Transmisogyny in women’s shelters.

[Whatdoyoudowhendemocracyfails]

A year-long investigation has concluded a “cohort of powerful feminists” is deliberately freezing out transwomen from accessing services for domestic violence victims.

Didn’t realise we had so much power

gal-dem.com/transphobia-sexual-violence-sound-like-a-man-hang-up-vawg-investigation/

@midgedude

So you have a refuge? You just don't like it?

There has been a temporary refuge set up on a bus with 12 spaces that may well close when the COVID crisis alleviates. Will you be sending a donation to help make it more permanent? I wonder how many of the other people on here who have said they would happily support trans refuge's will be putting their hands in their pockets?

The choice, as things are, is that the refuge sector finds a way to mange trans inclusion or trans women fleeing domestic abuse have no support and nowhere to go. That is the reality of the situation

As tough as it may be, it should be possible to set up some form of service, however rudimentary - certainly given how much heat and energy ( & money) there is behind the trans movement. As mentioned above, in Liverpool, and I'm sure elsewhere, specialised services and refuges have formed to cater for specific communities of women ( BAME/Muslim)

Here you go, this refuge is based in a converted tour bus, I'm sure they will appreciate your donation to help them try and establish something more suitable, like a building for example. How much will you be sending

Well, that's a start. You can take it from there through fund raising and maybe through local council funding ( even though i appreciate that is a tough call for many city councils) - and of course by appealing to supportive sponsors. Also, there are many quite wealthy and influential gay men who are fully supportive of trans inclusion.

@Siablue

There are some refuges that accept transwomen. No one is arguing that there shouldn’t be.

What you and the article is arguing is that there should be no refuges or abuse services that provide women with a single sex space. There is space to meet both sets of needs but not everyone is the same and some people need different things.

The biggest barrier to getting a refuge place is having no recourse to public funds. This is an issue that affects migrant women but someone decided to write an article trashing the only organisations that help them rather than doing an exposure of the way these women are treated by our government.

I would happily fight alongside anyone for properly funded services for all survivors. If funding wasn't so scarce few of these things would matter - there could be trans refuges, trans inclusive refuges, LGBT refuges, refuges that didn't accept trans women, and much more specialist provision for people with subsance misuse, MH needs etc. I'll fight for that all day long - but that's not the reality right now. A trans women in fear of her life who calls the helpline and gets referred to a womens refuge is not doing anything abusive, and neither is the refuge that helps her. The whole system is fucked and just doing what it can to meet the needs of everyone and hopefully save some lives in awful circumstances.

Yes, thanks for the link jj. I'll certainly take a look into them & would be interested in making a donation. Looks like a great initiative 👍.

After you, jj, and after Stonewall, and after the immense wealth of the trans-lobby have funded these shelters, I think it will be unnecessary to pressgang female people to fund men's services any more.

Most of us have put any 'spare' cash into funds to fight the erasure of our own female services, which are being forcefully decimated by those wealthy lobbyists.

Funny old world. Female services are threatened with bankruptcy by wealthy male lobbyists, who refuse to provide for the male people they claim to support. And then along you pop asking us to BOTH sacrifice female only spaces AND fund male only ones.

Will you be sending a donation to help make it more permanent? I wonder how many of the other people on here who have said they would happily support trans refuge's will be putting their hands in their pockets

Owen Jones? Billy Bragg? Stephen Fry? Michael Cashman? Crispin Blunt? Lots of wealthy, prominent trans allies out there.

I know a few women here have suggested they'd donate a little....I think that in itself goes beyond the call, myself.

Donated! Matched my last donation to my town's domestic violence charity.

A trans women in fear of her life who calls the helpline and gets referred to a womens refuge is not doing anything abusive, and neither is the refuge that helps her. The whole system is fucked and just doing what it can to meet the needs of everyone

I think it was in the information at the scots parliament debate from refuge leaders: TW are much, much less rarely in fear of their lives or have experienced life threatening violence than female refuge seekers. This is not to say they do not need refuges: abuse takes many forms. But important to recognise that many females who go to refuges are in immediate, serious physical danger and have experienced life threatening violence and this is rare in the forms of abuse TW have suffered.

And there is nothing to stop SOME refuges going mixed sex and some remaining female only.

It isn't the case of a desperate provision with a bed where a bed happens to be, this is a deliberate and intentional agenda to end female only provision for political and ideological reasons. That needs facing and addressing.

And however lovely that TW who enters a refuge may be, there will be some females who cannot share a mixed sex space.

No one will ever say what happens to these females. Which makes it very clear what happens to them. There's much dramatic rhetoric about the needs and vulnerabilities of male people who need the provision but those same people won't even discuss the needs and vulnerabilities of females who cannot use such provisions. And are saying so. And are having it made clear to them that their needs don't matter, and the realities of their situation won't even be admitted to.

