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

@Hont1986

You think its ok for a womans rape support group to expel a raped woman because a man wants to join in on a WOMENS rape support group... I cannot say what I want as MNHQ will delete me.

Well, they didn't expel her. OP chose to leave because she didn't find it acceptable.
And there was no man joining in on a women's group, because it was a woman, a trans woman. I know you don't believe that, but I and more importantly the charity providing the service do.

@Hont1986 It was a man who was dressed as a man and male identified. It wasn't a trans woman. If you can't see that it was a male who entered a woman's group to voyeuristically 'get off' on hearing trauma stories, then naive doesn't really cover it....

Charities don't have unlimited resources and I don't feel you can expect them to provide additional groups that go against their moral/political beliefs at your request. So that's why.

So men take over women's support and rape crises centres. Both at the top level, and at level of service user. Suddenly women's needs don't fit in with mens moral and political needs. (You forgot to add womanly identities and fetishes here btw). So men, enabled by sheer determination and the #bekind women, get rid of the women's only groups and set them up so that voyeuristic men can get off on women's trauma and pain, inflicted for a second time. By men eager to sit back and be part of that journey. To go home and enact it out in many cases.

So which are you? A male with a special interest in women's trauma from male violence or a #bekind woman?

It was a man who was dressed as a man and male identified. It wasn't a trans woman. If you can't see that it was a male who entered a woman's group to voyeuristically 'get off' on hearing trauma stories, then naive doesn't really cover it....

Men and transwomen are both male. So it does cover it. Neither should be in a woman's support group.

@ClaudiaJ1 OP was asking them to set up an additional cis-only group.

Please explain how having a safe space for women would be against anyone's "moral/political beliefs"? What moral/political beliefs are there that say women don't have the right to have a safe space? Please explain your thinking on this.
So you can go through in red pen and nitpick? Shan't, miss.

And there was no man joining in on a women's group, because it was a woman, a trans woman. I know you don't believe that, but I and more importantly the charity providing the service do.

The OP clearly states it was a male presenting as a male.
Even if the male was a TW they had 3 I believe other groups they could get support but they chose the WOMAN only group.
The OP was expelled because they chose to support a male over a female.
It is disgusting the way males are put above females even in a rape support group.

[quote Hont1986]@ClaudiaJ1 OP was asking them to set up an additional cis-only group.

Please explain how having a safe space for women would be against anyone's "moral/political beliefs"? What moral/political beliefs are there that say women don't have the right to have a safe space? Please explain your thinking on this.
So you can go through in red pen and nitpick? Shan't, miss.[/quote]
No, I am genuinely trying to understand. Why do you think women don't deserve safe spaces?

It was a man who was dressed as a man and male identified

No, it wasn't, it was a trans woman who presumably identified as a woman. OP claimed that they 'presented as male' because they were wearing 'male clothing' of a sweatshirt and jeans.

So Hont1986 men who identify as women get what they want, access to single sex spaces, but there are no circumstances in which women can get what they NEED which is single sex spaces because you don't believe that women needing single sex spaces, even traumatised women have the political right to spaces for them?

Wow.

This is a man's world. You are enabling a patriarchal society where women come last. This is not progressive.

So Hont what you are saying is women and in this case raped women should not believe their own eyes but instead believe whatever the male infont of them says...and you still think its ok to have a male in a female rape support group?

@Hont1986

It was a man who was dressed as a man and male identified

No, it wasn't, it was a trans woman who presumably identified as a woman. OP claimed that they 'presented as male' because they were wearing 'male clothing' of a sweatshirt and jeans.

So does Hont believe that women's needs are always secondary to other groups' wants? Or does Hont believe that women who have been victims of male sexual violence are unreasonable to have a need for female only spaces? And how does Hont believe that one can tell 'genuine' transwomen from males who will get off from the power and control of being able to be in a room with women recounting their sexual abuse, and the women being able to do nothing about it? Or does Hont think this is an acceptable price for women to pay for the inclusion of another group?

Genuinely interested.

@urbanbuddha

How are they different to a man who has lost his genitals to injury/illness? Because the ones I know would be very distressed and offended to be told that they are now women.

Because their desire/need to be accepted as a woman is demonstrably strong and dominates the way they live their lives. A man injured in an accident is not subject to this - it's a red herring to raise this when discussing the position of transwomen in society.

