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.

@Helleofabore

mnmumak

If a woman did not recognise a male therapist’s identity as a woman in therapy, would you consider that woman transphobic.

I only ask because you have stated that you often disagree with many posters on FWR and you have called MW a woman. But I understand if you don’t want to answer. I just wanted your perspective on it.

No. Personally I believe it’s down to the individual and that woman would have every right to hold that belief. I would recognise them as a woman but that doesn’t mean others should be forced to or punished if they don’t.

Ultimately we want therapy to help someone, and if somebody just doesn’t feel comfortable with a specific therapist then it’s in everyone’s interests to find someone different. They don’t have to justify or defend that. It can be as simple as you just don’t gel, or you remind them of someone they know.

I hope that answers your question? I’m deliberately not getting into debates on this topic as I’m just trying to share my dismay as a therapist here, and I’ve not really got the desire to get into a back and forth criticising someone’s views or defending my own :)

@Ereshkigalangcleg

Great post from *@RedToothBrush* just now on the FWR Guilty Feminist thread:

We have an organised political grouping who have a strategy to expand their ideology. Its coordinated. It has certain goals.

We know that there was an active desire to slip things 'under the radar' before the public noticed.

We know that its being pushed hardest in particular places. Places that are typically full of young or vulnerable individuals with little or no political agency of their own.

We know its targeting the third sector.

Its not new.

It matches the text book description of an extremist ideology targeting vulnerable people. It uses the same tactics which are well know with PREVENT. It requires people to respond with scripted mantras.

Those that push the ideology use them and us language and defend it on social media using violent language and threats.

It uses methods of social control to enforce its ideology.

Important to recognise.

We have an organised political grouping who have a strategy to expand their ideology. Its coordinated. It has certain goals

As an aside, I was listening to Prof Ross Tucker talking about transwomen in women’s rugby and how their (successful) argument to world rugby showed evidence that male physical strength was retained, and it was therefore deemed unsafe for males to play against women.

He said that the trans counterattack was very organised, with exactly the same arguments, with the same specific points, coming from different groups encompassing different countries.

For some, TRA is definitely political.

It's struck me what very male behaviour all this is.

Insisting on being centred and prioritised at all times, even over the immediate needs of vulnerable people, that your biology should not ever have any limits for you, and that it is a female's duty to give way to accommodate your desires, is definitely behaviour that is observed in males more than females.

That's even before we go into people who don't like what JK Rowling has to say responding to her with highly sexualised attacks online that include many violent references.

@nolongersurprised

We have an organised political grouping who have a strategy to expand their ideology. Its coordinated. It has certain goals

As an aside, I was listening to Prof Ross Tucker talking about transwomen in women’s rugby and how their (successful) argument to world rugby showed evidence that male physical strength was retained, and it was therefore deemed unsafe for males to play against women.

He said that the trans counterattack was very organised, with exactly the same arguments, with the same specific points, coming from different groups encompassing different countries.

For some, TRA is definitely political.

There is a cross party organisation within the uk on the subject.

The TRA in each will all agree almost to the letter on anything related to the subject.

I can't think of anything else political where there is this level of political alignment and agreement between parties.

I hope that answers your question?

It does. Thank you. I find it helpful to be able to better understand the therapist's perspective. Obviously, we have some therapists who are regular posters on FWR who have posted their view (which are not conflicting with your at all), and I was interested in where you, personally, were sitting in regards to where it seems that Mridal is positioned.

[quote Oldbutstillgotit]www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9888899/Scotland-let-pupils-aged-FOUR-change-gender.html[/quote]
I never thought I'd see the day when I actually agree with a Daily Mail article, and the comments. Children of four are far too little to understand this. I have primary school aged children, they don't have a concept of gender at that age. One of mine would like to be a My Little Pony! Even teenagers are too young to make a final decision about their gender.

Modern post war liberal democracy was founded on the notion of protecting the vulnerable after the horrors of WWII.

It provided protections for vulnerable groups in balance to the ruling authority/power.

But the point was always about being in balance and being proportionate so that no group had more power than another.

It was set on recognising why a group was more vulnerable and why and what was needed to protect them.

When you switch to an authoritarian model you go from recognising patterns of vulnerability to forms of control where there is gatekeeping and social coercion.

Authoritarianism by its nature stacks power against vulnerable groups who are unable to assert themselves on their own terms.

