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.

Not attacking you, LoverofLight! Just I think it is worth noting that this isn't about one person. It's part of a concerted effort by several powerful people to get this TWAW-driven ideology embedded.

@REP22

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.

I don't know that a woman who has just been raped should even be asked the question - we are conditioned to be kind and in the most traumatic of situations a woman may not be able to say no until faced with a male and the further trauma that could bring.

Imo rape crisis centres for women should be completely sex based. Men and TW can work at their own centres.

@TheKeatingFive

I’ve read this thread in horror and fascination. Thanks to all who’ve contributed.

I do honestly support trans women living however they want. However the sticking point seems to be as follows. It is not actually possible to change sex and our bodies will always reflect that. The trans debate urges us to gloss over this fact like it’s not important, but there are certain situations where it is. Competitive sport is one of them. This is another.

A trans woman as rape councillor could have the best intentions in the world, but their physical presence has the potential to trigger rape victims. There’s no way round that and it is horrendously unfair to expect victims to pull off some sort of magical thinking to uphold the fallacy that the physical body doesn’t matter. And then call them bigoted and ignorant if they don’t.

Mridul Wadhwa shows absolutely no empathy for the very people she’s supposed to be supporting and it is disgraceful she is still in this role.

I've yet to meet a feminist who doesn't support transwomen living how they want - so long as they don't impinge on other people's lives/rights. But the drive to accept that Transwomen are literally women leads us precisely to this point. This is exactly what feminists have been banging on about.

@AtrociousCircumstance

Unbelievable misogyny, sheer hatred and oppression of women. In plain sight.

YES! Why isn't everyone going batshit crazy about this?!

the drive to accept that Transwomen areliterallywomen leads us precisely to this point. This is exactly what feminists have been banging on about.

Yes, hence "redefining woman" and accusations of bigotry and hatred when you say that words have meanings and need to be exclusionary by nature to be in any way useful. A dog is not a teapot, green is not red and an intact male bodied person is not a woman.

Trans women are not women. They are trans women. I respect, support and celebrate them for that, but they ARE significantly different to women. And if people are determined to believe that that isn't true or doesn't matter in a weightlifting competition or or a rape crisis centre, women truly might as well disappear.

It's fucked up that they have so much influence.

It is. Absolutely.

And once you see it, you cannot unsee it.

This person is very politically active, now in the Green Party after the SNP did not fully support MW position of allowing a male who identifies as a woman to be able to examine a rape victim who requested a female medical examiner. This person is very influential in setting future policy and strategic direction for female rape victims.

Unfortunately, if you look at the Women's Officer roles and other roles set to influence policy in organisations, you will start to find quite a few people like this one who seem to have their own agenda. And those agendas are not supportive to women.

And unfortunately, if you look at so much of the advice given to organisations such as Girl Guides, it is also given by people who have political agendas that are not actually aligned to the protection of women and children.

The concerns expressed by so many are dismissed as fear mongering, as 'it will never happen' and based on statistics that are not disaggregated, that are false and hiding the reality. The arguments against concerns will always play out the same way.

• it doesn't happen.
• if it did happen, it was only the once and you should ignore it. They weren't representative.
• if it happened again, see point above.
• look there are no statistics that have been collected to show this.
• those statistics are wrong.
• look over here, this person has it so much worse, why do you think they could do such a thing (or insert 'look a cute kitty')

YES! Why isn't everyone going batshit crazy about this?!

Because that is not kind!

I have seen over on twitter the repeated argument of why would any person think negatively of someone who has gone through all the pain and significant suffering to transition.

This is the consequence of the perpetuation of a hyperbolic 'most marginalised and most vulnerable group'.

It's just disgusting and so deep-down misogynist.

