Despairing (rape crisis centre and trans ideology)

[ClaraMatilda]

I recently received an email saying that my local rape crisis centre was looking for volunteers, so I decided to take a look at the application. It had this question:

Do you feel comfortable volunteering in an organisation where our volunteers, staff and the women and girls we support include lesbian, bisexual and trans women, disabled women, and women from a wide variety of ethnic groups, ages, religions and social classes? Please answer here

One of these things is not like the others.

It's fine to have a centre which is for both women and men if you make it clear that that's what you're doing. Everyone knows where they stand. Letting in men who claim to have some kind of womanly soul but not others doesn't make logical sense. Equating opposition to this to not wanting to work with people of a different social class or ethnicity is even worse.

Then I read this:

We especially welcome applications from BME women, disabled women and LBT (lesbian, bisexual and trans) women.

FFS.

Rape crisis centres were set up by women, for women, in response to the problem of male sexual violence. How has it come to the point where even they see 'woman' as a feeling in a man's head? It makes no sense to me at all. I can only imagine how awful it would be to call their helpline after having suffered a terrible experience and being met not just with a male voice, but the voice of a male who insists you call him 'she'

Is there any way back from this?

I can't believe this. How is it even conceivable that now a woman can't even access support for RAPE or other sexual abuses without the added worry of starring in some bloke's personal fetish? For fucks sake!

ODFOD.

Read around, somewhere on recent threads is the distraught account of a woman in refuge following domestic violence, who freaked at suddenly hearing the voice of a man in this supposed 'safe space' and was panic stricken to discover a male bodied TW was there. The TW went spare at her, she ended up sobbing apologies in fear and distress, her safe space was no longer safe.

Your lack of empathy or theory of mind or compassion, and apparently no grip on what is happening, now, to actual women, is doing harm. So you can fuck off with trying to stop women here talking about it, or telling them they're scaremongering. Either you are naiive, or stupid, or you are intentionally trying to cover this mess up. And if so it is not for any woman's benefit.

That was to Anne btw.

I think most people guessed that since no one else had to google to find out what Rape Crisis is.

None of the above Paddy, just expressing an opinion that rape crisis might know what they’re doing in a polite, non aggressive way.
I know what rape crisis is, I googled to see if their core values had somehow changed before jumping to conclusions and it appears they have not. I shall indeed fuck off so you can all carry on being outraged in complete agreement with one another. Enjoy.

anne you are part of the be nice and kind brigade.

Fuck that shit.

Women have the legal right to have their sex protected. If tw want in on that, then they need to build their own.

anne are you aware of Morgane Oger and how they have driven Vancouver rape crisis almost to bankruptcy by insisting that men be allowed in?

What kind of person would do that? I encourage you to read up on the case.

Men and women get raped. Men and women need trained counselling, help, assistance and sometimes accommodation. That does NOT have to be together. In fact, it’s better apart. Men who are raped have specific needs and women who are raped have specific needs. One of the needs of a female victim is highly likely to be to not be in the presence of a male.

The ‘whatabout the men’ argument is wheeled out again and again here. I’m tired of it.

It is absolutely obvious that a woman who has been raped or abused will very likely want to avoid strange men in the immediate aftermath, except where necessary for medical care and criminal investigation purposes. Transwomen must know this perfectly well. So why force their way in to somewhere they know they’re not wanted? Where they know perfectly well their presence causes distress?

There is no way of placing a non-sinister slant on the behaviour of a transwoman who does this. That’s not volunteering. It is harassment. It is disingenuous to pretend altruism is what motivates this invasion of the privacy and dignity of vulnerable women.

@AnneTwackie

You might want to read the Equality and Human Rights Commission research report 86, 'The impact of changes in commissioning and funding on women's only services'
I think you can find it on Fair Play for Women's website.

