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

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.

OK. I'm late to this one, mainly because I spent most of yesterday afternoon in a meeting to discuss future proofing a group of charities, including a food bank and a refuge. Apologies if all of this has already been said but this has angered me!

1. We don't have unlimited resources
2. We do have specific remits, our legal reason for existing
3. Those remits govern what we can and cannot do
4. Funding streams like the Lottery are starting to make us have to re-write those remits in order to maintain funding levels

Real life example:

A womens refuge, operating for just under 30 years. Started small, operated by and for women with no external help, funding etc.

Grew, got charitable status. Remit: to house and support women and their children in times of crisis.

Problems: I have, over the last 2 - 3 years, got more and more pushback from funding streams about our diversity. We have been questioned specifically as to why we don't have any male staff or clients.

We don't provide a male service. We have lost c. 30% of our funding because of this.

We do support local men's services,. Have done for about 15 years. I do (voulnteer funding admin) the same job for them as I do for the women's refuge, we share board members, helped them set up as a charity and we part fund some of their groups. But that is not enough. We must include men within our services, apparently.

And no, they don't get the same pressure as their government backed funding is for men!

So tell me. How does that fit with your YABU?

Have you looked a tt the group being discussed? A feminist group

survivorsnetwork.org.uk/about-us/who-we-are/

Women and children form the vast majority of people who experience sexual violence. We acknowledge and believe male victims of sexual violence, and see their experiences and lack of reporting as being caused by the patriarchal society in which we live.

So, as Sarah has said, they already provide women's services, men's services AND a trans service.

So tell me again, why is it unreasonable to ask that the womens group be single sex?

@Hont1986 catching up again.

Have you actually read the thread? I have already explained the reaons why the servcies shoudl be very very clear and that a woman's group that allows transwomen fucks up the therapy for everyone.

THINK about the realities of the act of rape on women and on transwomen. Not the same are they?

Transwomen need an entirely different set of support specialist to truly meet their needs. A woman's gorup would leave them lacking in support and having to set aside their own immediate reaction to a malebody would traumatise the womem members. THINK ABOUT IT.

Stop proselytising and actually think about the real life situation you are talking about.

I am very supportive of trans rights and happy to use whatever pronouns someone wants however in cases of support groups for rape I think a choice of a seperate biological female/biological male group should be allowed.... a biological male cannot possibly know what it's like to be raped as a woman, for example sometimes women need to get the morning after pill, abortion or continue a pregnancy after an attack. I'm not saying that a transwoman or biological male suffers any less by a rape but it is inherently different and should be treated as so. I can imagine that it would be very distressing to feel a biological man eyes on you as you discuss your trauma. In a bid to be inclusive we are actually excluding women.

So tell me again, why is it unreasonable to ask that the womens group be single sex?

Because then they would have to acknowledge sex matters to how women experience the world. And they can't. Because then TW are not W in exactly the same way as other women are.

All of this is the result of the need to maintain a fiction. They cannot allow any chink as the whole thing starts to fall apart if they do. Any allowing any chink will lead to THEM being accused of transphobia.

[quote MizzFizz]@PurgatoryOfPotholes oh right! Yeah I guess that's the piece I was missing from the OP. It's a tough situation isn't it. We as humans don't trust people we don't know to begin with, then add the trauma experienced by those in a rape support group...and the trauma of being excluded for your gender identity. It's not an easy situation is it 😢[/quote]
We can also write that from the perspective of a woman, a female, all the right gametes etc.

We as humans don't trust people we don't know to begin with, then add the trauma experienced by those in a rape support group...and the trauma of being excluded because they allow men into women's single sex, safe spaces

I'm out in the rural hinterland. We have trans people, one of our youth groups is run by a young NB person, it's not a thing that requires comment. We don't have many trans people coming to us in the crisis centre but we do accommodate them, have set up a specific service for them. Now, I'd like to point out that, as with many/most other trans services this actually mean for transwomen because transmen don't make the same fuss and they accept any strictures based on dignity and perceptions - ask me how I know and I will repeat my posts upthread and elsewhere!

