Thank you everyone for the flowers.
I really am so worried about the impact that all this will have on girls and young women who have been sexually abused. There is a direct conflict of needs and rights that needs addressing and the NSPCC really should have been the ones with the understanding and ability to address it. Because they are not acknowledging the issue then it means that all the other organisations think that if the NSPCC aren't acknowledging an issue, then they do need to try and understand or address the issue either.
The NSPCC really are completely failing abused girls.
I could write so much on this by drawing on my past. I respect a person's need to identify themselves as they do. However, one of the most important things that a groomed and abused child must learn is that they have the right to recognise someone else as they need to in order to assess risks and safeguard themselves. To a sexual abused girl the recognition of a person's sex is absolutely fundamental and even more than that will probably become part of her instinctive and trauma-based response. I can not help reacting to males not matter what I do and no matter how they identify. This does not make me or any other girl/women abuse survivor, transphobic or bigoted.
I am at a point in my life where in most circumstances I can walk out if a situation makes me feel uncomfortable but a school girl in a mixed sex toilet or changing room or who is sharing a tent with a male on a Girl Guides trip does not have the chance to just walk out. Compound this with the fact that so many of these girls will not speak out for so many reasons (fear, shame etc) and you will have an entirely vulnerable and deeply suffering girl. Even worse is the fact that these girls will often be very good at hiding their distress and suffering. I was very good at not drawing attention to myself and appearing as though everything was fine, both during the years that I was abused and also in the years that followed.
To understand the trauma response that sexually abused girls might feel in the years following the abuse I can only say that for me that it got worse when I felt at risk and many situations with males could provoke that. Also the feelings that occur and the many nightmares that I had feel very much being abused and raped all over again. The NSPCC should know this and not be ignoring these girls or contributing to making their recovery harder.
These needs and rights of these girls should not be ignored simply because they are have no voice. My anger at the NSPCC is because they are the ones who should be representing and amplify their voice.
I am trying my best to represent the voice of abused girls in all this but it is not easy obviously. Unfortunately I am not being properly listened to by the likes of Girlguiding and I have been pretty much told by my MP that the mental health needs of transgender people are so great that they therefore are the most vulnerable in this, with the implication being that abused girls are just going to have to deal with it. My MP was also very rude to a friend who went along on the second occasion to support me.
I do not feel particularly hopeful at the moment for how this is all going to turn out for abused girls. This is all a clear demonstration to me that they are the bottom of the pile, yet again.