Just checked out the website of my local rape and sexual assault centre. Pleased that it says "due to the nature of our work and funding we can only accept female volunteers at this time"

"Quick google of Rape Crisis showed me that they’re an umbrella charity for hundreds of centres, half of which also support men and diverse groups."

This is beside the point as clearly the center in question in the OP serves only women:

"Do you feel comfortable volunteering in an organisation where our volunteers, staff and the women and girls we support include lesbian, bisexual and trans women, disabled women, and women from a wide variety of ethnic groups, ages, religions and social classes?"

^some funders questioned whether the whole service had to be women-only, or whether it was only necessary to provide women-only space. There was still a discernible tendency among some funders, however, to believe that equality requires everyone to be treated the same.^
Thanks dullclothes I read what you suggested and it was the above that made me realise the organisation do know what they’re doing, they’re just not being allowed to do it. I never questioned the importance of women only spaces for those in this vulnerable position but naively thought these services can be provided side by side. bowlofbabelfish your recommended reading has shook my faith in humanity and proved my assumption completely wrong. I’m sorry I hijacked your post OP, I read your post without any context and assumed it was just about excluding a minority group in need, it seemed mean. I get it now. Thanks. Apart from the person who told me to fuck off, I’m glad I didn’t.

Hi Anne. I wanted to post and say thank you for reading the link above and gaining an understanding of why we are fighting so fiercely for centres which support survivors of sexual abuse and rape to remain for biological females only. It’s too important, and like a PP said - the trans women (biologically male and mostly male bodied) who want to access these services as volunteers are almost exclusively EXACTLY the type of people men you don’t want in this setting.

Could I possibly suggest some further reading if that’s not too presumptuous? We have a lot of people having their moment of realisation here and there’s some good threads with the basics answered. Here’s one:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me

anne an absolutely huge thank you for doing that - I know, I understand that line of thinking that goes ‘but so and so is a victim too, let’s be inclusive, let’s be decent.’

Because really that’s what decent people think isn’t it? You’re a decent person, your default assumption is that other people behave decently too. But as you can see from that link about oger and Vancouver - there are people with very unpleasant agendas who are using this ideology to actively harm women (and indirectly, harm Male rape victims too, no one benefits from the chill factor or closedown of rape crisis centres.)

So thank you for reading it, and thank you for coming back on to say you had.

Stick around. This board has opened my eyes too. There’s some really awful shit happening and it’s ordinary women like us who are leading the fight back.

Reading that with interest now Badger particularly seeing your post that you ‘started by unquestioningly supporting trans people’ sounds familiar... thanks!

bowlofbabel you might say I’m ^peaktrans^
Ok I’m just showing off now

Anne, many, many of us here started being unquestioning trans-supportive full stop. Some of us have trans friends, relatives and children whom we care deeply about. None of us have a motive of hatred, I promise.

In fact, for most, the only reason trans issues are even something we would question is because they interact negatively with the rights of women and girls. In a competing rights situation, feminists will come down on the side of the women, that's the bottom line.

Please keep reading. There is much to learn and do.

There is a huge problem with inclusivity as a concept. It’s being abused by some men who want access to the women’s provision when there is already an equal Male provision

Men are arguing that they’re excluded From services, and areas, such as women’s sports, toilets etc and that women should be inclusive. But men are not being excluded - the men’s sport/toilets/whatever else exists. They are not being excluded from accessing a service. They’re being directed to the male version.

Of course what these men want isn’t equal but separate provision - they want access to the women’s. But that’s not inclusion, it’s invasion

Well bloody hell AnneTwackie that's as gracious an acceptance and an apology as I've ever seen on here. And, I believe, takes an impressive amount of critical thinking and strong self esteem to do.

Just to reiterate, no one wants to deny support to male victims of rape. No one.

Just that it can't become a political or ideological point scoring exercise. Nor a stick with which to beat women.

In Canada, where the ideology is further ahead, the Vancouver rape refuge was subjected to 12 years of litigation, because a man identifying as a woman (who had been counselled by them, as a victim) now demanded they become a volunteer.

