The overwhelming majority of women who work in rape crisis centres apparently have no problem with male bodies in female spaces?

[Spero]

I have just spotted on Twitter the claim that this research supports the assertion that "The overwhelming majority of women who work in rape crisis centres/refuges support trans women and highlight absence of any problems in spaces. TERFS and right-wing media push alternative realities."
www.stonewall.org.uk/sites/default/files/stonewall_and_nfpsynergy_report.pdf

I had a quick look at their methodology section and I don't think that assertion can be supported in the slightest.

My new rule is to never let a day go by without challenging at least one thing that I think is stupid and wrong. Am I right to challenge this

(Also I want to show solidarity with those on mumsnet who are standing up to this. I read with mounting horror the threats made about those who post here)

Stonewall only asked leadership. No service users and no day-to-day workers.

Here is the Fair Play For Women report, which represents the voices of 12 professionals, a survivor’s collective, a survivor who helped to build a survivor-led service, and 10 other survivors.

fairplayforwomen.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/FPFW_report_19SEPT2018.pdf

Here is the WPUK response to the Stonewall report:

womansplaceuk.org/stonewall-report-disingenuous-or-gaslighting/

And two blogs from a VAW practitioner, also on the WPUK website:

womansplaceuk.org/the-silencing-of-feminists-silences-survivors/

womansplaceuk.org/an-open-letter-to-womens-aid-and-rape-crisis-england/

Am I wildly off the mark to suspect that 'leadership' only said this because their funding depends on them saying it?

A hypothetical for you:

A woman has finally managed to gather the courage to leave the man who has been brutalising her and her children for the last so many years. A refuge place is found for her and she grabs her children and a few bits while her husband is at work and escapes. When she gets to the place of refuge, she goes into the living room and there is a transwoman. They're perfectly nice and friendly, but her youngest starts screaming because there is a voice that reads male and her body involuntarily reacts to an unknown male bodied person where she was expecting only women. She goes and speaks to one of the workers and expresses her misgivings. She's told that the refuge is inclusive of transwomen and she has the choice to stay and be confronted by a male bodied, male voiced person unexpectedly the whole time with it's attendant systemic reactions or go back to the man whose pattern of violence she believes she understands.

The worker has not seen this internal conflict, she just sees the woman remain in the refuge and mistakenly believes that she's fine with it, and when asked by an organisation that solely supports trans people if there's been any problems, tells them no.

Not exactly far fetched is it.

And the people who suffer most are the ones who have no voice anyway. But fuck them, eh?

It's weird. They report that women only centres have been accommodating trans women for years and yet they demand that women only centres accommodate trans women! And all the other points make sense, who would want to deny trans women any services they need, trans men either!

Like, erm, huh? Whaddaya want?

It's like they are actually reporting that women have always let trans women in, have never refused trans women in any service but that this isn't good enough and women should erm, let trans women in!

So, what's the problem Stonewall? Were we ahead of your game? Were we actually being too trans inclusive? Was that why you started demanding more? Did you hope to make us look unreasonable? Did we not ask you, or did we forget to thank you, for letting us be nice?

Why publish something that shows women, when left to be who they want to be, ARE AND ALWAYS HAVE BEEN trans inclusive? Talk about undermining your own position!

Weird!

I was going to say funding.

But also it's not the staff who matter, it's the service user's.

I agree that it's probably to do with funding.

No, VickyEadie, you're not.
In the Scottish Government consultation, Scottish Women's Aid's response included this statement :
"Transgender Inclusion has also been present in Equality Unit funding for VAWG services for some 8 years now, and the policies of Women's Aid groups that receive this funding reflect this.
Some groups have already met, or are working to achieve, their LGBT Chartermark, which includes adopting trans inclusive policies."

[VAWG = Violence Against Women and Girls]

Stonewall is loaded. They could very easily fund, and staff, refuges for trans people.

