Rape crisis centre - staff trained to “ask the cis guest to leave”

[2BthatUnnoticed]

I know most trans are perfectly nice people just living their lives, who need the same services as everyone.

Re rape crisis centres, I think a way to balance everyone’s needs would be dedicated facilities for transwomen.

Remember, a TW may choose to:

• have zero hormonal or surgical treatment, hence retain their pre-transition physiology and facial hair
• dress like a man (see “trans butch lesbian)

In other words, it may be impossible to discern their gender identity visually (the training covers this).

Also, Self-ID would mean that transition requires only a stat dec. We know men will abuse this, anyone who thinks otherwise is living in a privilege bubble.

Good grief.

Not one penny more from me. I used to make a monthly donation to Women's Aid.

Look at how they break it down and the priority given to the transgender male.

1. Affirm trans male
2. Be compassionate to the trauma response of the female guest
3. Communicate with the trans male that you are handling it
4. Ask the trans male how the refuge can support them
5. Validate and confirm the trans male's feelings
6. Lie to the woman that the man is a woman
7. If you don't think that this is a woman then please leave.

Only one step offers support to the woman. In a women's refuge.

Four steps offer support to the man.

Really demonstrates what is going on, eh?

Of course there's no possible way that a woman can have been attacked by man who self-identified into women only spaces only spaces, or that that woman may have the need to use rape crisis centres afterwards, is there?

Those women working in rape crisis centres going along with this should be ashamed

Everyone going along with this should be ashamed

IS that women's aid? please say it isn't. I donate to them!

This is doing nothing new in some ways. Misogyny is entrenched within our systems - see the threads about NHS "single sex" wards and how long the policy has actually been single gender - that most nebulous and pointless of categories. And see the threads about how long ago the police made sexual assault a potential part of their practice when they decided a transwomen would be fine to perform intimate searches on women because the women might never know . Let alone the recent news about rape victims and mobile phones.

What is so devastating is that services set up by women alone to try and balance some of the biological and historical power differentials between the sexes have been infiltrated to this extent.

I donate to women’s aid too

Even if it is them, I won’t stop over this. What they do is too important

IS that women's aid? please say it isn't. I donate to them!

If they're not Women's Aid's procedures now, they will be soon.

This is the trans rights narrative - "TWAW."

TRAs don't want women to have any exemptions, or any safe space away from the male-bodied. Pretty soon we won't even be allowed to say "male-bodied" - because they're women aren't they.

This is basically the same rule sheet that Swim England tried to bring in - but they then withdrew it because of the uproar. How can it now be happening in women's refuges/rape crisis??

Jesus fucking Christ. I wish I had something more eloquent and measured to say, but I can’t find it.

I’ve delved further - apparently it was Cambridge Women’s Shelter so US, not UK. It was a photo from their “trans competency training” day sent to all staff.

I think all UK women’s shelters are trans inclusive, don’t know if they follow the same model?

.

OldCrone interesting - looks like Wales policy is along the same lines.

mylittlepony welcome!

What if a violent man found out his abused wife had escaped to there, and showed up ID-ing as a woman?

Can they turn him away?

Those women working in rape crisis centres going along with this should be ashamed

They really should.

Can I just ask why it's the 'cis' woman who has to leave and not the transwoman? Just bloody why?

Last year this happened in a Canada:

National Post August 2, 2018
"Forced to share a room with transgender woman in Toronto shelter, sex abuse victim files human rights complaint
But when Hanna called the Human Rights Legal Support Centre, they said that she was the one engaged in discrimination for describing her new roommate as a 'man'
(extract)
"A woman has filed a human rights complaint against a Toronto shelter for female recovering addicts, claiming staff forced her to share a small double room with a pre-operative male-to-female transgender person.

The formal complaint against the Jean Tweed Centre, which runs Palmerston House, followed Kristi Hanna’s efforts to inquire about her own legal rights in this unusual situation, only to be told by Ontario’s Human Rights Legal Support Centre that, by describing her new roommate as a “man,” Hanna was the one engaged in illegal discrimination.

Hanna, 37, is a former paramedic who has lately worked in the service industry, and has been struggling with the lingering effects of sexual abuse and resulting problems with addiction to alcohol and cocaine. She described herself as an “active ally in the LGBTQ community,” but said this conflict has left her feeling as if vulnerable women are unable to voice their own gender-based rights for fear of violating someone else’s.

“It’s affecting everyone in the house. This can completely ruin your recovery, let alone your safety, let alone your life,” Hanna said in an interview.

She spent two nights sharing the room — constantly looking over to make sure her roommate was still in bed, she said — before taking an indefinite leave from the shelter. Hanna had lived for seven months at the central Toronto facility, located in an old Victorian house, but since last week has been staying with friends on couches, as a “transient,” she said. “Those two nights were hell for me.” (continues)

nationalpost.com/news/canada/kristi-hanna-human-rights-complaint-transgender-woman-toronto-shelter

Totally abusive to force a traumatised woman to relinquish her personal boundaries in exchange for safety/refuge.

Absolutely shocking. Hope the papers get hold of this.

R0wan that poor woman. They made her deny her own boundaries to validate someone else’s gender ID.

'SWA Aid understands gender to be the array of socially constructed roles, traits,
attitudes, behaviours, values, responsibilities, relative power, status and influence
ascribed to male and female humans on a differential basis (WHO). These are not
biological, but learned. Gender identities condition the way human beings are
perceived, and how they are expected to think and act. Women and men are made, not born. '
This word salad is from Scottish women's aid's position statement on Transgender women.

So they don't believe lesbians are a thing, presumably?
Being a lesbian definitely feels more to me about biology rather than the roles somebody has learnt.

I saw something a few years ago from a UK org about treating a woman who didn't want to be housed with a trans male like a racist. But I can't remember where.

