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?

That video might need a trigger warning, some of the brave women who stayed at the refuge talk about their experiences and show their injuries.

Actually, as someone who spent time in shelters as a kid, I'm finding that documentary very difficult to watch...

changedmyname I’m so sorry that happened to you, that sounds very traumatic.
stumbledin where would you start looking for local groups like that?

Datun thanks! And thanks for your clear explanations on the other thread recommended. I’ve showed my teenagers some of it and they were confused why it hadn’t been explained to them in that way before.

EJennings so many of us are, it is very upsetting to realise how many.

I now know so much more about male violence that's not a chance I would risk another relationship with a man if I was to find myself single again.

Seeing the way tra work and how they have turned women against other women has upset and appalled me. Your post is a great summary of what is wrong

Ejennings thankyou for that post. It cut to the heart of it. How could anyone read that and not understand what we are saying.

I'm now middle aged and maybe it's a reduction in hormone levels that's reducing my nurturing instinct but after a lifetime of nurturing and many years of being a stupid compliant trans ally I'm finding being told I have to be nice and do as they tell me is giving me the rage and that rage is building

Great comment EJennings - only those with wilful deafness chose to misunderstand why women are outraged at men’s entitlement to our bodies, resources and spaces

EJennings your comment made me feel quite emotional. I have been very lucky in my life to avoid male violence. Until recently I saw no issue with even fully mixed sex spaces let alone trans women in women’s spaces.

I have been thinking a long time about getting away from the keyboard and approaching the local women’s abuse shelter to volunteer my time. This thread has moved me.

Anne

I And many of the women here were in your shoes not so long ago. I know exactly how you feel... how can I have accepted this lie, as a rational person for so long? Why did I think these women were cruel for speaking truth sense? Well all we can do is move forward and try to live and make the change in the world a bit at a time.

I have started to try to work through my trauma alone, to let myself remember what was done to me in the desperate hope that when I have to have men in my loos I don’t scream the building down.
It is not easy and I don’t want these memories or feelings, but I have totally given up.

Echo

Echo

...echo

You falling off a cliff there not2daysanta?

If we are an echo chamber, not2day then you have nothing to worry about. We are an irrelevant few who can be safely ignored.

Right?

Funny how so much ire is directed towards this irrelevant little echo chamber though. It’s slmost as though some people have an issue with women talking to each other

not2day This thread is an example of the exact opposite of an echo chamber, where evidence and discourse have swayed opinions. The fact that you could parrot such a egregious lie neatly illustrates the TRA mindset. None of your arguments stand up so all you can do is stop others from speaking. We are having this debate and you can't stop it. Get used to it.

This is just a quick post so cant really explain at length some of the points I made yesterday.

But first off here are links (which some may have already seen) from women within the VAW sector trying to challenge the trans narrative in an environment that is presurising them to stay silent:

fovas.wordpress.com/

womansplaceuk.org/an-open-letter-to-womens-aid-and-rape-crisis-england/
womansplaceuk.org/the-silencing-of-feminists-silences-survivors/

As to how to find groups that are maintaining their founding principles I suspect you are going to have to (as the opening poster did) contact local groups who want volunteers and ask to see their policies.

The Women's Sector (ie what were once autonomous women's service providers) have remained outside of public feminist discussion for some years, even decades. Back in the 70s there was much more of an overlap between local grassroots women activists and women setting up and maintaining services. Also worth remembering that many women's aid groups, thanks to Labour's concept of centralisation, have been taken over by Housing Associations, the most least worthy sector to have anything to do with empathetic services. Just as Eaves lost its funding to provide services to women who had been trafficked to of all groups the Salvation Army, a religious organisation with patriarchal values.

Not forgetting that Labour refused to funds Women's Refuges under the violence against women funds because of not accepting men within the home as being violent perpetrators. They prefered to say is was a housing issue, and so many refuges to their ongoing detriment, were funded through the housing benefit stream of council money. To this day this is still causing problems.

And just to add, and not wanting to be consistently negative, but please do be wary of the Chiswick Women's Aid myth making. The first women's refuge was set up by a Black Women's Group in Brixton. The problem for all of us, as is so often the case, is that Erin Pizzy is media click bate. She actively believes that women who are subject to domestic violence actively look out partner who are violent. And (this is a much longer story) informed on what was an organising meeting of the then Women's Liberation Workshop on the basis that she said they were all communists and lesbians!!!!! The media has also given a high profile to individualists rather than genuine group activity.

As was so much of 70s feminism, the advances made were as a result of collective action by groups with similar aims across the country coming together. The Women's Aid Federation is the legalised result of this.

But once you are dependent on funding you are at the mercy of the whims of funders. One of the biggest mistakes was women's groups thinking they could trust Labour who appeared to be generous in the early days, not taking into account that the unwritten rule of Labour is total silent suport - and obedience! The cooption of women's aims by municipal feminists has led to the closure of many genuinely local groups, and to a centralised (because it is less work for funders) conclomorates that now operate at a level that excludes outsiders who should be naturally allies and supporters.

Just to add I do realise the tightrope that women's groups are having to walk to survive. But somewhere along the line the dislocation happened.

oh dear, have left out in my haste that Erin Pizzy informed on the Women's Liberation Workshop to the police!!!

(this was before the police offered the option of female officers to rape victims).

Changes such as female police officers talking to survivors and dedicated rape suites only happened after intense lobbying by Rape Crisis.
That was decades ago, I doubt that many of the inclusive women who are involved now would see the need.

The FWR threads are often accused of being an echo chamber by accusers who are unable to give a coherent argument. They know that the ‘reasoning’ that they use to persuade us why we should centre men are very easily taken apart. We’re on the right side of reality.

Shame on you, not2day. Shame.
Definitely EJennings. What sort of person would come onto and thread like this to complain about it being an echo chamber?

How can anyone with a fucking shred of decency read Ejennings post and then write that.

Stumbledin thanks for your post, interesting reading, I’m continually being educated on this board.
Not2day, you are highly likely to have family members who have lived through similar circumstances whether you are aware of it or not, think on that.

not2 if you have an argument, or opinion, or data, lay it out.

If you don’t, then ad hom attacks are the way to go...