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

And yet again, women's needs are side lined.

That's directed to @CorrBlimeyGG.

Hi Sarah
I have been following your story and no matter how many times others tell you that YANBU you can't accept it, I understand why and I am sorry that you are now having to deal with more trauma.

The very people who said they were there to support you have turned their back on you in favour of a man. They made you the problem and have caused you to repeatedly question your feelings.
I dont think you will move on from this unless that support group wake up, realise what they have done and apologise to you for their disgusting actions.

Again I am so sorry for what they have done

No you are absolutely not being unreasonable . The rights of women and girls are being trashed. They are not even safe inside a prison cell as men can just say they are a woman and demand the right to be housed in a women's jail. Yes, even those convicted of rape!!

If I were a millionnaire I would be setting up female-only rape crisis centres across the nation.

I am so sorry this has happened. It’s absolutely disgusting that a man can attend a women’s rape counselling session. Even more disgusting that your request has been ignored, and they’ve turned their backs on you, in favour of supporting a man. I don’t even know what to say. How awful, and I’m so sorry.

I would have thought this was not only vital option but also most appropriate for majority of people attending

I to owould love those who vote YABU to have the courage of their convictions and tocome and epxlain why they voted that way.

If you have a point then you should have no problem explaining it.

If you only have an ideology, sod you... if a raped woman is simply yet another platform from which to shout your genderist crap you should be utterly ashamed of your lack of humanity!

@CorrBlimeyGG

You already have a thread on this. Why have you started a second?

Not an AIBU thread and not started by me.

Interested in a general consensus because FWR posters are going to be biased.

What I don't understand at all is why transwomen are not empathetic to a woman rape survivor. Why don't these people who claim they are women realise that a person with a penis in the room is the last thing this woman needs?

YANBU

If they have a special group for trans / non-binary (and I can understand why they do), then surely they should have a single sex group as well? Run a mixed “identifying as” group if they want, but it’s completely wrong that there isn’t a single sex option available.

Urban Validation would be my guess.

I know quite a few TW and while some are very aware that they are male and that being a male in certain female spaces can cause upset/trauma/isolation for women so avoid such spaces the majority believe it is their right to be in all female spaces as TWAW.

I to owould love those who vote YABU to have the courage of their convictions and tocome and epxlain why they voted that way.

There is a certain group of people that screenshot MN posts, share them to Twitter, and encourage similar people to join MN to report our posts on such topics.

In order to have women silenced/deleted/cancelled.

It's becoming more prevalent the more women speak up.

If group support isn't for you, what kind of support are they going to give you?

YANBU. It makes me so angry that women are being excluded from much-needed services that WE set up! For women!

Great that there's a men's group and a trans group. Fab. But why isn't there a group for women?

YANBU I am so sorry for what you have been through and that these services failed to provide you with the single sex space needed.

@lonelyapple

If group support isn't for you, what kind of support are they going to give you?

They said I could be put on the 18 month waiting list for 1:1 support.

Since I went public and revealed their policies they have expelled me from the centre and blocked me on social media.

Would you be willing to post the name of the centre op?

Assuming you're anonymous and that your real name isn't Sarah.

Does the program have a support group for biological male victims who present as male? Was there another option for male victims?

It is kind of odd to have a co-ed support group. I am guessing they are more focused on the victim experience of being violated versus discussing specifics about genitals.

@Beowulfa

If I were a millionnaire I would be setting up female-only rape crisis centres across the nation.

If you were I would be tapping you for cash right now.

As I have said before, gender ideology in major funding streams, including The Lottery, has lost us just under 40% of our funding over the last 2 - 3 years. It has cost us hundreds of work hours re-writing bids to meet 'diversity targets', research into the EA2010, legal advice and, because we had to give in an set up spaces for trans and non binary individuals - of which we have had 3, maybe 4, in the last 10 years, a lot of people and facilities that we were hard pressed to re-assign. We are now being pressed to include men, all men - latest letter of advice states that really clearly. We will, yet again, have our funding reduced if we do not include men. In a rape crisis centre set up, and originally funded, by women, for women.

We are holding a meeting tomorrow to discuss how we go forward with this. We are small, rural, rely heavily on volunteers for all of the backroom work and, even with the wider umbrella of other local community charities, are feeling more and more vulnerable.

So vulnerable that one item on our agenda is whether accepting the church's invitation to become a church based organisation - which would free us from some of the pressure, whilst adding issues with perception.

In my most pessimisitic moments I am fully aware that it would take just one complaint to sink us.

One man to complain that he was not welcomed into a women's refuge.

And we would have to close. After just over 30 years of protecting women and kids from the wrath, or general inadequacy, of men.

If that happens you will probably learn my real name as you hear me scream and shout it from every bloody roof top! I am so very close to being too fucking angry to care (and MN choosing to delete me in favour of some hurty feelz has only made that worse).

@IamSarah I hope you have the support you need. More, sorry, but so very, very much more I hope that every single person involved in the organisation you approached for help has their eyes opened wide to the danger, the sheer unadulterated lunacy of what they are doing and saying to and about women.

My cup runneth over at the moment, my anger knows no bounds. Comments like those of @CorrBlimeyGG and @Stompythedinosaur are so repugnant, ill informed and tedious I want to scream, long and loud.

Just take a moment to THINK!!!

Of course YANBU. I have followed your story and find the whole situation and their reply to your request, disgusting. You should keep talking about it until everyone hears it.

It actually is almost vomit inducing how wilfully blind people are being to this shit. Telling a rape survivor that they can’t access female only support services is fucking abhorrent.

^^ this

Disgusting. I'm sorry you've experienced this OP. This type of policy decision making needs to be exposed and the people involved shamed for discriminating against someone who is extremely vulnerable and in need of support in a safe space.

Fucking Stonewall have a lot to answer for.

@ForbiddentoForbid

Would you be willing to post the name of the centre op?

Assuming you're anonymous and that your real name isn't Sarah.

Oh sure, I've been very vocal about it on Twitter. It's the Survivors Network in Brighton.

twitter.com/sarahsurviving

They are absolute bastards, Sarah. I've been following your threads on FWR and there aren't enough words to express how utterly wrong this is. That so-called counsellors/therapists should close their ears, eyes and cognitive skills to the nonsense of their stance baffles me. It is cruel and evil. Sending you good thoughts and a big bunch of virtual

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.