AIBU to think that women’s rape crisis therapy should NOT be mixed-sex?

[IamSarah]

Women’s rape crisis therapy in Sussex is currently mixed-sex. The women's groups are open to anyone, male or female, who identify as a woman.

My women’s therapy group was attended by a male who presented outwardly as male.

I am making a legal challenge to the Sussex Rape Crisis centre claiming that women who have been raped or sexually abused should have the option of single-sex female only therapy IF they want it.

This would be in addition to the existing mixed-sex options.

If you are thinking YANBU then please visit my Twitter page which has more information on how you can help women like me secure female only therapy:

twitter.com/sarahsurviving

If you are thinking YABU please let me know how you would explain this to your daughter, mother or sister if she’d been raped?

I hate to say this but rape is a popular fantasy among some male groups. Hideous I know but I can absolutely imagine a male attending a group” for kicks “ of females discussing the fear, terror and pain caused to them by their attackers

I've name changed for obvious reasons.

If posters think some men wouldn't invent trauma to infiltrate women's spaces, Im afraid you are wrong.

I used to work for an organisation that supported survivors of rape.
Every month we had at least 2 phone calls from men claiming they were in crisis and wanting to talk to a therapist. They then described their 'attack' to the therapist while masturbating.
The HIV helpline was even worse, many men would hang up and ring back repeatedly when a male employee answered until they got a woman to speak to.

Never underestimate the depths men will sink to facilitate their orgasms.

Survivors Network not understanding the law.

On looking up The Survivors Network in Sussex, which is part of this case, I noticed a job adevertisement which seems to show possible confusion on their over the Equalities Act. I don’t really understand the law here but perhaps other posters here can correct me if I am wrong.

Under this advertised role,

Senior Independent Sexual Violence Advisor

They write:

This post is subject to an enhanced DBS check and is open to self-identifying women applicants only, as being a woman is deemed to be a genuine occupational requirement under Schedule 9 pt 1 of the Equality Act 2010.

On the one hand they seem clear in saying “woman applicants only”. All well and good and what I think the Equalities Act means..

But note they also use this wording: “is open to self-identifying women applicants only”.

So, in this job advertisement, do they mean that it is the identity as a woman that matters, rather than their female sex? Or did they mean someone of female sex, but just used muddling jargon, “identifies as a woman”?

I don’t know the answer regarding this specific advertisement, but they do seem to conflate woman with self-identifying women, even for women only spaces. (See below. My bold.)

Trans Staff, Volunteers and Service Users Policy
Definitions
Under this policy we define “self-identifying woman” as an individual that feels their gender identity is a woman, irrespective of the gender they were assigned at birth. This will therefore include transgender women

Survivors’ Network offers a range of services for survivors of sexual violence and their supporters. Some of these services are open to people of any gender and some are only open for self-identifying women.

We believe that it is essential to have self-identifying women-only spaces, and these services are always inclusive of all self-identifying women. We will continue to consult with all of our service users, volunteers and staff in order to get direct feedback around barriers and issues in service provision. Where possible, we will tailor our service provision accordingly, and we will continue to seek additional funding streams in order to provide this.
Survivors’ Network

Here is the relevant section of the Equalities Act 2010
Schedule 9 (part 1) of the Act provides that in certain circumstances it is lawful for an employer to apply a requirement to have a particular protected characteristic where, having regard to the nature or context of the work; there is an occupational requirement, the application of the requirement is a proportionate ...1 Jul 2016

Protected characteristics
These are age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation.

The relevant characteristic here is sex not self-identifying women.

It would seem that Survivors Network does not understand the law.

An example given in the occupational exemptions is rape crisis services where it is obvious that sex is the characteristic pertinent to the exemption and even those with a GRC can be lawfully 'discriminated' against -

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/notes/division/3/16/26/1

Organisations who are misusing the occupational exemptions seem to have seen the ERCC situation as giving them free reign to do what they like.

Ex Samaritan volunteer. One of the primary reasons I am an ex volunteer is the sheer number of sex callers/masturbating calls that female volunteers get - note calls to male volunteers are few and far between as callers put the phone down. We got sex calls on virtually entry listening volunteer session. a small number of vocal and persistent perverts and voyeurs. For whom hands free phones are a boom.

