactly what the ‘all or nothing’ approach adopted by trans activists does. The use of language around ‘no trans person who goes through [insert action/treatment here] would behave this way, or do this thing, or believe this.’

We see it regularly in posts. It is this use of language and these false assurances that lowers boundaries whether the person using them understands that or not.

It is actually not normal to be compelled to treat any group as being above suspicion. Any group pushing for this is, to my mind, flying red flags so bright only those willfully blind to them are not seeing them.

I don't for one minute think people who are truly dysphoric would go through transition for nefarious purposes.

Perhaps they won't. But we have no way of telling who has dysphoria and has 'fully' transitioned vs. someone dressing up to get access to women and children. In the same way that a lot of men are not hurting women and children, but we exclude all men from certain safeguarding situations.

@Falcor

I am an non-British raging feminist. I honestly don't understand the anger against trans women and I think it is misplaced. It is men we should be angry with

It is men we are angry with, so including trans women who are men.

I don't want to relay the details of my rape to any man, I don't give a toss if he is wearing a skirt; it's still a no from me. I don't trust men unless I know them, I won't make apologies for that. I don't feel comfortable to talk about what I've been through with a male, that is my right.

Well, women.

'The comment that matters the most' to this SNP councillor is that of a transwoman. Never mind all the women commenting, apparently.

mobile.twitter.com/MhairiHunter/status/1425343425587687426

I don't for one minute think people who are truly dysphoric would go through transition for nefarious purposes

Yes lots of trans women don't transition for 'nefarious purposes' and of course NATWALT. The point is that there are completely different groups which Stonewall have force teamed. As @Wrongsideofhistorymyarse and @Helleofabore point out safeguarding must mean exclusion. it's not to be mean or bigoted. And it's not rational to expect staff in a refuge to know everything about a stranger.

Karen Ingala Smith: "I am talking about risk assessments. Basically, you are asking somebody to differentiate in terms of transgender people who are born male and have experienced men’s violence, have managed to unpick male socialisation and the sense of male entitlement. They will come into the refuge and not use that position to abuse women. There are transgender people born male who genuinely experience violence but still behave in a male socialised way and bring the trappings of that entitlement with them. There are transgender people who are born male, who are narcissistic perpetrators and have managed to convince themselves they are the victims. We all know that male perpetrators often see themselves as victims. There are transgender people born male who are fetishists of female victimhood. We have delivered services or have been accessed by males to whom that would apply. There are also men who are pretending to be trans and are using a pretend trans status to try to track down women. It is really complicated. It is not just a simple, straightforward risk assessment that is foolproof."

this quote is from oral evidence to parliament on this very issue
[[http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/women-and-equalities-committee/enforcing-the-equality-act-the-law-and-the-role-of-the-equality-and-human-rights-commission/oral/102570.html Women and Equalities Committee
Oral evidence by providers of services to victims and survivors of domestic abuse:Enforcing the Equality Act single sex services ]]

It's an inhumane state of affairs when a male-born person is in charge of a Rape Crisis centre and claims that women who have been raped by male born people have to "reframe their trauma".

FUCK OFF!

Get that person out of there. Rape Crisis is NO place for this person.

Some very good posts above - we need to keep fighting this. Lots of women want women only things - my daughter had a really awful huge 6 foot rough male ultrasound man who was so horrible about her very first scan and clumsy and implied there was something wrong with her body she is very concerned not to have him again. Apparently all the women try to avoid him and if he is on duty when they turn up they try to walk out. Now of course you could have an awful female one but it was something about his maleness and power and huge size and not least how rude he was that is the issue with him (he is not trans). For medical things women often simply want another woman and that's fine.

But if you bring beliefs that are discriminatory, expect to be challenged on your prejudice.

Woman who has been raped carries discriminatory prejudice and fear (doubtless the accurate definition of the oft-misused word 'phobia'), of bepenised people. Well, colour me shocked.