This would not inly avoid potential harm to women, it would also assure better service for trans identified people, as such specialised services would be able to meet their needs better.

But Stonewall doesn’t want to do that, which makes it look a lot like Stonewall cares more about scoring points over women, than they actually care about trans women.

The first meeting regarding the Equality Act last week specifically mentioned the need to ask service users as service providers often have their hands tied by meeting targets to keep funding whether or not those targets are in the best interests of their users, and also are led and staffed by the same incestuous group who lead a lot of the charities and groups and are pushing this agenda in the first place.

What the staff say officially when questioned is a whole lot less relevant than what women using and needing those services think and want.

Plus as often mentioned on here, you'd have to be bloody stupid to do anything but parrot right think in your official role under your real name.

The centres that use the legal sex exemptions to maintain all female do not advertise or discuss their stance at all. Not hard to see why.

And this is why it seems like all the refuges and crisis centres are welcoming of the twaw dogma, because they are the only ones talking.

I hesitate to even post this, because I worry about targeted litigation.

article by Lucy Bannerman
(extract)
"A victim of domestic abuse was removed as a judge of a radical thinking prize and “hounded” out of her role within the Liberal Democrats for saying that she did not believe that men who identified as women should have access to women’s refuges.

Natalie Bird, 38, a mother of two who fled an abusive former partner, was accused of “dangerous transphobia” by transgender activists in the party. She had said that opening up safe spaces without proper safeguards to anyone who said that they were female could put women at risk.

She opposed segregating women’s refuges by chosen gender instead of biological sex, and said that it was not fair to make female victims of domestic violence, abuse and rape share services with people with “functioning” male anatomy.

After being allegedly bullied on social media by party activists, Ms Bird was brought before a disciplinary hearing to face a complaint in the name of Zoe O’Connell, on behalf of the LGBT+ Liberal Democrats. The correspondence says that Ms Bird had “expressed troublesome views”.

The hearing found no evidence to support the complaint of transphobia, but Ms Bird lost her position as chairwoman of the Radical Association, made up of party members, following a vote of no confidence. This cost her her role as a judge of the Ashdown Prize for Radical Thought; an ironic move, Ms Bird said, given that the prize’s aim was to reward “big, bold, radical” solutions to society’s most “daunting problems . . . no one has the courage to argue for” (continues)

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lib-dem-trans-activists-hounded-abuse-victim-b6dx39tv3

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3399104-Times-Lib-Dem-trans-activists-hounded-abuse-victim-Natalie-Bird-Article-refers-to-Zoe-OConnell-Sarah-Brown

Thanks all for comments. Very good point about the service users. I am so alarmed by all the fear people now have about even expressing a reasonable opinion. Whole things a mess.

Back in March there was a discussion on Victoria Derbyshire with Pilgrim Tucker, Rebecca Root, Nicola Williams and Clara Baker .

Also featured was an incredibly couragous woman called Emma who spoke about her personal situation, her need for refuge services and the impact of self id would have for her.
I've often thought of her and hope that she is doing well.
I don't know if the clips are still available but the commentary is here:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3184532-Pilgrim-Tucker-who-spoke-at-the-meeting-last-Tuesday-being-stitched-up-on-TV-tomorrow?pg=9

Do you know how much lip service is paid to Stonewall?

Things like having them in for the day, and having gender neutral toilets to make them STFU. Then reverting to normal the next day.

Sadly the Guides didn't get that particular memo.

They've been successful lobbyists as they are keen to celebrate:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3416022-Stonewall-getting-pelters-on-Twitter

Anonymous surveys would have different results I think.

A couple of previous threads in which we have discussed this report:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3325388-Stonewalls-Report-on-domestic-and-sexual-violence-services-Interviews-with-professionals-in-the-sector

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3325247-Stonewall-report-into-domestic-and-violent-services?pg=1

Thanks will read - feel I am coming a little late to the party but better late than never! Already experienced threats of being reported and having my employer informed of my 'transphobia' - good luck with that, I don't have one!