Like many women on this thread, I've been a victim of rape and sexual assault and there is no way in hell I want to talk about that with a male person. In fact, thinking about this thread last night, I remembered a counsellor being assigned to me who was male. I told him I'd rather speak with a woman please. He spent the next thirty minutes berating me, cajoling, persuading, bullying, whatever you want to call it, because he thought that I should "challenge" myself to work with a male counsellor. He talked about how he was a good man, how he had empathy and fully understood my situation, how I would be surprised at the depth of his understanding, etc. By the end of the session he was accusing me of being a racist and threatening to have me removed from the service altogether. He didn't need to, because I never went back.

"Reframe your trauma" means "we will retraumatise you." It basically means that there are no rape crisis services for women in Edinburgh.

*sorry, this was like thirty years ago, but it all came back to me last night

What this dangerous fool has done is errect a barrier to rape victims seeking help. As CEO of a rape crisis organisation, they should be focussed on encouraging victims to come forward, removing barriers, removing judgment. How many women will now not seek help out of fear of being labelled a bigot?

And what does 'reframe your trauma' even mean? Is this the start of demanding that women who've been raped by the likes of Karen White don't talk about the fact that they were raped by a man?

And warming trauma victims to expect to be challenged on their wrongthink is chilling.

God reading some of these posts makes my fucking head spin.

It’s not about the fact it’s a trans man/woman/whatever. It’s the invalidation of a victim being FORCED to either accept help from someone they find triggering or go elsewhere. It shouldn’t work like that.

A victim helpline should operate without ANY political agenda. If there is a certain person a victim would like to talk to/a person they would like to avoid them that should be entirely their prerogative. It may not be particularly PC but neither is rape and its aftermath.

For example if a very devoutly religious woman had been assaulted and felt violated then if she felt best able to speak to what had happened with someone of her own faith would that make her bigoted?

If someone from a different background, say Romanian, had been assaulted yet wished to converse with someone IN ROMANIAN would that make her discriminative even though she could speak English?

If someone had been assaulted by a person of the same gender and felt uncomfortable speaking to them and decided they WANTED to speak to a man would that make them sexist?

If a hair colour, skin colour, accent, tattoo placement, style, whatever made someone triggered or uncomfortable then they should have the RIGHT to speak to someone they feel safe with.

This isn’t about trans rights or women’s rights this is about having a little fucking human decency to recognise that the priority should be the victim and not an individual offended because they feel discriminated against. If they cannot understand that their biological sex is intimidating to a rape victim and understand why they need to sit this one out then they are in entirely the wrong profession.

@FatCatThinCat

What this dangerous fool has done is errect a barrier to rape victims seeking help. As CEO of a rape crisis organisation, they should be focussed on encouraging victims to come forward, removing barriers, removing judgment. How many women will now not seek help out of fear of being labelled a bigot?

And what does 'reframe your trauma' even mean? Is this the start of demanding that women who've been raped by the likes of Karen White don't talk about the fact that they were raped by a man?

And warming trauma victims to expect to be challenged on their wrongthink is chilling.

When a person continually does things that gear towards a certain outcome, after a while you must start to consider the possibility that it's intentional.

Thank you all - I have called in sick today because I am so upset about this situation. Your replies are helping me enormously. ❤️

herewegogc

@Helleofabore

YES! Why isn't everyone going batshit crazy about this?!

Because that is not kind!

I have seen over on twitter the repeated argument of why would any person think negatively of someone who has gone through all the pain and significant suffering to transition.

This is the consequence of the perpetuation of a hyperbolic 'most marginalised and most vulnerable group'.

Women who are abused deserved it because they didn't do what they were told. Women who are abused mainly come from a lower social class or educational level which is bigoted. Women who are abused are only small in number so don't matter. Women who are abused are not a political vote priority with the rest of the electorate. Women who are abused don't have money to donate or to buy products. Women who are abused don't have much political power of their own as they don't have lobby groups. Women who are abused don't have commerical days for international corporations. Women who are abused have had an experience you don't want to jump up and down and be proud about. Women who are abused are an inconvience (see points above...) Women who are abused are invisible. Women who are abused are something we don't really want to talk about, because its not very nice and if we talk about it, we might have to do something about it.