Woman in this kind of vulnerable position seeks help from what is supposed to be a safe haven for victims. Her very last point of concern is going to be care and consideration for the sex class which put her in this unenviable position in the first place.

The employment of this person is colonisation; the concern of this individual is to target rape victims in a form of concerted campaign against women. It damned sure isn't to protect them. And isn't it interesting how they so often make a beeline for rape victims (cf. Vancouver and certain unsavoury reports from the British south coast).

I was a victim of rape, twice. I only recognised the second incident of rape as rape this year, after almost three decades. I suspect that the general consensus, should I talk openly about this, would be that twice looks like carelessness: that comes from a position of not understanding how abusers target their victims. If you've been a victim in childhood particularly, you're far more likely to be abused again at a later stage.

It's none of men's business what's in my pants; nonetheless, men have seen fit to help themselves, without my consent, twice.

Men subjected me to trauma, resulting in cPTSD. It took an age for me to be able to talk about that. I reach that stage where I'm no longer compelled to make my silence complicit with my abusers, and then men then go about telling me whether, and if so how, I'm allowed to talk about that trauma.

Fuck. That. Noise. Seems raping and humiliating women is no longer sufficient; now, on top of a legal system that's unremittingly stacked against us, they've found a further way of rubbing our noses in it further.

IMO not only MW but whoever was responsible for employing MW should be sued for mental cruelty for victims. It really is the final fucking indignity.

No. Women say NO.

A friend was assaulted very violently by someone from a minority background.

It took her a very long time to no longer associate others of the same race with her assault.

It wasn’t a discrimination, her body would instantly see the minority, go into shock and she would suffer panic attacks and flashback. This is the same for so many victims. The same hair colour, eye colour, height or even the presence of a man is debilitating. How is that difficult to comprehend?

Reeducating victims is a fucking toxic and abysmal thing to say. Victims need help to heal, not fucking learn.

YANBU

No Thank You

When someone is at their most vulnerable they need to feel safe. Thats what matters most. Not validating the feelings of your counsellor.
And if the counsellor is good at their job they would recognise that.

Looking back... the counsellor I had after my attack was male. He was the first person who told me it was OK to feel scared and that the reason I was acting strangely (getting drunk and getting into risky situations) was probably PTSD. That doesn't mean everyone would be comfortable talking to him.

Everyone should have a choice. And the opportunity to ask for a different counsellor without specifying reasons. Everyone has different fear triggers (I'm fine unless I can't escape... lifts and taxis for example...id walk or take the stairs to avoid these scenarios.)

But according to many intelligent, educated, respectable voices Rape Crisis should not have helped her because she was trans

From the hunter twitter link

Isnt it an outright lie?

My country how it is now. Despite the thousands of women tweeting. The comment that matters most 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

When I was offered counselling and support I was asked if I minded having a male or female support worker. I appreciated being given the choice. If I had been given that choice, asked for a female support worker and discovered that my female counsellor was actually a male identifying as female, I would have felt betrayed and utterly wretched. It might even have been the final thing in an already-horrendous situation that tipped me over the edge.

Of course everyone has the right to be who they are. But not at the expense or deception of other, incredibly vulnerable and desperate victims.

Yes, Badger. It's bullshit. Nobody is talking about transwomen looking for counselling. What we're concerned with is women looking for single sex counselling. They're just trying to shift the focus - yet again - from women to transwomen. Away from Mridhul.

Feelings of an employee do not trump the needs of a vulnerable person.

When they do, you have a safeguarding issue.

The key point is the vulnerable status of the patient.

The number of people who don't understand this is disturbing.

The CEO does not understand nor empathise with those they claim to want to support. Against disturbing. They clearly are not fit for the job. Thats got nothing to do with their sex nor gender status. They don't want to discuss nor consider safeguarding nor traumatic responses for people who have not been safeguarded and are traumatised.

Thats the end of the conversation. You don't even need to talk about identity.

Sorry, RufustheBadger, I am getting confused!

Hunter totally missing the point of the conversation. Totally