stonewall report on transwomen and refuges - thoughts?

[myphoneisgone]

www.stonewall.org.uk/sites/default/files/stonewall_and_nfpsynergy_report.pdf

Any thoughts on this report? I have only just started to read the FPFW report on the same topic but already think it seems better quality - for one thing it includes the views of survivors - voices which are strikingly absent from the Stonewall report. It is hard to conclude that the absence is anything other than deliberate, or rather necessary to gain the consensus they were looking for. ..

Anyway back to the Stonewall report. My thoughts are that where the report does refer to survivors expressing concern regarding transwomen, I notice that they are basically told their perception is wrong and the person they are concerned about is literally a woman. I think this is thought control on an appalling level, especially when practised on women, where many of whom will have been subject to a man abusing them by getting them to doubt their own perceptions, views, feelings and experiences.

I also thought the comparison to combating racism and homophobia was bogus. Women in refuges have legitimate, experience based reasons to fear men, they don't have legitimate reasons to fear black or lesbian women. This argument ignores the sex-based violence women have suffered. I find it incredibly that refuge workers would not be aware of this. In fact, given the arguments in the report I could see no reason why refuges should be single sex at all - why not open them to all male victims of violence?

Perhaps most disturbing was the comment that because we are professionals we could spot an abuser pretending to be a woman. The naviety here is astounding. I have a friend who is a child protection social worker. Her, and her colleagues, were astounded when one of her male colleagues, was convicted of possessing child pornography. If child protection social workers can't spot a paedophile amongst them, then refuge workers should not think they can spot a male aggressor in disguise either.

I do think there is a serious debate to be had about where transwomen who are victims of violence can be supported. But white washes like the Stonewall report won't help that to happen without compromising women who are victims of violence.

Discussed at length here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3325247-Stonewall-report-into-domestic-and-violent-services

THanks

This is a really good question and would be worth comparing the testimony in the two reports either here or on the other thread.

The professionals in the FPFW report say they know several people who were not prepared to even take part in the Stonewall report because they were frightened of talking openly or feared their views might be misrepresented.

Given the influence and infrastructure Stonewall has, particularly at Westminster, that's chilling.

myphone, I agree, this gaslighting of already abused women as a matter of prescribed policy is abhorrent. Also, aside from the fact that social workers can at best work with probabilities (and won‘t even do that but go by their gut feeling imo), the whole assumption is simplicistic: you can very well have ‚genuine‘ transwomen who are nonetheless caught in a mysognistic pattern of abusive behaviour.

It is not only an issue with TW who might be abusive, but the way we are all socialised to let males get most of the attention. It’s the same old pattern of women obliging men, and men, without even noticing, behaving as entitled to have conversations centre around them. Women would be sidelined, even when there is no physical danger.