The level of really vicious and mindless vitriol is really odd and concerning.

It seems that Stonewall control the funding.

Sinister.

Yes, and in another shock survey, turkeys voted for Christmas.

The shift in focus to inclusive criteria that women only services/groups now say has been offered for years, and there's no problem etc. stems from the introduction of the Gender Equality Duty in 2007, which introduced criteria for applying for funding which resulted in these organisations having to justify their "gender specific" services. As far back as 2007, "women’s organisations... [were] reporting to WRC (The Womens Resource Centre) that they...[were] being coerced or pressured into delivering services to men and their women-only status is impacting on their ability to access fund". Women's orgs did not voluntarily abandon the provision of women only services - their funding was threatened or cut, or removed altogether. Those that remain women only, have a much harder time securing funding, and in some cases, rely solely on direct donations/income streams to support their work so as to avoid compromising the services they provide. See The Freedom Program as one example. I'll not name others as I don't want to draw attention to any to avoid unnecessary targeting.

The quote I've given above comes from a survey report carried out by the Women's Resource Centre from 2007, and back then, women's orgs could still speak out at that point and highlight the issues they were facing and also stress that providing women only support was at risk from the push to become inclusive to men. It was not because women were fine about sharing space with any men or male bodied people irrespective of how they identified.

The claim that women only services are not impacted at all by the inclusion of men or male bodied people irrespective of how they identifying, is utter bullshit - we know that from the voices of women who have either had to use these services (Jean Hatchet nails this in her speech at the 1st LAWS meeting) and also from women who work in these organisations - I've seen lots of women who talk anonymously about this - they can't speak openly for fear of losing their jobs etc. None of these inclusive policies took into account the views or needs of women - neither the service users nor the workers "at the coal face" who deal with the women who come to them traumatised & desperate to escape abuse etc. You can ask every one of these orgs what their staff and service users think, and not one has the answer as they've all wilfully excluded those voices from their TWAW bullshit narrative.

I'd link to the survey report I'm quoting from but it's disappeared from the WRC website. I saved a copy a while ago, which is handy as it reminds me that there was a time when most women's orgs in the U.K. actually gave a shit what women actually need. The few left that still do are absolute heroes to the women who desperately need them.

This is what keeps me determined.

Fortunately I have never had to use a rape refuge, crisis centre or woman's aid.

A mumsnetter commented that do these TRAs think a rape refuge is like A and E? Because it's actually far more like a witness protection programme. She went into detail about how counsellors are trained to keep their voices low, not slam doors, not make loud footsteps, etc. Anything to reduce the possibility of being triggered.

And how anonymous it is. How difficult to find these places are.

It's absolutely nonsensical then to suggest a fully intact man should be in the same group therapy. Or be a counsellor.

That, of fucking course, doesn't mean a transwoman who has been raped and abused and needs the same sorts of services (as opposed to the police and A+E), should not be accommodated, but separately. Elsewhere.

What's giving me such rage about this, is transactivists have no real idea what a rape refuge is for, and they are targeting them deliberately, as a last bastian of a female only space.

That programme that Rowan above mentions is an example. The transwomen has no fucking idea what a rape refuge was. The very brave survivor, also had no idea of their agenda.

They actually commanded that she should define a woman, and one of them, said their mother has had a hysterectomy, does that mean they're not a woman?

Normal TRA fucking nonsense.

To justify removing the safety of a rape refuge for female survivors of male violence.

To her face.

I agree with every point in your excellent post Verify

If women who work in this area are afraid to speak out because they fear the loss of their income, it's time to stop this.

And a huge thanks to those women who carry on regardless.

Like Datun, I too am determined to keep going.

I've re-read my post. It certainly does not, in any way, indicate my absolute spitting, monumental, fucking incandescent rage over this.