Anywhere you see a situation where terms and conditions are set out you are seeing authority. Where you see authority imposed you see power imbalances. Where you see power imbalances imposed on vulnerable groups without their involvement or consent you run the risk of abuse of power.

The key to liberal democracy is the principle of public consent. In this case its the consent of the grassroots users being dictated terms by an authority from above which they are not part of.

Wadhwa has been in self promotion mode for quite some time. I think ever since people started discussing the fact that they were a male in a role designated for a female years back.

Within this particular circle where "be kind" (to a select few) is prioritised above all else, these "attacks" on Wadhwa only increase their cachet. It's evidence of how incredibly oppressed you can be for just trying to help women while trans. Wadhwa is obviously going to ride this as long as people are prepared to go along with it.

Obviously that's no reason to let up - Wadhwa wins as an individual, but the wider movement to destroy women's rights loses due to the increased sunlight. Wadhwa gets stronger, and will be tempted into ever-more-outrageous performance, but the stage supporting them gets weaker.

Wadhwa falls through the floor when the stage collapses.

(I think my metaphors are all over the place...)

Smarter trans rights activists will be wanting to reign MW in, but it's got somewhat out of their control. Both in terms of MW as an individual, and those supporting MW as performative allies who aren't part of a strategic plan - just signalling for themselves and their clique without realising what it looks like to outsiders. Such as the presenters of that podcast.

People who follow this board have also been pointing out the problems with not just this individual. There is a pattern well formed now that is being played out across the UK.

Transitioned males getting roles specifically set aside for females. Often Women’s Officer type roles. These males then are involved in setting policy in that role and use it as a platform for their own activism which will usually be not focused on progressing the needs for females.

In fact, actively using their position of power to shift the focus of the women's service away from women and towards a prioritisation of the needs of natal male people. Which they have a deep, vested interest in, to further justify themselves, as a natal male in a women's post. If those appointed to these positions proved to have a deep understanding of female need and a deep committment to female people (as well as, I don't expect instead of TW) then there would not be a problem.

But the whole point appears to be to capture and control women's services to make them.... not about women.

I've just watched Karen Davies' (African American GC feminist) podcast linked to on the other thread, based on an interview MW gave, where MW talks about holding power over the vulnerable people who are being called in the US from the Indian call centre where MW was employed over their food stamp benefits. MW recounts affecting a Southern US drawl and pretending to be a white woman and laughs about this being "racist".

If you are a "#bekind, TWAW" type but have any doubts about the suitability of this person for a job with power over highly vulnerable people, please watch it.

go.mumsnet.com/?xs=1&id=470X1554755&url=<iframe src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/qHhOugmuhKk" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen>

Wadhwa gets stronger, and will be tempted into ever-more-outrageous performance, but the stage supporting them gets weaker.

I agree. MW will escalate and sooner or later will do something or say something which can't be brushed off.

I think that this was an interesting interview from back in 2019.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3597742-Forth-Valley-Rape-Crisis-Centre?pg=2&order=

Transcript:

Fox Fisher: I'm here in Stirling to meet Mridal Wadwha, who is a trans woman who also runs a rape crisis centre. Let's go say hello.

Mridul Wadwha: I am Mridul Wadwha. I am trans and a Piscean. A mother. A wife. Half zoroastrian, half Hindu. I'm an immigrant. I run a rape crisis centre. I'm a feminist. I'm a boss. And I speak my mind even when I shouldn't.

FF: Mridul, tell me a bit about where we are and how you came about to work here.

MW: This is the Forth Valley Rape Crisis Centre and I am the Manager. So the centre works with anyone over the age of thirteen who has experienced sexual violence. And anyone who is affected by it. The centre is part of the rape crisis movement. We are a woman only space in the sense that only women work in the centre. Although we work with anyone who's been affected respective of gender identity. I think one of the key things that I'm proud of that has happened in this movement is the increased awareness about forced marriage in Scotland. And how we worked pretty hard to make sure that the law was implemented effectively. Most of our services, violence against women services, largely cater to white, cis women. But there are others that do naturally come to our spaces. You can't expect people to know that you are inclusive if you're not explicit of your inclusion. So, I think our journey around inclusion as a violence against women movement is ... we are getting there, but I think there are some key things that we have to do. And consistently, because equality is too fragile. I spend most of my life thinking about the status of minority ethnic women and migrant women in particular. Any minority who experiences oppression, you expect to be treated badly wherever you go. So you steel yourself up for that. So when you say: "We are inclusive" .. well. you have to show what you are doing not to treat people badly. Can you connect with people's humanity? For me it is an investment in attitude. We need to expose ourselves to difference so that difference is normal. We just dare not to think of ourselves as different.

