AIBU to have requested single sex rape crisis therapy?

[IamSarah]

My local rape crisis centre offers a dedicated support group for trans and non-binary survivors and a women's group open to anyone who identifies as a woman.

After a male (presenting as male) turned up in the women's group I requested an additional group for women who were born women. This request was turned down and I was told that group support isn't for me. AIBU?

YABU: You shouldn't need an additional, exclusive group for biological women

YANBU: Under these circumstances, a single sex group just for biological women was a reasonable request

A trans woman is very different than a man turning up.

But this was a transwoman. They may have looked like a man and talked like a man, but merely by uttering the words "I am a woman", Stonewall count them as a transwoman.

Yanbu

I suspect I have more lived experience in providing support to rape victims than the majority of posters on this thread.
Which says a lot @Stompythedinosaur, though not in the way you had intended. No wonder services are in such a state.

Yanbu and if and when you are able to legally challenge this centre for excluding you and other women who are unable to use a mixed sex group and are not offered a single sex option, please come and tell us about it. I will support you however I can.

Good point DdraigGoch, people who claim to do good should not be using some of the most vulnerable people in society to push their political agenda.

I genuinely can't believe that some posters think you are being unreasonable to want a therapy session that is solely for women. The mind boggles

Males should not be in rape survivor groups for women. Even if they identify as women, they're not women. But, just like changing rooms, toilets, they know that they shouldn't be there. But there's a thrill in being there anyway. And women not being able to stop that from happening makes it more exciting. So the only choices women and teen girls will have have is to put up with it or self exclude themselves and not get the support they should have. I can see at that centre they already have groups for transwomen so there is already a service in place for them. But that won't be enough. It's about time these organisations started centering women as part of their recovery, rather than using them as a validation tool for certain types of males.

My god how are women expected to put up with this. This is horrifyingly. The type of ex man who would expect to be in this type of group is exactly the type of predator that needs to be kept out.

Exactly. There is a problem with women setting boundaries around males, and that is in itself a red flag.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

Exactly. There is a problem with women setting boundaries around males, and that is in itself a red flag.

Yes, and those enabling males to break those boundaries are red flags too.

I completely agree.

In Scotland amd Canada - there are currently cases whereby rape crisis support is run by transgendered people … anyone who doesn’t want that support, and prefers natal women to provide it is told they are prejudiced and need to leave …

@Midlifemusings

Why is everyone focused on trans? The scenario here is a man presenting as a man. Men can also be victims of rape.

Men and women can also be victimized by a same sex attacker / perpetrator. Not all women who are raped have the same physical experience.

OP doesn't mention a men's group so it sounds like perhaps someone suggested he attend the women's group? I agree that could be uncomfortable for everyone but a very different issue than being trans. Sounds like they need a men's group as well so that those who want a single-sex group can all access service.

Rape centres were set up and initially funded by women. They filled on the grant forms, set the care up blah blah. How about men set up their own rape centres?

@SweetPetrichor

YABU for starting another thread. We’ve had this topic already.

Did you ever think you'd be telling a rape victim that she's talking about her trauma too much?

Bet you still think you're one if the good guys though?
Hint: you're not.

Thank you Op for raising this. I can’t believe some posters think you should shut up and fade away. How would they feel if you were their daughter who had been raped!!

Well done for shouting and screaming about these issues. More and more of us are learning here why we need to understand the difference between sex and gender and how by ignoring sex women lose out. Not men. Women are abused, raped, killed at birth, put in period huts, uneducated all because of our sex, not our feelings.

@Overthinkingx3

In Scotland amd Canada - there are currently cases whereby rape crisis support is run by transgendered people … anyone who doesn’t want that support, and prefers natal women to provide it is told they are prejudiced and need to leave …

Are these centres that were set up by transwomen? Or ones that have been taken over?' I expect it's the second one. Same principle through. Men destroying women's privacy at the bottom and directing it from the top. What really puzzles me is that some women cheerlead this behaviour. It's almost as if they don't understand what men can be like.

Are these centres that were set up by transwomen? Or ones that have been taken over?' I expect it's the second one. Same principle through. Men destroying women's privacy at the bottom and directing it from the top. What really puzzles me is that some women cheerlead this behaviour. It's almost as if they don't understand what men can be like.

Edinburgh Rape Crisis, in a 2015 publication by a survivor about the process women go through with the police and courts, refer to the importance of having a female person deal with your rape examination. Exactly the same thing the now director Mridul Wadhwa left the SNP in a huff over them voting for this in the Forensic Medical bill.