I also think that the assimilation of a transwoman into society is a process which takes time and requires empathy on all sides. It does not happen overnight.

As I said earlier I think there is room - and a great need - for much more nuanced discussion on this.

Almost everyone on this thread agrees that the presence of a penis, the lack of a penis or the surgical reconfiguration of a penis is not a deciding factor.

It about where the service allocate services and the criteria used to allocate finite resource.

It's not a red herring.
Its asking why, as you describe it, a desire/need to be accepted gives someone a higher social status that others in a community. And that is what is happening the service is gatekeeping on the basis of a male saying "I want" v a female saying "I want.

The provider has created an hierarchy.
They begin by forcing all women in the service to comply or loose access to the services. They allocate extra specialist resources too.

Excluding IamSarah is justified when a male says "I want to be recognised as a woman". She must subjugate her desire/need and instead validate a claim that that male is the same sex as IamSarah or at least passes some invisible threshold of "womanhood".

And it's not assimilation of a transwoman into society is it?
It's annihilation of the meaning of the word women and the annihilation of women as a sex class.

Empathy is not forcing IamSarah out of the service when she questions her placement in the hierarchy.
If the service refused to provide a single sex service and now no service at all, there is no all sides option.

Nuanced discussions can only start when the meaning of words can be agreed.

@Hont1986

I voted YABU. There were some comments earlier saying that people who voted YABU should explain why. Charities don't have unlimited resources and I don't feel you can expect them to provide additional groups that go against their moral/political beliefs at your request. So that's why.

This group is tax payer LA funded as public service for raped women.

They are not providing accessible resources for all females. They are providing no less than three varied accessible, carefully planned resources for males. Major issue number one.

They are perfectly capable of resourcing one single accessible group for females alongside their current provision. They refuse to. Major issue number two.

Political intolerance is not an acceptable reason to refuse to provide women's rape crisis services to women. Major issue number three.

Moral/political extremist beliefs have no place in public services. This is sexist, discriminatory, exclusionary and politically intolerant of other beliefs and protected characteristics. Incidentally all the female ones. It does not have the faintest vestige of a leg to stand on.

If this was a private charity operating alongside fully accessible for all females women's services funded by the LA then whatever. No problem.

It's not.

No taxation without representation. And no bloody women's services run by people who are not competent or willing to provide services to women. Its ridiculous.

there are no circumstances in which women can get what they NEED which is single sex spaces because you don't believe that women needing single sex spaces, even traumatised women have the political right to spaces for them?

I don't have a disagreement with single-sex spaces in theory. I think you should be able to offer your privately-run refuge/gym/support group to anyone you wish. If OP or anyone who agrees with her wants to set up their own space and offer it to the people of their choosing, then I believe she has a political right to it and will have my moral support.

Feminists set up these spaces through their blood, sweat, and tears, and shouldn't be told who they can and can't let in the spaces. In this case, the people who actually shed the blood, sweat, and tears have chosen to make the women's group open to all those who they feel are women, and not offer a cis-only group. If you disagree with it, set up your own.

And there was no man joining in on a women's group, because it was a woman, a trans woman. I know you don't believe that, but I and more importantly the charity providing the service do.

Absolutely irrelevant.

ANY TW entering that service has three groups they can choose from to best meet their need for rape crisis support. Three.

ANY female entering that service has one mixed sex group available.

Any female who CANNOT ACCESS a mixed sex space is left without ANY rape crisis support.

It does not matter HOW a TW wants to identify, they can pick from their groups and have all the help they want and no one is trying to stop them or reduce this service or provision in any way for them .

The sole reason that females are being refused any access or support to a bloody women's service for crying out loud, is that male people do not want a group to be allowed to exist for them .

What kind of a prejudiced bigot do you have to be to have all your chosen services but insist that your greater power is used to block some raped female people from having any help at all because you don't like the thought of them being permitted it ?

@Hont1986

there are no circumstances in which women can get what they NEED which is single sex spaces because you don't believe that women needing single sex spaces, even traumatised women have the political right to spaces for them?

I don't have a disagreement with single-sex spaces in theory. I think you should be able to offer your privately-run refuge/gym/support group to anyone you wish. If OP or anyone who agrees with her wants to set up their own space and offer it to the people of their choosing, then I believe she has a political right to it and will have my moral support.