FF: Is there a personal reason for getting into this line of work?

MW: Staying on has been personal because it is pretty clear to me that I was the only transwoman in the women's aid movement. And I wasn't even sure that if I had been hired, if they had known that I was trans. When I came out individually to various colleagues, there was this disbelief: "Oh, you can't be trans". You know, what does a trans person look like? What does a cis woman look like? How do we know? Over a period of time it became more and more important within my work in this movement to be a transwoman. My activism wasn't around trans activism because really what mattered to me more was my status as an immigrant woman and the women I worked with who came from immigrant backgrounds. It means I've had the opportunity to deliver training across this country and so invariably I would come out in all of my training, not just for people to change their perception of what an immigrant woman looks like or who she is, but also what a transperson looks like. So I think staying in it has become a personal thing.

FF: So tell me what it was like growing up for you and who was the first transperson you met?

MW: So I grew up in India. To me now I would say it was like living in a war zone. And it really came home to me, I really understood when people started speaking about the civil war in Syria and the use of snipers. That's the analogy I use. A sniper would hit me every day, multiple times. From name calling to sexual violence, all of that happened, all the time. When I became an adult, when I began to think a lot more practically and seriously about my transition it was empowering to have grown up in a country where there is a recognition of the third gender or the non-binary in a sense. A transperson I identified with? I don't think I ever met one. I didn't have any resources, I didn't know where to go. And then I remember that I chanced upon this article. A journalist had written an article about how they had set up a helpline for transpeople. So I went to meet this journalist and they put
me in touch with the local hospital's psychiatric unit. It was a complete nightmare, where this guy essentially told me "I don't believe you're trans because you would have insisted on going to a girls' school. Why did you go to a boys' school?" And all that sort of shit. It was like 'I am trans I'm not stupid'. But eventually I found some doctors elsewhere in a different city, but it was so expensive and trying to find a job and keep a job was a challenge. So when I was 17-18 and I made a decision after a failed suicide attempt. I wanted to thrive. I just didn't want to ... manage. So I think coming to that decision was very transformative. I just said to people: "This is who I am, take it or leave it." I got two gifts. One was that I grew up in a household where my parents, not in any every day way ever told me not to be who I was, this effeminate child. But I also grew up to a spiritual outlook that doesn't have a concept of guilt in the same way. I think that has been the biggest gift. I don't know what it feels like to be guilty or ashamed of who you are. I have been lucky somehow to find myself in places where I was able to influence. And I think it is therefore important if you have been given this opportunity by fate to use that effectively. It's a responsibility to be your honest and true self at all times. I have the gift of being the eternal minority. From growing up in a mixed faith background to being a transwoman; to being a person of colour here, and a migrant. What is important for me therefore in doing this work is to try and do something to make sure that others who come after me can come on their own merit. But I think what is most important right now is for more diverse voices to be heard. Whether it is the survivors of sexual violence, or my colleagues who do a lot better work than I do. I need to make sure that my colleagues who I manage here, that their ideas really come to fruition. That is the most important reason why I do this work. What I am really interested in is to make sure everyone that goes through here feels that they have a opportunity to express what is really going on for them. That's why it is important, because this movement, particularly the feminist women's movement that is built on the history of so many women who have transformed. One of the dangers of being in this movement sometimes is that we don't know when to let more people sit around the table. And I think I do know the importance of it. Because I just don't want to be the token trans BAME woman in Scotland for many things in many spaces. Hopefully that will not be forever, and hopefully people won't call me to speak at events anymore. Because I think that is important too. We have to become redundant. That's why it's important.

[A film by Fox Fisher and Owl]

One of the things that also strikes me is

My activism wasn't around trans activism because really what mattered to me more was my status as an immigrant woman and the women I worked with who came from immigrant backgrounds.

To me there is a lack of acknowledging that for some immigrant women, it would be very important to know that the person that they were in contact with was actually a male.