So Midrul is a male, presumably identifying as a female. Who left the SNP because Midrul thinks men should be able to examine women who have been raped. And now has got a job leading Edinburgh rape crises. Right at the centre of where abused, traumatised and vulnerable women are. Midrul is there shaping the organisation for the benefit of men.
Where abused woman turn to, born males like Midrul are waiting for them. Supposedly to ease their trauma. Sounds like a second assault to me. It's astounding how men have got themselves into these positions and got ahead of law and policy in order to establish a foothold. And males like these, that seem to have little regard for women, are the last males women should ever be sharing their sex segregated space with.

Sarah pls know you are supported by so many women . So proud of you speaking here and on Twitter . Your strength is amazing. What has happened to you is a travesty. Big hugs you amazing determined woman 🤗

@Stompythedinosaur

A male presenting as a male should not have been allowed in, so maybe that is the issue to raise? That is quite different from a trans woman attending a women's group, which I think is fine.

It’s not different. It’s the absolute fucking same.

I fully agree with that summary, Eric.

what's insulting about the word CIS? It literally means person who identifies as the gender that they were assigned at birth.

I just wanted to revisit this.

There is a fundamental difference between sex and gender. One that has been muddied by an inability to say 'sex' and by people with an agenda.

SEX is observed at birth. XX or XY, vagina or penis. Which means might you have eggs or ejaculate sperm? Basic biology of not just humans, but any animals that sexually reproduces. You cannot pretend that doesn't exist. It is the only reason the human race exists. Dog breeders don't put any two dogs together and say, "who knows if they will breed?" if they both have the same plumbing.

Partially as a result of SEX differences, gender expectations arose. Woman as nurturer, man as warrior. Woman as gatherer, man as hunter. Some of these also have some biological crossover.

Then we decided pink was for boys ,then for girls. Nice shoes; boys then girls. And so on. Foot binding, neck-stretching, tattoos and their placement, waxing, you name it we assign it. This GENDER stuff is assigned. And it hurts women (and men but I'm a feminist so I care if the patriarchy hurts women).

I am a woman, in all my bleeding, feeding gloriousness. I love myself and my sisters, I don't reject my womanhood. I embrace my SEX. But I reject GENDER in it's entirety. Not for me, but totally. Wear pink, drink pints, throw darts, wrestle a lion. You do you.

But if it's fundamentally about SEX you behave that way. And in the UK at least, rape is with a penis. It's is SEX based.

If there are groups that are based on GENDER (golf clubs, knitting circles) make them GENDER based if you want. But prison, sports, rape centres, DV shelters and the like, SEX based.

TL;DR sex is observed, gender is a cage.

@SweetPetrichor

YABU for starting another thread. We’ve had this topic already.

You just told a rape survivor that she was unreasonable for speaking about this because there had been one thread. So there is a thread limit, is there? Would you like to be more specific and tell us how many posts any given survivor is allowed to make about abuse on MN before she's used up her allotment? Is she supposed to be over it all by the time one thread is filled up?

Were you born without the capacity to sympathise with others like Daleks, or was it scoured from you later by some mechanical means, as with the method used to produce Cybermen in Doctor Who?

Beyond your curt reproof to Sarah for apparently posting too much in your opinion, you seem to forget there is a wider context. Do you think only one woman has ever been subjected to sexual violence by a man in the entire history of the UK?

In fact, according to statistics collated in 2013 and released in An Overview of Sexual Offending in England and Wales, by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), Office for National Statistics (ONS) and Home Office, approximately 85,000 women experience rape, attempted rape or assault by penetration in England and Wales alone every year.

I think therapeutic support provision for an issue that affects 85,000 women every year merits more than one bloody thread.

This entire thread reminds me of this graphic.

@Stompythedinosaur

But the issue here is ultimately a trans identity issue.

I believe that a trans woman is a woman, so should be able to attend a woman's group. The reality of that we have no idea and no need to know what is in anyone else's underwear.

I want everyone to to able to access appropriate support after rape. But what do you expect services to do when you decline to share space based on a prejudice? They are hardly going to exclude another woman who also needs support due to such feelings.

I have an experience of running a MH support group where a member didn't want a gay woman to be able to join as this made her uncomfortable and her belief was that homosexuality is wrong. Clearly we did not go along with that. I think the situation being described here is very similar.

That said, if the situation described by the op (an attender who was a man, rather than a trans woman) happened then I think they have been very poorly treated and should complain.

@Stompythedinosaur No, the issue here is WOMEN and THEIR TRAUMA, not the selfish needs of trans 'identity'. The issue here is SEX-BASED TRAUMA, not 'identity'. A trans woman is not a woman and never can be, not by DNA, not biologically, not anatomically.

This centre already had a trans specific group, designed for trans women to go to. Instead, they chose to infiltrate the biological woman's group, as a power play and to 'get off' on listening to women's trauma stories. This is what 'trans women are women' leads to. It's a dangerous lie.