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?

Thank you for the gardening btw

Survivors Network have resorted to lying now claiming I am trying to stop them helping trans survivors.

Thankfully Helen Joyce waded in to correct them.

twitter.com/SurvivorsnetBtn

If transwomen truly were women, they would understand. They must realise that their bodies are physically male. They claim they feel unsafe using men's facilities but how can they then put that feeling of fear onto other women? Even if they have no ill intentions, they must realise that their presence is making others feel unsafe.Trauma isn't logical.

I'm so sorry to read this. How horribly stressful for you, having already been subjected to an awful experience, to find yourself not only unable to find a space to help and support you but on the receiving end of this lobby's well-documented aggression. As if survivors haven't already been through enough.

It boils my blood that having already been subjected to this crime at the hands of men, women are now actually being punished (by men) for having been subjected to it. Of course, you can't expect a group that keeps chanting the mantra TWAW to have any grip on material reality. The fact that they are going after rape survivors, having long targeted us, really should show that for them, no blow is too low.

I truly hope that as people are beginning to see the truth of this picture and coming to their senses - as is now happening with previously ignorant politicians gradually backing away and Stonewall being dropped left, right and centre - history will judge this movement as harshly as it deserves.

Meanwhile, solidarity with you and the other courageous women unfortunate enough to have been caught in its crossfire. In the end, we'll win.

And yes, to the PP I've cross-posted with. I guess this is what 'reframe your trauma' looks like.

If I called them all the names I currently want to call them, I'd be banned from this site.

I'm so sorry the situation is being misrepresented, Sarah. I have donated to the crowdfunder - glad to see it steadily increasing.

I'm merely pointing out that at present, there isn't any such groups (in our local vicinity) for male survivors. So maybe a 'male survivor' was allowed to attend a female only group for help an support as that 'male survivor' was really struggling and this was the only such group that could help

So your solution is to remove the facility from women as well? That is the effect.

If you work with victims you will know that the nature of attack, nature of injuries and experience and response is often very different for men and for women. There are good reasons why until recently provision was sex specific, with the option of counselors of the opposite sex.

I find it bizarre that people are using this thread to say "what about the men". The only reason rape crisis centres exist is because women fought, campaigned and fund raised for them. There is nothing to stop men doing the same for male victims rather than relying on the labour of women.

I don't begrudge men who benefit from the service founded and campaigned for by women but honest to gods when they insist we are bigots for wanting to use it then it beggars belief.

Also donated, Sarah. Wishing you luck. You’re highlighting a really important issue.

I’m appalled at the “but what about the men?” posters. I think some people are being deliberately obtuse. Can we keep the focus here on the female victims of rape, please? And no, I am not interested in statistics. Everyone knows that the VAST majority of rape victims are female.

@FrancescaContini there's another thread going about male/boy violence towards women/girls and the endemic levels it's reaching and so far we've had -

It's their testosterone so they can't help it.
The ratio of the amount of males on the planet versus killers of females is tiny so it doesn't merit discussion (not taking into account any other form of abuse/violence).
Females are just as bad as men.
More people die of cancer/in road traffic accidents so there isn't really a problem is there.
Women commit just as much domestic violence and men don't report it so there.

I just found the crowdfunder and it's accepting again (it wasn't for a while). I hope everything is going well! xx

Just reviving this thread to include the latest BBC news item on Sarah and her case in light of the recent events. This again shows that language matters, and when thw definition of words like woman get expanded to include males the most vulnerable women suffer.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-61958346

Stories like these show how important it is for women to be able to organise and advocate as a sex class.

The head of Rape Crisis Scotland is a trans"woman", appointed despite it beong a protected post specifically for women.

This individual he has stated that rape victims wishing to be in a women only space, must "reframe their trauma" or they are bigots.......

@IamSarah Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I’ve never got as far as therapy, so I can’t even begin to imagine the strength it has taken to cope not only with your own trauma, but with a legal fight on top of that, for something that we should never have had to have taken from us. You are a warrior. I shall be planting some seeds after payday, but I wanted to wish you ongoing strength. ‘Courage calls to courage everywhere and its voice cannot be denied’ 💜🤍💚

I noticed an advert for my local rape crisis centre for women sessions and they've labelled it 'for those born with a cervix' which seems a good way of advertising it.

SortingItOut · Today 07:40
I noticed an advert for my local rape crisis centre for women sessions and they've labelled it 'for those born with a cervix' which seems a good way of advertising it.

It is good they mean female humans only, but at the same time I think I might be a bit upset with that ‘meat’ labelling sort of body part label. What a shame it has come to come to this.

He also seems to have a fixation with women orgasming during rape…

@GrabbyGabby · Today 02:54
Just reviving this thread to include the latest BBC news item on Sarah and her case in light of the recent events. This again shows that language matters, and when thw definition of words like woman get expanded to include males the most vulnerable women suffer.*

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-61958346

Stories like these show how important it is for women to be able to organise and advocate as a sex class.

Thank you for that BBC link Grabby.

Imagine women actually needing to ask for this facility in a rape crisis centre:

She added: "I think having just one additional group for women who are born female would be the answer."

(Sorry it isn't half a million in Scotland, that's UK, but it's still only a very tiny minority will have a GRC even after self-id)

Oops sorry I'm on the wrong thread!

I just read the article in the Mail (can't find it now) and I don't think they are making it clear that this man had the option of a trans group (along with a male group, as that's what he is) to choose from. It reads as though he was excluded from the women's group with nowhere else to go.

I wish this would be explicitly stated, which would avoid all the hysterical comments about trans being excluded in seeking help, which isn't the case here.

It should be for those born with female sex chromosomes

You can identify as whatever you like

But no one can change your DNA 🧬 your either born male or female and nothing can change that as it's in pretty much every cell of your body

*you're

Yes exactly, it's a misrepresentation of the facts. Like the notion of trans people being 'banned from sports' - eh, no they are not being banned from competing in sports, they are being asked to participate in the category that aligned with their biological sex. Not the same thing.
But hey, don't let the truth get in the way of emotional manipulation.

Just wanted to bump this thread to say Sarah is almost at her target.