The more I read their own words, the more it reinforces to me that this person is only really about themselves. There seems to be a detachment from the women they are supposed to be there for. There is always the performance of feminism and a political agenda.

I've just watched Karen Davies' (African American GC feminist) podcast linked to on the other thread, based on an interview MW gave, where MW talks about holding power over the vulnerable people who are being called in the US from the Indian call centre where MW was employed over their food stamp benefits. MW recounts affecting a Southern US drawl and pretending to be a white woman and laughs about this being "racist".

Thank you Eresh. I knew there was something I had seen or read about this. Again it came across as having a power of vulnerable women rather than as a focus on ensuring that those women and their families received assistance to get food.

As well as coordinated activism, there is also coordinated silence. Where are the other trans activists condemning MW? Where’s the Guardian article on it? Any other male telling women to “reframe their trauma” would have them up in arms any other day.

The more I read their own words, the more it reinforces to me that this person is only really about themselves. There seems to be a detachment from the women they are supposed to be there for. There is always the performance of feminism and a political agenda

Almost as if women and women's services are perceived to exist only in how useful they are to achieving personal needs, agendas and ambitions.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4234774-New-CEO-of-Edinburgh-Rape-Crisis?pg=22

This is where that link from Eresh was discussed on MN.

And I forgot to highlight this section of the interview transcript above.

But also I grew up to a spiritual outlook that don't have a concept of guilt in the same way. I think that has been the biggest gift. I don't know what it feels like to be guilty or ashamed for who you are.

This quote has stuck with me since I read it threads ago.

To me, it underlines their lack of acknowledgment that women who had religious reasons for knowing that they were in a space with a male, that they lacked any empathy with the women they were assisting with giving food stamps to and they looked back to 'Louise' and the sense of power.

All this is that 'context' that they complained we were supposedly missing in their statement. The more they self promote, the more context they are adding.

Pure misogyny!

@Ereshkigalangcleg

Wadhwa gets stronger, and will be tempted into ever-more-outrageous performance, but the stage supporting them gets weaker.

I agree. MW will escalate and sooner or later will do something or say something which can't be brushed off.

If this didn't do it, what will?

If this didn't do it, what will?

There will eventually come a point where it is unequivocally bad, because MW is addicted to the power, I think. Perhaps it will happen when it will be one of many and it's blindingly obvious to everyone in wider society that this situation is harming women.

Egomaniacs too. Sadly as a therapist I’ve had my share of therapy with really crap therapists who are in the job because they enjoy being in a position of perceived power over their clients, they get a thrill from the idea that others are looking to them for their wisdom. It suits a certain kind of person who is ego driven and doesn’t have a lot of humility or ability to recognise their limitations.

This very neatly describes the first therapist I went to when my marriage ended. He did help with some stuff but looking back I can now see how much of what he did and said was wrong. He helped me see that my son was conceived as the result of rape but when I tried to explore that further he said "Does it really matter?". My son died because I wasn't given the opportunity to prepare for pregnancy.

My local RCC have been fantastic but I did think long and hard about going to them because of what's going on with MW.

The other AIBU when MW first got the job. http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/amiibeingunreasonable/4235031-To-think-that-a-Rape-Crisis-centre-should-not-have-a-transwoman-CEO

Poll results: 87% YANBU, 13% YABU out of a final 2026 votes.

I'm so sorry Orgasmagorical These people can help, but they can do so much damage. It's a position of huge responsibility.

Hellofabore I don't know a single woman who has been a victim of sexual assault who hasn't felt guilty or ashamed - even a tiny bit - no matter how much we might know logically it's not our fault. Our female socialisation runs so deep that it's very difficult to shake it off. I still feel responsible for my second rape.

MW doesn't understand that at all. And doesn't want to. It's of no interest.

@Clymene

Hellofabore I don't know a single woman who has been a victim of sexual assault who hasn't felt guilty or ashamed - even a tiny bit - no matter how much we might know logically it's not our fault. Our female socialisation runs so deep that it's very difficult to shake it off. I still feel responsible for my second rape.

MW doesn't understand that at all. And doesn't want to. It's of no interest.

Oh, I think MW understands it very well indeed. And what better time to gently correct people about their bigotry when they're already unnecessarily feeling ashamed, guilty and full of self doubt, in relation to their feelings about men?