Exactly. I can't believe how many incredibly naive posters think that no men will take advantage for their own kicks. Do you not read the news?

And no, of course it's not all men, but SOME men absolutely do this. And now they have carte blanche to infiltrate wherever they want under the guise of 'being a woman'.

Sexual pleasure is also found for some men in forcing women to recount their sexual assault trauma to them . Rape victims who have been cross examined by a rapist representing themselves in court are only too aware of this.
No victim in a rape counselling session should ever be put in this position and if this means excluding any male then so be it.

SallyLockheart · Today 10:44

334bu · Today 13:24

What you recount is awful. I am very sorry you had to experience that.

There will though be men, or trans women who have genuinely experienced the trauma of rape who will want recourse to counselling too. There may possibly be a lot of rapes of trans women.

No matter how innocent, however, they could still make a vulnerable woman feel threatened by their presence. In addition, if women in this setting sense they are being used as ‘props’ to facilitate someone else’s sense of female gender identity, they could feel manipulated and coerced.

The problematic aspect in this case, as I understand it, was insisting that a trans woman should be in the women’s group instead of the available mixed group. or instead of in an alternative group which could have been set up.

I think the Survivors' Network advert is possibly illegal because you can advertise a job for a specific sex but not for a specific gender identity. But if you advertise for a job for a woman or for a male who identifies as a woman then the "direct discrimination" is excluding other men from the job. That's based on the EHRC's response to the Edinburgh Rape Crisis (ERCC) employing a transowman as CEO, discussed on Legal Feminist.

"We have considered carefully whether taking formal action in relation to ERCC would be a proportionate and effective use of our powers. We have taken into consideration the fact that ERCC is a small third sector organisation, that the recruitment for the role in question has been completed and, if there is an unlawful act which is not clear, that the number of people who may have been adversely impacted in the recruitment process is limited [being men suitably qualified for the role and deterred from applying due to the advert specifying that only women need apply]. On balance therefore we do not believe that using our enforcement powers in relation to this matter is proportionate.”

So there you go. Most rape crisis services are provided by small third sector organisations, ERCC have already gone and done it, and it's only men who suffer direct discrimination by it, so the EHRC will turn a blind eye. It doesn't seem to have occurred to the EHRC that maybe a test case is needed so that all those other small organisations - like Sussex - understand what the law is and what it is not.

Sorry if that's a thread derail - appointing a transwoman as a CEO is different from failing to provide a women-only service.

Personally I think it all obviously went tits-up when the transwoman CEO of Edinburgh Rape Crisis said in public that women who wanted a women-only rape crisis service were bigoted and was not immediately slung out as unfit for the job. Until then I could have believed that a transwoman CEO might be trusted to run a rape crisis service that supported women. After that, I don't.

.. and so IAmSarah's campaign is vital, and it's vital that she wins. It's the only way to establish the principle that an area can provide whatever other kinds of rape services they need, but if they're not providing any female-only rape crisis groups then they're not properly providing even the most basic service for women.

There are no words strong enough to state how I feel about this.
It is absolutely disgusting to allow men to access what is essentially women trying to come to terms with what will have been one of the most horrific things that could happen to them.
I won't even call them men, because a real man would never dream of impinging on this kind of group, indeed most men would be horrified on behalf of those victims.
There is only one reason that these perverts want to attend and it's not to make the bloody tea!
There are groups specifically for male victims of this heinous crime so there is absolutely no reason for them to be in the women's groups.
I'm sick to death of this bloody woke shit that is slowly but surely eroding women and everything they've fought for.
It's time us women fought back, loud and clear.
We are not here for the bloody entertainment of perverts!
You have my support OP, all the bitter way.

And to think - if only the EHRC had gone ahead and done their job, maybe a rape survivor wouldn't have to be crowdfunding a legal case just to get the most basic service for women.

I am a huge fan of woke shit and this has been a bitter betrayal.

Wishing you every strength and success Sarah, for all of us. Any one of us could be raped. Any one of us could need a rape support group. None of us need to be trusting to luck to end up in a support group for women only.

Another nice sunny evening, another spot of gardening done. Celebrating Maya and not forgetting Sarah

Thank you @AmaryllisNightAndDay

I will be updating the crowdfunding page in the next week or so with details of where the funds will be spent.