It IS easy. Would be even easier if funding streams would stop pushing.

And far, far more easy if TRAs would stop. Because the trans people I work with, am freinds with, have nothing in common with TRAs. No viewpoint, no needs, no voice. They are even more reluctant than I am to say what the believe in real life because they absolutely know that they will lose some of their support/friendship network to the agitators who don't seem to care what actual, real life trans individuals want or need.

@IamSarah

no we don't offer a safe space for recovery, no we don't offer inclusive services for all women from all communities, no we don't seek to prevent predatory males from entering our services

They acknowledge all this but for some reason are unwilling / unable to provide the very simple solution of a single sex group. Even though the trans people they surveyed would prefer their own group. It's baffling.

OMG!

Given the meeting I sat through yesterday I cannot believe they they can remain so blind to their error.

Your complaint would not have come to me directly, if you had compained here. But I would have been asked for my input based on the guidance of funders, the possibilities for change within the groups etc.

We could not have said that in our reply as our remit is to provide a safe space for recovery. That's it. All else revolves around that. Without that we are not a crisis centre nor a refuge.

^We provide women and children a safe space to recover from domestic abuse and violence, rape and sexual assault"

And yes, as you say, the trans individuals included in our regular client surveys also want specific groups, not to join mixed sex groups but to be supported as trans individuals.

Sorry, I seem to be thread hogging. I shall wander off again!

@bloodycoldagain

So tell me again, why is it unreasonable to ask that the womens group be single sex?

Because then they would have to acknowledge sex matters to how women experience the world. And they can't. Because then TW are not W in exactly the same way as other women are.

All of this is the result of the need to maintain a fiction. They cannot allow any chink as the whole thing starts to fall apart if they do. Any allowing any chink will lead to THEM being accused of transphobia.

If meeting the needs of TW service users is not compatible with meeting the needs of all other women service users, if the cost of TW inclusion is female exclusion, then sadly the conclusion has to be that TW's needs cannot be met within women's services.

Fucks sake. Can someone explain to me in what way transwomen are women? Other than in name. Of course no one can.

I'm so sorry this happened to you Sarah. It's beyond shit.

Can someone explain to me in what way transwomen are women? Other than in name.

And this is one of the major issues. An activist academic recently made it very clear that this is the issue with allowing the language to change to allow males to become 'women'.

They started using the ploy 'well we are known as women now, why are we to be excluded from anything that other females have access to' - my paraphrase. It is clear that this is the effect of forcing the language change, the mantraing' all along.

And once you see that, it is actually pretty hard to unsee it.

@HoardingSamphireSaurus

Sorry, I seem to be thread hogging. I shall wander off again!

You should be hogging the thread though.

Its kind of the point that those with the expertise and understanding of the problem of sexual abuse and rape have been completely side lined, talked over and marginalised in favour of those with an ideological agenda that comes before centring female victims and how to support them.

Fucking hell, Sarah that response from them is awful. Can’t provide a safe space for all. I wonder what they say to their funders about that. I bet they don’t acknowledge that to them. I hope you’re doing ok.

Thanks.

I find it odd as I only have any expertise from the very dry perspective of funding. I don't work in the centres themselves, apart from a few days a week when, as part of the food bank, I run cooking classes, help make communal meals. I hear the women talking, their almost adult kids, including sons, talking and it is clear what they need and what they cannot handle at that particular time. REALLY CLEAR.

We have been asked to look at helping a totally different organisation - one that helps abusive men, including those who have just come out of prison. The board of that charity were really understanding when we said we would need to have a board meeting as their remit was somewhat at odds with that of some of our existing partners and we would need to explore possible conflicts. We had to decide that they couldn't join our loose cooperative but that we would support them a and when it was mutually beneficial. That seemed harsh to me, even though I was one who had to speak against them, but they understood and have been really cooperative in a couple of joint ventures over the last year or so.

