Person in women's shelter boasts about spirting erection, shelter supports 'her'

[SunsetBeetch]

I posted this on the This Never Happens thread, but it's so horrible I think it deserves its own thread.

Canada of course.

Trans women posts about wandering around naked with an erection in a women's shelter(even providing the address of the shelter). They also appear to have mental health issues. Concerned women tweet the shelter. The shelter responds by asking people not to 'spread harmful mistruths' about trans people.

A women's shelter actually putting vulnerable women in danger. This is how far things have gone in Canada.

Please retweet. Women in one of the most unsafe neighbourhoods in Canada are forced to bunk up with an obvious predator. He gets amusement from exposing his male body to vulnerable women. Self ID hurts women. #dtes #vancouver @VancouverPD @VanRapeRelief #gendercritical t.co/GCJCAkGL8Z
by MNHQ to remove the Tweet containing the address of a women's shelter

While men get wimens shelter places and my husband sits in my house, I get told I've misread, misunderstood and must be nicer.

Fuck that.

No, I have neither misread, nor misunderstood.

I get it, all too well, thank you, buddy.

No one here thinks people who are homeless deserve it

No, but we're all people, and we all tell ourselves stories to manage our emotional regulation.

If you can identify yourself within the system that results in 'homelessness' and see the story that leads from here to there, from me to you, then your brain twigs that it's a threat. The emotion gets externalised onto the other person as a means of managing and reducing it.

The more steps of the story you can see, the realer it feels, the more your brain freaks out, the more it externalises the 'wrongness' it's feeling onto the Other. That's dehumanisation, and you don't learn to feel it unless you infer that it's being done to you.

I get really fucking angry on Detroit's behalf because her perception of safety net has been ripped away so many times that she's spotted the pattern, and now she's trying to talk to people who aren't allowed to say "yep, we spotted that too, it's okay, there's another option, we can still accommodate you." It's a spiralling loop of dehumanisation, and it's shit in just about every direction.

She's inferring sympathy rather than empathy. And she knows everyone writes a 'homelessness' story to make themself feel safer so they don't have to see that it could be them.

Seeing that it could happen to you means identifying yourself within the framework. You see which position you're in, you see which position you want to be in. You identify with the one that makes you feel safer; and in doing so you accidentally other the mind of the person who's been forcibly identified by the world into the other position.

It's always shit for the people who've been ejected from the socially-agreed story. It's not their fault, Goose. So the trick is to refine your words a bit, work out what the emotional content is on both sides not just your own, so your genuine attempt at communication doesn't trigger that genuine horrible feeling of being othered in the people you're talking to (in this case Detroit.)

People sometimes tell themselves the same sort of comforting myths about rape, and for similar reasons. If only I don't do this, or be that sort of person, then it won't happen to me, right? The intent usually isn't malicious, at least not when the person doing it is a woman, but the impact can still be harmful.

I think it's also worth bearing in mind that if there's a "typical" story about how someone ends up homeless then that story is usually about a man, and women's stories may be different for all kinds of reasons that we as feminists should be more aware of than most people.

Niceness shouldn't give men a pass into women's spaces.

I would say it isn't very nice, in and of itself, for a man to violate women's boundaries.

I really think you are misreading what people are saying, and I wish you could see it another way, because they are not making the hurtful assumptions you are thinking.

Exactly this. Homelessness is an issue but in no way do I blame the people who are homeless. I was homeless myself for a time during winter (London so I guess not as bad weather wise?) put myself in so many dangerous situations, weed kept me going (I could get it without paying for it) and I was raped a few times or threatened with rape other times, it was hell. Doesn’t mean homelessness isn’t an issue. Also, mental health problems don’t help but again it’s not the individuals fault but I would certainly notice the homeless or violent people if I’m travelling somewhere. To comment on it is not putting blame on the people who are homeless. I get you are stressed but come on, stop reading into shit hat isn’t there.

I would say it isn't very nice, in and of itself, for a man to violate women's boundaries.

Indeed. If they were nice they wouldn't be pushing for entry in the first place. The fact that some are doing it more politely than others is just an indication of better social skills.

You '"get I am stressed"?

By your words you really prove you don't 'get' it at all.

I'm sitting here in some truly terrifying weather. A really bad storm. I'm in a truck. I'm telling myself rubber tires mean I'm somewhat safe.

But you get it, huh.

No.

I got it good. The shit IS there

The whole I went on vacation and saw homeless people SLEEPING on STREETS narrative is that shit.

The sub plot of and it's totally because they SHUT THE ASYLUMS.

Because that's where us homeless belong, huh

Crazy people without homes who read shit that isn't there into stuff people say

Sorry. I'm not going to be nice. I'm not going to let it go uncommented on.