Those women working in rape crisis centres going along with this should be ashamed

How do they fight it, though, when the directives are coming from above? The document I linked to earlier for Welsh Women's Aid was funded by the Welsh Government, and is the policy that all their services in Wales are expected to follow. I don't know how you'd be able to go against this if you were someone working in one of those services.

I’ve delved further - apparently it was Cambridge Women’s Shelter so US, not UK. It was a photo from their “trans competency training” day sent to all staff.

See also ongoing case about impact on women of male transperson admitted to Women's Homeless Shelter inCalifornia US.

May 24th, 2018
"A prominent Fresno charity, homeless women, and the transgender community all say they're experiencing a nightmare come true.

Nine women homeless women signed on to a lawsuit against Naomi's House and its parent company, the Poverello House, saying the last place they could go to feel safe is now dangerous because they're forced to shower with a transgender woman.

The Naomi House bills itself as a gentle haven of healing and a safe haven for single, homeless women, but a new lawsuit says it put a lot of women in harm's way in a very vulnerable spot -- the shower.

It says the shelter requires them to shower in groups, and it opened its doors to a person who identified themself as a transgender woman who made lewd and sexually inappropriate comments, and leered at them while they were naked.

"This is the biggest fear they bring up, that you're going to have people who may not even be transgender in bathrooms and settings where people are naked and their privacy rights are being violated," said Peter Kapetan, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the women.

Poverello House administrators tell Action News federal law says they have to treat a person identifying as a woman as a woman -- and there's no way to test whether it's true.

They say they take allegations of bullying or sexual harassment seriously, but for privacy reasons can't reveal what actions they may have taken.
Shelter forced women to shower with person who identified as a transgender woman and sexually harassed them, lawsuit says" (continues)

The women say they repeatedly complained to staff members, but were told if they didn't respect the person's decision to identify as a woman, and if they refused to take showers at the same time, they'd get kicked out of the shelter.

"This is like their last safe haven to go to," Kapetan said. "If they're not there, they're out on the streets and like one of them told me, the streets are dangerous here in Fresno." (continues)
abc30.com/3514544/

thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3266198-No-True-Transwoman-transadvocates-question-whether-TW-is-genuine-after-said-TW-sexually-harasses-women-in-homeless-shelter

I’m so glad that Vancouver centre stuck to their guns, even though they lost their funding over it. Must be the only shelter in the English speaking world that gets it.

I saw something a few years ago from a UK org about treating a woman who didn't want to be housed with a trans male like a racist.

There is something similar in the Welsh Women's Aid transgender policy that I linked to earlier:

If circumstances arise in relation to other service users’ discomfort around sharing services with transgender people, services will work to support and educate them in the same way as they would around equality issues generally, such as ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation.

I think if a trans woman is truly nice then they wouldn't be volunteering/seeking support in a rape crisis centre tbh. Any transwoman doing this is doing it to make a point imo.

Agree 100% with this.

I find it sickening that even places such as rape crisis centres are being trained to ignore the needs of actual women and place males at the top of the food chain.

I do think tis a problem that there are no trans-specific services, however, the only reason there are womens services are because women fought for them. Surely TRAs could use all their efforts and influences to actually help trans people, rather than trying to colonize womens services so women have to start from scratch..I would be absolutely behind any campaign, and would donate to crowdfunding, if someone wanted to start trans rape crisis centres. I just think no male should ever be in a female one. Fairly sre some mixes ones exist too? Like refuges, some are mixed, yet the ones for females only are targetted. Like Hamspetad Heath..mixed pool, but the males want into the female one. Etc.

Recent thread abut UK homeless service specifically for women:

OP ByGrabtharsHammarWhatASavings wrote:
AIBU "To ask you to write to St Mungos and Women's Aid about this

I understand that a lot of people would rather these discussions stay off the main boards. I also appreciate that publications like the daily mail are easily dismissed as goady and sensationalist. But I would urge everyone to just read this article and decide for yourselves if you think it's acceptable. For those who don't want to click on a daily mail link I'll post the relevant bits here:

" a transgender ex-prisoner and convicted domestic abuser, who made chilling death threats to the mother of his child, has been allowed to come and go from a female-only refuge after he changed his name to Melissa. (...) St Mungo's, which operates 27 sites across London and the South of England, allowed Addis to gain 'almost daily' access to a women-only hostel in East London despite knowing about her criminal past."

"Another charity, Women's Aid, which oversees 300 shelters managed by smaller charities, also said its policy is to allow transgender women to live at the refuges, regardless of whether they have undergone sex-change treatments.(...) In its anonymised report, one shelter manager stated: 'If we have a client who wants to come in that identifies as female, they can come into our refuge or any part of our service.'(...) Another interviewee added: 'We would never ask for evidence of someone's sex or gender because we're open to women on a self-identifying basis.'"

This is not about bigotry or transphobia or any of the other words currently being used to shut this conversation down. If you believe as I do that men who are not legally recognised as transwomen but merely self-identify as such should not have access to these spaces, and that allowing this access is a violation of women's right, please write to St Mungos and Women's Aid and let them know. I've included template letters below for anyone who wants to use them"

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3553405-To-ask-you-to-write-to-St-Mungos-and-Womens-Aid-about-this

threads with background:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3553104-Not-women-only-shelters

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3555600-Response-to-my-woman-s-aid-letter

Women and men are made, not born

Tosh.

People are welcome to their personal religious view points, upto and including fairies at the bottom of their garden.

They are not free to enforce others to enact and participate in their personal faith, nor to discriminate against non believers of their faith. Women who refuse to lie are being punished by denial of services.

This is going to have to go to court regarding discrimination on grounds of belief, and human right to freedom of belief.