Is it possible for another Rape Centre to be set up in Edinburgh.
One that is only for women.
If this could happen and if no woman needed to use the contentious place then maybe it will grind to a halt.

Boycott this ludicrous so called Rape Centre.
I am sorry but no man growing up indoctrinated in a culture that sees women as inferior is ever going to make the correct choices for women. As this person has no experience of the crime committed.

Can some women please start another Rape Crisis Place in Edinburgh?
Make the so called Rape Help place redundant.
Give women who have been assulted or raped a real place to go.

Once it begins I am sure there could be enough publicity to get money to keep it going and replace this unholy mess that will only mess a Rape Victim up
Starting up a new place will attract interest and then money. Do not be dictated to Do not have choices restricted again by what some -man- think we should have.

I still cannot believe this is true.

sorry the strike thru on -man- didn't work ?

Grotesque and terrifying.
A man is the last person a woman or girl wants to speak to after being assaulted.

I don't understand it, it almost feels like they are going out of their way to go into women's spaces and tell women to just be happy about it or else.

This is the crux.

They are deliberately targeting women who have been victims of rape and sexual abuse. They are colonising rape: a crime which can only be perpetrated by a man, as by legal definition it involves a penis.

It's happening elsewhere, too, but Edinburgh is the most extreme current UK example. It's a concerted campaign against women: the more vulnerable and traumatized, the more fair game these women are as far as this loathsome movement is concerned.

I want to know how much more it will take for the scales to fall from people's eyes. Also, how MW can with any conscience be allowed to remain in post having set up barriers to accessing the service for the people who need it most.

It's despicable. OP, I'm sorry this has affected you to the extent you've been forced to go off sick. It has me, too, and my experiences with rape were thankfully a long time ago now and my trauma successfully treated. I wonder how much more difficult this would have been if I'd had to dance around the barriers erected by the likes of MW.

Boils my blood.

Sadly, once you scratch the surface, you will see MW's attitude reflected in most discussions about the conflicts of this groups protections on those of women and children.

That's why there was uncritical lapping up of everything MW said by the Guilty "Feminist" podcast. There are so many of these female allies of TRAs who will handwave all concerns away as prejudiced. They even said, rape victims could be bigoted and should acknowledge that sometimes other people have a harder time. Meaning MTF trans people. They should work on themselves to be more inclusive and be quiet about their discomfort.

We apparently should all be having conversations to persuade other people to challenge women's boundaries where they hear resistance. What they don't realise is that their filter bubble isn't in any way representative. Most decent people are appalled.

Reading the glowing description of the new CEO they're juggling too many balls

www.ercc.scot/welcome-to-mridul-wadhwa-our-new-ceo/

So if a woman who’s been a victim of male sexual violence doesn’t wish to be examined by someone who was born male, she’s a bigot who needs to reframe her trauma?

In fact, thinking about this thread last night, I remembered a counsellor being assigned to me who was male. I told him I'd rather speak with a woman please. He spent the next thirty minutes berating me, cajoling, persuading, bullying, whatever you want to call it, because he thought that I should "challenge" myself to work with a male counsellor. He talked about how he was a good man, how he had empathy and fully understood my situation, how I would be surprised at the depth of his understanding, etc. By the end of the session he was accusing me of being a racist and threatening to have me removed from the service altogether. He didn't need to, because I never went back.

What an arsehole. sorry that you didn't get the support you need. Rape is sadly a lightning rod for MRAs of all stripes.

It is a Second Rape in my opinion.

The first one is a (mostly) bodily based assualt.

the Second is this - a deliberate attempt to tell a traumatised woman that her thoughts & her feelings about her experience voice are not valid

'Re-frame your trauma' (through whatever lens we feel appropriate)
NO, no, no. Come to us and have your trauma listened to. Find a safe space to use whatever words you need to to help you process it. Heal.