Feminists set up these spaces through their blood, sweat, and tears, and shouldn't be told who they can and can't let in the spaces. In this case, the people who actually shed the blood, sweat, and tears have chosen to make the women's group open to all those who they feel are women, and not offer a cis-only group. If you disagree with it, set up your own.

No, this is the job of the LA.

Who should not be funding a service that is supposed to serve the entire population of women, not just the women they happen to be interested in. An exclusionary, inaccessible public service is a dramatically failed public service.

So it is not the removal of the penis that makes a man a woman (but we know that anyway because TWAW and the vast majority of TW retain a penis) it the desire to have the penis removed, the desire and feelings (even though plenty of TW show absolutely no desire for surgery). So these desires and feelings and wants are so important that we all need to set aside biological fact, scientific reality and agree that if a man says he is a woman then he is. Great really important that people's feelings and desires are listened too and acted on...... Except what about the feelings of IamSarah and other women? Why do those feelings not matter. Why is the desire of a man to be a woman so important that we rewrite language and throw biology in the bin but the desire of women to be treated with respect and dignity and their wants to be able to receive support for having undergone horrific experience at the hands of male bodied people without the presence of male bodied people worth nothing. Either feelings and desires are the most important thing or they aren't. But where we are at the moment some people's feelings really really matter and everybody else's count for nothing.

A transwoman is a male bodied individual.

Yes, yes and YES!!

Ok Hont I'll bite.

Let's say my DH was to decide he was a woman. He suffers a trauma also. Can he join this group too? Just wondering what, beyond "coz I feels like one" the qualifying criteria to be a woman are?

.... disclaimer, he wouldn't because he isn't a gaslighting dick but I'm curious how you would be able to know this.

There really is no point in wittering on about TWAW and that's the reason for inclusion in women's services because they must not exclude any women, when once the service is made inclusive of TW the TW and their politics immediately refuse to permit the service to be diverse or accessible to all females so that this inclusion works, and insist that women must be excluded from women's services.

If exclusion of some women is ok, then why was it ever a problem to exclude TW?

In this case, the people who actually shed the blood, sweat, and tears have chosen to make the women's group open to all those who they feel are women, and not offer a cis-only group. If you disagree with it, set up your own.

Men and the #bekind allies have done this, infiltrating and taking over these charities on the blood sweat and tears of the women that set them up, and the many women who continue to run them. This, alongside the removal of grant funding unless men are included so that they can have their real life theatre show. The decision to remove that funding made again by men, and #,bekind allies to get diversity points. The majority of women who work in these charities do not agree with mixed sex groups. They have limited choice because without funding they would struggle to continue and then women, who really need this service, would have nothing. But they can't have the funding unless the men are allowed to watch. Pretty sick really.

women's group open to all those who they feel are women, and not offer a cis-only group

Out of interest, am I allowed to bring my penis to these groups and sit in? Will that be ok for you?

It's the new party line.

If a female service has been forcibly commandeered and turned mixed sex, for the exclusive benefit of males and resulting in excluding females - well off you pop females, and set up all over again from scratch.

If exclusion is fine and dandy and a group needs to trot off and set up more appropriate resources for themselves....... I'd think very carefully about popularising that line. And you've lost any lingering hope of using the word 'inclusive' and being believed.

Inclusive would be mixed sex women's services where male service users were politically tolerant enough to allow female needs to be met too. #Bekind. Although why male users appear to be the gatekeepers of what female service users may be permitted in a highly sensitive women's crisis service is a question that needs very serious addressing. Obviously. Plot beyond lost there.

Feminists set up these spaces through their blood, sweat, and tears, and shouldn't be told who they can and can't let in the spaces. In this case, the people who actually shed the blood, sweat, and tears have chosen to make the women's group open to all those who they feel are women, and not offer a cis-only group.

Feminists did indeed set up refuges with their own blood, sweat and tears against the most appalling opposition from men, those refuges were set up for women by women.

In this case the refuge is funded by tax payers, it is not a Charity, it is failing women who pay taxes by excluding them from the service they want and need.

Those running it are not feminists in any way shape or form, nor are they behaving in line with their duty as public servants utilising tax payer funds.

Strangely they offer a group for men only so they are therefore discriminating 100% against women.

There is something seriously wrong with anyone whose politics and morals allow what is happening here.