The individual was deemed unsuitable, but that did not stop them wanting to listen to the rape stories of women. They tied the refuge up for 12 years and cost them tens of thousands of dollars in order to assert their 'rights'.

Thankfully, they lost. But not after having demonstrated, in as strongest terms as they possibly could, that they had absolutely no affinity for women. Quite the opposite, and wishes them ill.

It's also worth noting that any shops, or services (I'm thinking particularly of a specific sweetshop), who put leaflets up for the rape refuge in order to help women contact them, were also subjected to awful online harassment and one star reviews for the service they provide.

This has absolutely fuck all to do with supporting men who are victims of sexual crime.

AnneTwackie

I am not sure if you are familiar with the history of Rape Crisis, but it is clear that what is said in public to not alienate or antagonise funders and MRAs is totally different to what happens at ground level.

Many rape crisis workers and volunteers are intimidated from speaking out in public, and worse still users are effectively silenced and not listened to. Consultations / surveys within the Federation too often end up in the hands of MC who are often outside "professionals" with little or no knowledge of the history and politics of rape crisis support.

There has been a lot of discussion about this on facebook, but are private postings so cant share. There was an attempt to run a survery just for users of the service to have their voices heard. I think this was published online so will try and find the link.

A similar consultation excercise was undertaken by Women's Aid. Even allowing for external pressures from funders and local authorities, this is now much more than mission drift. this is about undermining the basic concept of the service.

And not helped that groups that get a lot of publicity because of their stunts like Sisters Uncut are totally part of the queer onslaught on autonomous women's organising.

I said on another thread that the dislocation between keyboard feminism and those at the front line trying to hold onto what is left of feminism in action, ie rape crisis and women's aid, also why these groups are so vunerable.

If everybody who comments on the feminist thread on mumsnet was part of a local women's groups that actively supported the rape crisis helpline and refuges in their area it might provide some of the public support that these groups need when confronted by authorities.

Personally I think we are beyond the tipping point. Trans politics have been so sucessful because of the vaccum between feminism in practice and keyboard and media feminism.

Anne

I didn't report when I was raped to the police because I could not face the trauma of talking about it to male police officers (this was before the police offered the option of female officers to rape victims). I didn't know how to access female only rape support at the time so decades later I've never spoken to anyone about it, not my husband, not friends, not my gp and when I had some counselling and wanted to talk about it I couldn't. I hoped the trauma would go away but it isn't, the violence of tra rhetoric and dehumanising of women is making it revisit the trauma mentally much more than I used to. And I am very fearful when I encounter hostile TW in female only spaces, (and I've only encountered the hostile to women type of tw irl)

So 100% feel rape centres must be biological females only, I can vividly imagine how traumatic it would be for a victim to encounter a tw when you weren't expecting to.

Tw and men need to set up their own centres and find their own way to address the problems of their attackers also being men, it needs to be solved but that is not womens problem to solve.

And please don't anyone berate me, I referred to being raped once before anonymously in comments on a rape news report on the guardian site and the men commentators were vile to me.

Oh and the rapist was 'gender and sexuality fluid' and drugged me, I'd never heard of date rape drugs, I'd never had sex before I was a naive teenager

@Changedmynameforthispost

I am so, so sorry that happened to you.

A member of my family and one of their friends had their drinks spiked recently. It seems to be getting more and more frequent. Both are well informed, careful people but we suspect the spiking was done by staff.
Both victims were completely out of it and very ill for 24 hours.

Women's shelters weren't just dropped on society by a benevolent government. Women built them. They sacrificed, they used their own time and money. Only later did they win funding.

If men and/or trans people need these services and fight to set them up, they will have my support. To assume they can just plonk into what women built for women with their own blood, sweat and tears, is so standard male entitlement it's almost laughable. Almost.

This is a documentary about Chiswick Women's Refuge, the first one in the world (established in 1971)