Karen Ingala Smith in Parliament now on single sex refuges

[Anlaf]

She's excellent, as i think is Jess Philips. Karen's talking v movingly of the challenges in offering women only refuge services, the two boroughs where her organisation has had pushback already for not being inclusive enough, and in assessing male-born people for risk in accessing female services

Watch live:

parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/0d07ff13-636e-4b51-a946-2877e583dc4c

Lots of handwaving from one Maria Miller

Karen was the only one on the panel to leave with her integrity intact. The other two were absolutely dismal whereas she was clear, knowledgable, well prepared and very very credible. Must be nerve wracking but she absolutely bossed it. You'd have to be pretty determined to ignore reality if you failed to register the importance of what she was saying. So impressive.

Speaking of that committee meeting, Angela Crawley was giving off serious "I'm on terf watch y'know" vibes and having just checked out her Twitter feed I have confirmed my gut feeling. Funny that, her disdain for Karen's input was written all over her face.

Bump for the aftermath of todays webchat.

The text of the speech Karen gave in Scottish Parliament last week:

This not about hate. It’s not about bigotry. It is not anti-trans. It’s about women and children who have been subjected to men’s violence. Can we please just sometimes – sometime like now – put them first?

kareningalasmith.com/2020/01/20/the-importance-of-women-only-spaces-and-services-for-women-and-girls-whove-been-subjected-to-mens-violence/

What a woman!

What a fantastic turn of phrase. Is that soo hard to say, Jess Phillips and the rest of you?

Thank you for the link, that's a wonderful speech.

Thank you, Karen, for that, and all you have done and continue to do.

That's a really good speech and makes so many good points - do we know who she was speaking to?

Karen, if you read this, I worked for you as a refuge worker for a while. Not directly and you might not remember me but I had enough contact with you to be sure you had what it takes to have a good hard look at yourself and challenge your attitudes.

When I first started reading about trans v women's rights (the cotton ceiling in particular, which I assumed was some kind of lunatic fringe argument but learned was very much not) I was overcome with anxiety as I'm sure lots of women on FWR have been. I thought to look at your twitter and was hugely relieved to see you also had TERF horns because I was sure you were not bigoted in the slightest. Maybe I didn't deserve to die in that grease fire after all!

Jess Phillips must know, as we do, how many women will be excluded from refuges when adults with penises are included, by virtue of their trauma, their culture, their religion. She must know that those who need refuge most are those who have the least financial, social and emotional resources. She must be able to recall teenage clients who had fled forced marriage, muslim women recently arrived in the UK as refugees, survivors of tremendous physical and emotional abuse. I think of some of my former clients and can't imagine looking them in the eye and telling them that a person with a male body is a woman. They deserve so much more than the gaslighting Jess apparently thinks they should receive. I also think of the staff who are somehow supposed to risk assess this Karen, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for standing up for them.

Fantastic speech and a fantastic woman. And thank you - in the light of that dismal performance from JP, today a much needed reminder of how to centre women .

“James said it wasn't uncommon for women in their refuge to fall out and said something about women arguing who has had the worst abuse.“

I’ve never come across this. I’ve met many women who have survived DV, many have lived in refuges. And every single one I met we all thought the other had suffered more and were in awe of eachothers courage.