I dread having the same conflict of interests with any group that has the Stonewall/TRA attitude we've all seen so much of. It could scupper us!

@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.

When charities are the third sector providers of a service to an area their personal ideologies should be irrelevant.

Many health, social care, refuge and other services are now provided by third sector as exclusive subcontractors to an area. They should be providing the service needed, not what a group of people who are not even in their client cohort want to impose.

Mridul Wadhwa and supporters appears to think it has a very different meaning

Well I guess that happens when your entire world view is ME!ME!ME! and fuck everyone else.

Fortunately there are other VAWG charities to support than theirs.

That response is a disgrace. It effectively says, 'no we don't offer a safe space for recovery, no we don't offer inclusive services for all women from all communities, no we don't seek to prevent predatory males from entering our services, and we have chosen to be unable to do those things as we have decided to prioritise the choices of males who identify as women over the needs of actual female-women.'

Disgrace is correct. So now here we have in black and white an admission from this service that women from certain cultures, backgrounds, religions and those who have suffered abuse at the hands of men that are the stuff of nightmares are wilfully and deliberately excluded from services that promote themselves, falsely and misleadingly as being there to help them.

Women already on the very margins of society are deemed even more worthless, and are being pushed ever further out of society in order to pander to men.

All those on here who keep blathering on about trans and non binary folks being excluded, how does this sit with you? You happy that these women are being sacrificed in the pursuance of this ideology?

Think about it, these women are not only excluded from rape and trauma services by the inclusion of males, they are excluded from every other purportedly female only space and service if males are allowed access. I do hope you don't hand-wring and preach about the plight of refugee women, trafficked women, women from strict religious backgrounds because if you do you are raging hypocrites, you are not kind and you are not empathetic, you are placing men's wants and wishes above women's needs.

I’m glad that some posters have come on to explain why they disagree/voted YABU eg with this kind of comment the trauma of being excluded for your gender identity

As it helps to understand their thinking, which seems to be wholly sympathetic to TW. This is kind, but nevertheless frustrating in trans allies not seeing that when the rights of TW and women conflict, the rights of women are on the losing end. Enabled by other women being kind instead of standing up for women’s rights.

But then this is always what women have been conditioned to do. If we can’t have power, at least we’ll be liked? Is that what this is?

Women already on the very margins of society are deemed even more worthless, and are being pushed ever further out of society in order to pander to men

It always is. The victims of these policies are never the middle class wannabe liberals who promote them so vigorously and then virtue signal to death. Its always their less advantaged "sisters" who can rot.

Twisting the language to remove women centred language from health care and advice also excludes these women. Our main area hospital deliberately had signage and advertising for the womens health clinic rather than Obs and Gynae and ran successful walk in clinics with good reach to the community. When the local activists and some from the management who had been on "training" complained this was "excluding" language they were pushed into changing it back to medical terms.

Oddly the large local population who were often poor, second language speakers or otherwise disadvantaged didn't identify as cervix havers or menstruators and attendance has skewed toward white middle class again with drops in minority and poorer women.

But hey, they are stonewall champions so that's ok.

And this is where you see:

It is not 'inclusion'.

It is not 'kindness' or 'diversity'.

It is in fact male supremacism.

@IamSarah I am so sorry that you received that message from a 'friend'. The lack of empathy by that person is astounding.

I just cannot believe that there are posters on this thread who are so 'inclusive' that they are OK with women being excluded from services fought for, set up by and fundraised for by women and say that Sarah (and the many others like her in the same situation) should wait 18 months for 1 to 1 counselling. Instead of the service using the exemptions they are legally allowed to use to provide a single sex service. Sarah has never asked for a reduction in the services available to transwomen or argued (as she could) that the women's group should not be for those 'who identify as women' given the myriad of other options available to them. Simply an additional group.

You'd think that a rape crisis centre, of all things would be safe from the extremes of this ideology.

@HoardingSamphireSaurus I have found your posts very interesting from a perspective of a service fighting for the needs of their service users.

