Where can we be safe?

[Stealthymcstealth]

I have been lurking on this board for a few days and it has struck me that if the current trend continues there will be nowhere safe for women in the outside world, their homes, even online on websites that were designed for women.

Same sex places may no longer be available to us leaving us vulnerable to men who would take advantage of this. Womens hostels, a place for women to escape abuse may be open to any man identifying as a woman?!

The laws protecting us are eroding so much that a woman being strangled to death can be deemed an unfortunate accident.

Our right to call ourselves women is being taken away under the guise of it being a hate crime.

Even Mumsnet, a place for Mum's, a Mum being a biological woman who has given birth, is choking it's users freedom of speech with guidelines that are geared more toward protecting those who seek to strip biological women of their rights than the women that made this site what it is today.

I saw the slogan "Women's rights are human rights" and I don't feel like I am being treated as a human, I feel less than, like my safety isn't important because of my sex.

I cannot understand why my rights are being stripped and given away. There is nothing equal about that.

Women being forced to relinquish their rights to men under the guise of equality.

I want to be safe from the opposite sex, a sex that is known to be predatory toward my own, I want my fucking rights back!

Where will we be safe if the TRA's wipe out our rights to even call ourselves women let alone be protected as one?

What happens to us?

Sorry for the ramble, it just hit me how much this scares me.

I think the absolute worst thing about what has happened to Vancouver rape crisis is the way their government haven't supported them despite them being constantly under attack. People act like they are in the wrong for not letting in males. Saying that it traumatises rape survivors who are running away from male violence is apparently irrelevant. It's incredible really. On top of the fact that there are lots of other refuges there that do allow males entry, so it's not like they don't have other refuges they can access.

We don’t know the facts - but a woman and man were found dead at a woman’s refuge only this week. I don’t want to speculate but the phrase ‘known to each other’ generally indicates a relationship. Why was he even there?

GrandmaMazur trans rights activists also nailed a dead rat to Vancouver rape crisis' door alongside threatening graffiti:

www.feministcurrent.com/2019/08/27/whats-current-vancouver-rape-relief-targeted-with-vandalism-and-death-threats/

Thank you FilthyBiscuit i had somehow hidden it by accident.

And a transactivist, with the support of others, pursued VRR through the courts for 12 years before they finally lost the case. That's a large part of why VRR is such a target for them I think. Last year a woman who owned a vintage sweet shop simply put up a fundraising poster in the window and TRAs gave her lots of online abuse and mounted a campaign to destroy her business.

The court case was because VRR refused to let the male trans person volunteer as a rape counsellor in the only female only shelter in the city. They said this person could volunteer in another capacity off site. But no.

Regarding the Vancouver Rape Relief story, Global News ran a story with this excerpt:

"In the wake of the graffiti, transgender rights activist Morgane Oger — who has been critical of VRRWS’s policy on trans women — took to Twitter to say she does not support inciting violence.

“The appropriate response to the views of TERFs, [fascists], racists or other supremacists is education. To handle their harmful actions, we employ police,” Oger wrote."

A comment from a reader put what Oger's response actually was. Basically saying VRR had it coming.

Poor reporting, again we're seeing people afraid of saying the truth.

People are seeing the truth - tou have to be a special kind of sh1tbag to attack/support an attack/not condemn an attack on a woman’s rape centre. And we all know it.

Oger's tweet: "
"Regrettably but predictably, VRR choosing to ignore Canada's civil rights laws causes blow-back.
I empathize VRR feel threatened by the predictable response to their conduct. As I have previously offered, I am ready to help VRR get out of their mess if they wish to." Basically, you brought it on yourselves and you deserved it."

What a creep.

Ogre by name...

But but but - why are the trans activists allowed to harass and bully people like that? Why aren't they prosecuted for carrying out aggressive acts and inciting violence and why are these ridiculous court cases allowed to get to court?

The comment 'we employ police' is quite telling - it reads as though they believe the police are there to do their bidding

It's what I've been wondering, I've seen a lot of posters mention TRA's harassing and even attacking WRA's but it's as though any level of violence committed by TRA's is somehow admissible? Yet a WRA's so much as uses incorrect terminology and she is labelled as a transphobic. Seems like an imbalance of power but that imbalance is made to look like it tips in our favour?

There was a child at school once who hit me and then ran to the teacher claiming I had hit them, the teacher punished me, I am currently getting deja vu.

Forgot to post the link to the Global story.

www.google.com/amp/s/globalnews.ca/news/5824446/vancouver-rape-relief-womens-shelter-graffiti/amp/

It's the resurgence of misogyny most of us didn't see coming.

I mean, plenty of wise feminist women knew it had never gone away, but I think a lot of us post-70's women got sucked into the libfem narrative that now childcare was sorted, it was smooth riding all the way to equality. I know I did. I never even dreamed of something like this, and I'm big into imagining various apocalyptic happenings.

I failed to read and heed my elders.

I'm afraid so, JanesKettle. 70s child here, didn't see this coming at all. It seemed to change suddenly while I was having/raising children - turned my back for a few years - and bang, women's rights are crumbling before my eyes.

In the 90s, it felt like we were getting equality, we were really getting there. I suppose that's the reason for this backlash.

There's so many links to this, it's like a spider web - this isn't just about transwomen gaining access to women's spaces - this is about queer theory - about men losing and trying to assert their sexual rights, their sexual fetishes - about the exposure of Jimmy Saville, the CSA Inquiry, Operation Yewtree, #MeToo. It'a all linked- it's no coincidence that NSPCC are up to their neck in the breakdown of children's safeguarding and have mr rubberman being caught wanking in the office toilets. It'a all linked.

Men were never going to allow the tiny bit of freedom women have carved out for ourselves in the past few decades. if you think about this historically and geographically, men have always awarded themselves huge power over women - our bodies and our lives. The feminist movement and its gains were the blip, what we're seeing now is male power working as it always does - against us.

There was a child at school once who hit me and then ran to the teacher claiming I had hit them, the teacher punished me, I am currently getting deja vu.

Yes there is a term for this used by people who work with victims of domestic abuse when talking about how many abusive and narcissistic people operate: DARVO. Deny attack, reverse victim and offender.

@Ereshkigal thank you, I had seen DARVO in threads before but didn't know it's origin.

I am new to the feminism board and am quickly trying to educate myself on the terms whilst also educating myself quickly on the terms that aren't allowed. I wonder how many women trying to understand the issue have given up because of the backlash for using incorrect terminology, almost seems intentional.

My dd had a “friend” who would do that. She once stamped on dd’s foot, and then told the teacher that dd had done it to her. It was horrible and upsetting at the time, but they were nine or ten.
It gives me that feeling too OP