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?

At a men's group! Ffs. 🙈

Why can't we just have trans groups, women's groups & men's groups???

As Helen Joyce pointed out yesterday, if you’re telling women to reframe their boundaries [in respect of men in women-only counselling sessions] you’re one step away from telling women to reframe their rape as consensual. Either women are entitled to set their own boundaries, or they’re not.

It seems like in the U.K. in 2022 women are not, in fact, entitled to set their own boundaries.

I have donated to your cause op and thank you so much for taking up this crucial legal challenge.

As Helen Joyce pointed out yesterday, if you’re telling women to reframe their boundaries [in respect of men in women-only counselling sessions] you’re one step away from telling women to reframe their rape as consensual. Either women are entitled to set their own boundaries, or they’re not

This x 100

A lot of female survivors (myself included) have grown up with no idea how to say no or set boundaries. It's all part of the abuse.

A rape crisis service actively encouraging women to ignore their instincts and boundaries is so, so wrong.

A RC centre assuming women have the strength and courage to voice their concerns if something feels off comes from a shocking place of privilege. It's not at all trauma informed.

YABU if you are suing a particular centre who don't believe there is that need to force them to provide that service. Put the money into setting up a new one

It was women who set up these rape crisis centres in the first place ffs.
Why the fuck should they be the ones to have to start again. Besides, any new female only centres would be targeted incessantly by TRA's who demand men with lady feeling be allowed in.

These men don't want trans spaces or mixed sex spaces. They want access to female only spaces because mixed sex doesn't provide validation or anything else they want.

And what happens when these men can't access female only spaces? They try to destroy them, because if they can't have access to them, women aren't allowed to have them.

I seriously doubt anyone would go to such a group for kicks

You are seriously naive.

Didn't the head of the Edinburgh Rape
Crisis Centre (who is a transwoman aka a biological male) say that women need to 'reframe their trauma' and that they are transphobic if they request a counsellor of the sex of their choosing (a woman).

I can't believe we are living in these times. It makes me want to weep.

Sarah I salute you.

Pledged.

Men have a right to support too after being raped. This could be either mixed sex or single sex (men only) and both these options exist, at least in my area. I really don't see any reason that biological males need to be in a women's single sex group, regardless of what they identify as.

If you identify as a woman and think its acceptable for you and your fully functioning penis to be in a group with biological women then you presumably have no problem with other transwomen being in a group with you, penis or no. Therefore there is no reason why you can't join a mixed sex therapy group.

Men have 2 options already. Mixed or male only.

It is unacceptable for women to have only one option. There should be a single sex and mixed sex option for both sexes, and gender, as they keep reminding us, is fluid and therefore irrelevant.

I'd also like to add that I see a male therapist. I trust him more than anyone and he is absolutely the best choice I could have possibly made. But seeing him was MY choice.

I had the option of male or female but having narrowed down my shortlist there was something I liked about him, even from just a profile picture he looked kind and having met him, I could tell instantly that he isn't anything like my abuser. Literally polar opposites.

But I picked him.

Joining a group for therapy is hard, there is already limited choice in that you can't control who the other members are but their sex is the one thing you should have a say in. You should have the option not to have men in your safe space where you are most vulnerable. Surely this is a basic right?

Yes, you’re right, he did. This CEO also got very angry when the Scottish government did not agree with him that women should not have the right to request a female medical examiner after being raped.
That’s right - his feelings are that women are not entitled to request that the person examining their genitals for forensic evidence after a rape is female. He believes that women should accept a second violation (if they do not want the examiner to be a man) because the feelings of men identifying as women are more important than the feelings of women.
This man is now the CEO of Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre even though the advert for the post specifically said it was for women.

This man has no respect for women’s boundaries, and it seems that the Brighton Rape Centre at the centre of op’s case shares his sentiments.

Well women are fighting back. Thank you again Sarah!

And the pp who did not think that men could possibly go to a women-only counselling session for nefarious reasons is indeed naive.

If you accept that men will sexually abuse, assault, and violently rape women (hence the need for such counselling sessions) how can you not accept that some men might exploit the potential access to those spaces? Not all assault is physical. Some men will do anything they can to penetrate women’s spaces and boundaries. There is no way to distinguish between these men and Hayley Cropper. So all men are excluded regardless of how they ‘identify’. This isn’t hard to understand, so I don’t understand why so many people have enabled this absolute plundering of the right for women to spaces that provide them with dignity, privacy and safety.

I’m so sorry, this is exactly why we need single sex spaces. I’ve donated.

Women have been suggesting third spaces as a solution for some time now, and are branded bigoted and hateful for even doing so. These men want to be in women's spaces, that's where they get their validation.

And I believe for some men, the fact that their presence makes women uncomfortable is part of the appeal.

This. It's disgraceful that a woman who has been through so much trauma has to now endure her therapy with a man present.

Oh boo. Then they can attend a men only group.

No one is questioning the intentions of the trans people joining the womens group.

I think it's okay and healthy to question the motives of a male joining women's rape crisis meetings.

Abuse and take survivors have been lied to and manipulated by men. Expecting them to trust any man who claims to be a woman is a very big ask.

Having used the service I was about to say YABU - but that was 1-2-1 counselling. I can’t imagine a mixed sex group setting. Thank you for fighting this.

This is extremely well put.

This x 1000

I absolutely do question the motives of males accessing women only services, especially where trans specific services exist, as in the case of the male at The group Sarah was in.

there are men who get sexually aroused by women being violated, there are men who enjoy intimidating women, and having power and control. Why on earth would we expect these men to stay away from services like these when they can access with impunity? And at the very least, the male at Sarah’s group was so oblivious as to the effect his presence may have on women sexual abuse survivors, that one has to suspect that any contribution they would have made would not have been helpful. The whole point of groups like this is that you are with people who ‘get it’ and that individual clearly did not ‘get’ what it’s like for women.

YANBU. Women need spaces away from men. Vulnerable women do not access rape crisis therapy to prop up a man's delusions about himself.

YABU to expect 'rape centre' to be inherently exclusive for women. But YANBU in demanding women only rape centres.

YABU to expect 'rape centre' to be inherently exclusive for women.

She's not. The service she refers to has a women's group (in reality mixed sex), a men's group and a group for trans or non binary people. What it does not have is a single sex female group and refuses to provide such a service despite being able to do so using the single sex exemptions in the EQA2010.

The only group without access to the support they need is women who require a single sex service.

And Sarah isn't asking for this service instead of the other groups but in addition to.

I am autistic and would not have attended the DV counselling service and group that I was offered had there been men present. That counselling re-framed my logical awareness of what DV abuse and sexual grooming and good boundaries look like and has kept me safe ever since.

Speaking of boundaries...Mine are very much clearer now and penis within a sexual abuse setting for natal sexed women definitely would not be something I just felt I had to be kind about and accept without offering extreme resistance as an act of self care.

As a previously groomed and abused autistic girl within a young persons care institution I was subject to abuse by male residential social workers aged 14.

I was 'found' by Operation Hydrant aged 45. People were taken to court in their late 70's

This early life experience set me up for more abuse of trust when what I needed within institution and workplace were VERY CLEAR boundaries and clear cut safeguarding to protect me. Same from my counselling service.

I am still not comfy with random men in the healing/care/safe spaces of women on the basis of it's 'kind to be trusting'. I am 50 now and I know how damaging it is to DV/SA victims to allow them to be put at any risk of further harm.

A support worker recently suggested that as an autistic woman I might consider self care an act of political warfare. She has it right. It is precisely that for us.

YANBU.

So touched by Gradmom… says it all..

massive support to you Sarah… I’ve donated x