The issue here is Tyler and his erection in a women's shelter. But instead other women are pulling the narrative to make it not about male entitlement, but crazy homeless people doing drugs so of course this shit happens.

Sorry, sisters. It's not just Vancouver. It's coming to a city near you, and you can't ban pot and put people in asylums and make it all go away.

Detroit

Totally agree. No men however they think they are women should ever be in a shelter for women

No men at all

Okay, so you ignored the part where I was homeless? Cool.

When places that helped the mentally ill closed and they weren’t housed then yeah, it does contribute to an influx of homelessness. Why is that such a bad thing to say?

Shame it didn't teach you anything.

One of the main causes of homelessness in women is domestic violence:

nlchp.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Homeless_Stats_Fact_Sheet.pdf

A large number of the women in that shelter will have fled violent men. They should have somewhere safe to sleep, away from boundary violating, dangerous creeps like Tyler.

Much like prisons, shelters are full of the very women who need protection from people like Tyler the most. Which is most likely why those men want access to those spaces so badly.

Yes the women in that shelter include some of the most vulnerable in society. They include women that no other shelter will accept.

I cannot believe they are being betrayed in this way.

Are there any single sex shelters in Canada that we can donate to?

If there are I bet they're already being sued.

(Yaniv was definitely my Peak Canada)

DetroitCafe

Wow..

2B
Yes, Vancouver women’s is for actual female women only and is in the same city. Donate to them.

Vancouver rape relief is the shelter I am thinking of

Yes I donate to VRR but I don’t think they offer accomodation for homeless women generally (rather, women recovering from rape or SA)? But yes, really admire and appreciate what they do.

Aaarrgghhh. Listen, look, and pay attention, because this is where you did it, this is where it happens, this is how it keeps happening, and this is how I am trying to be the pivot.

Exactly this. Homelessness is an issue but in no way do I blame the people who are homeless

Stop putting yourself in her shoes, and start putting yourself in her head.

When you say "homelessness is an issue" you transmit:

There is an issue
It is a problem
It is wrong
We need to fix it
How can we fix it?

Put yourself in her MIND instead of her body, and ask yourself what she is receiving from your transmission.

She has identified herself within the homelessness matrix, because she is LIVING it.

And you just called her... it.

Meaning is not objective.

It's in the interface. I transmit, you receive. Neither is realer than the other. If she is less real then you are less real.

Now resist the urge to bite my head off please, because when you "take the bait" you lash out and we can't see your body but we infer your position in this dynamic.

You're trying to be the fixed point, and it's all academic to you, so we don't work around you as the fixed point.

We work around her, because it's her life. It's Detroit's life, and she's one of us.

Stop sympathising and start empathising. They're not the same thing.

(Need to find my own pivot and Be More Rufus.)

stop reading into shit hat isn’t there

Stop looking inwards and Identifying your Self as an ongoing existing phenomenon, because the stuff you are finding is Bad and Not Real.

That's where you compound it, when you step into the dynamic and become the fixed point that that doesn't pivot.

No, but we're all people, and we all tell ourselves stories to manage our emotional regulation.

Yes, they do, but you know no one has said anything that is ever remotely like that here. And people have clarified pretty carefully what they intended as well.

But honestly I don't think it would matter what anyone said here, even if they are people who have been homeless themselves or worked in the sector, they are going to be painted as uncaring, their insights worthless.

Assuming that others have ill intent when it's pretty clear they don't, that they actually are not saying or even thinking a particular thing, is self-destructive, and sad. But I don't really think its something that can be changed simply by saying, yeah, you are right, people are being shitty. It makes it worse.

There is something going on here like feminists and feminist allies, racism activists and their allies.
You (and I mean most of us) think you are saying and thinking the right things, but from another perspective it's still problematic.

But we have to keep talking, even if we get it wrong. We have to suck up that we are getting it wrong sometimes, learn, and keep going. Otherwise there won't be enough people talking about it.

I guess what I'd add picklemepopcorn is that what you say is true, but it's not a one-sided thing. As is often the case there is actually not a clear way to privilege a perspective and if you think in those terms you are getting it wrong.

I think it's problematic to be discussing things in good faith, from a perspective of having some experience with an issue, and trying as much as possible through a written medium to be clear and empathetic, and to be sworn at and have it made clear that the only way to be allowed to carry on is total capitulation to another POV and their views about it, what is allowed to be discussed, and what language can be used. And in terms of healthy boundaries, I'm not prepared to accept those terms, even for someone who is stuck in a really bad situation, just like I don't accept it from people facing other serious problems.

Which is to say it's probably not possible to continue to talk about it at all.