It always is. The victims of these policies are never the middle class wannabe liberals who promote them so vigorously and then virtue signal to death. Its always their less advantaged "sisters" who can rot.

Agree. They care not one jot for less disadvantaged women, they pretend to with their crocodile tears, hand-wringing and preaching but they don't, they are indeed happy to leave them to rot whilst they get all the high-fives, back-slapping, good-girl pats on the heads from the males they are schilling for.

Oddly the large local population who were often poor, second language speakers or otherwise disadvantaged didn't identify as cervix havers or menstruators and attendance has skewed toward white middle class again with drops in minority and poorer women.

Perfect case in point, there'll be lots of weeping and a-wailing about the increase in deaths from cervical cancer, they'll probably do a bit of virtue signalling fund raising BUT actually look at why and what would help that population oh, no, not if it reflects badly on their chosen special ones and their cause.

There's a word for those who condemn other women to this on the basis that they'd rather have the 'rewards' from males and anyway it doesn't effect them and theirs, so they close their eyes and ears and look away.

I have nothing but contempt for them.

There's a word for those who condemn other women to this on the basis that they'd rather have the 'rewards' from males and anyway it doesn't effect them and theirs, so they close their eyes and ears and look away.

There are words for their actions too, I would describe it as 'forced consent.'

It somehow feels so much worse coming from women working at a rape crisis centre.

I currently feel more angry and upset with them than my perpetrators which I know is irrational.

They care not one jot for less disadvantaged women, they pretend to with their crocodile tears, hand-wringing and preaching but they don't, they are indeed happy to leave them to rot whilst they get all the high-fives, back-slapping, good-girl pats on the heads from the males they are schilling for.

I went to access essential health services with a mate who is poor, from an extremely excluded racial group, and disabled, and she didn't know how to fill the forms in. I mean seriously. I had to explain them so she could apply. Her response, "FFS of course I'm a fucking woman, why do they think I need [procedure]?" I assume they think they're being inclusive but she might have walked out if I hadn't been there. Weaponising my Karenness 🙄

MizzFizz
@ PurgatoryOfPotholes I don't know what I did to offend. I don't pretend to have the answer, doesn't make me a bad person.
I see you have a clear opinion, that's great! I was trying to understand the situation and that's is why I asked my original question, but I would need to learn more to have an opinion.
And sometimes there isn't an easy answer. Even if you try to bully people into thinking there is.

IMO you @MizzFizz owe PurgatoryOfPotholes one of two things:

Evidence, as in a quote of where Purgatory either calls you a bad person or where it is implied and a quote of where bullying happened.

Or

If this is not produced have the civility to apology for misrepresenting what Purgatory said and request MN remove the post.

Some may recognise this as tenet in the Gender ideology:
Acknowledge the mistake.
Correct the mistake.
Apologise.

Purgatory is a very civil poster, I tend to get snarky.
So MizzFizz you also appear to be attributing my post to Purgatory.

MizzFizz
@PurgatoryOfPotholes I don't think someone shouldn't be able to receive single-sex services...? I do think the group should have been explicit about what they were from the start... they should have done the work to research and understand the situation so they wouldn't have caused this in the first place.

This was me quoting your 23:48 post MizzFizz.

=>me ( SolasAnla ) at 23:59

SolasAnla
MizzFizz
@ PurgatoryOfPotholes oh right!
Yeah I guess that's the piece I was missing from the OP. It's a tough situation isn't it. We as humans don't trust people we don't know to begin with, then add the trauma experienced by those in a rape support group...and the trauma of being excluded for your gender identity. It's not an easy situation is it 😢

So you can recognise a human with a penis after all.
(What a surprise + shocked face emoji)

Are you trying to avoid typing it?
"Someone who has been sexually assaulted should not be given single sex provision.
Adding tear drop emoji"

....

See if you are going to play word games you will have to try a little harder.

You MizzFizz at 23:31 :
*so the => person