With all the money and donations Stonewall are getting why aren't they putting their money where their mouth is?

Instead of wasting it all on aggressive campaigns ,protests etc to vilify women and take their safe spaces away from them, why don't they use that money to set up refuges and shelters for trans people? Why don't trans people and their supporters donate and raise money to open one up themselves?

It's not impossible, women have done it at great cost. Is it maybe because they have no interest in having this support and dedicated spaces in place and all about ensuring women don't get to have them?

And again, I just realised, here am I spending a lot of my time and energy engaging with a male centred view, to try and make clear that I care about male people too (just not most and first), and to suggest what male people could do other than taking female only facilities away from females. When the male centric viewpoint is that females should give and suffer and not count the cost because of male need.

On a thread, focused on female needs and female refuges on a feminist female centric site. When the whole reason for the thread is plenty of people worrying about what male people need and no one hearing females.

Sorry all. The socialisation runs deep.

Now. Exactly how many articles did Pink News publish about JK Rowling last August?

Have they done any articles publicising that this refuge in London needs the funds to become permanent, and to get safer premises?

Won’t it be lovely when JJ gets on with campaigning for a tw refuge, using the platform of Mumsnet as a launch pad. My ironyometer is pulsating.

This is like the threads I used to be on, where MRAs would say it was horrendously unfair that there were no men's only shelters for victims of female-perpetrated domestic violence, and I used to say "set them up then. There are ten of you who've been posting on this thread all week. Use that energy."

@AllCatsAreBeautiful

I think what this investigation shows is shocking and sad. I work in a frontline women’s organisation tackling violence against women and I’m happy that the organisation I work for is fully inclusive of trans women.

Has your frontline women's organisations publicly declared that it is fully trans-inclusive?

If yes, has it also publicly declared that it is fully inclusive of those survivors who need a female-only service?

It's absolutely possible to support male victims who identify as trans in the VAWG sector, especially because they are a tiny number of service users. But this must be done without riding roughshod over the needs of female survivors.

And for that purpose, serious consideration must be given to how full trans-inclusivity is communicated to the public. Otherwise you are telling female survivors who cannot access a mixed-sex service that they are no longer welcome. And those survivors will therefore be compelled to self-exclude from the service you offer.

Has your organisation given any thought to that?

serious consideration must be given to how full trans-inclusivity is communicated to the public. Otherwise you are telling female survivors who cannot access a mixed-sex service that they are no longer welcome.

Perfectly put. This. Exactly this. ^^

@Barracker

After you, jj, and after Stonewall, and after the immense wealth of the trans-lobby have funded these shelters, I think it will be unnecessary to pressgang female people to fund men's services any more.

Most of us have put any 'spare' cash into funds to fight the erasure of our own female services, which are being forcefully decimated by those wealthy lobbyists.

Funny old world. Female services are threatened with bankruptcy by wealthy male lobbyists, who refuse to provide for the male people they claim to support. And then along you pop asking us to BOTH sacrifice female only spaces AND fund male only ones.

It looks to me like a lot of you are putting your cash into vanity court cases for men like Harry Miller and James Caspian whilst the VAWG sector is desperately crying out for funds.

Out of interest how would you feel about a trans refuge being established and being given tax payer funding? I suspect there would be outrage from many GC people given that this funding is so badly needed by the VAWG sector.

Also though, do you really think a trans woman, who has been traumatised by male violence, is likely to flee to an all male environment? Is that really an acceptable solution?

I feel like I'm a panellist on "the Unbelievable Truth"..

I wouldn’t have any problem with that at all jj. Why would I? No one denies trans people need refuges and specialist advice services. They should absolutely have them

I’m constantly amazed at the amount of time you dpend here seeing as you seem to have nothing but contempt for us

Yes, there probably would be some people up in arms about it. Some people get irritated by all sorts of things.

But women here have told you they would support such a thing...

... why don't you take them at their word? You know, as you do a man who says he is now a woman?

I suspect there would be outrage from many GC people given that this funding is so badly needed by the VAWG sector.

Why?

I can't see the issue.

Very happy for a trans refuge to be tax payer funded, why would I not be??? This is not about not wanting trans people to have needed resources, this is about female people needing access to single sex spaces at the same time . They're not mutually exclusive things.

And you have no idea who here has experienced VAWG, used refuges, or who financially supports what, or who practically fundraises in their local area for their local refuges or turns out to do the Christmas shops and donation runs or runs courses for women and their children following DV - don't tell me what is and is not important to me, and what I may or may not spend my money on in support of other females.

@CuriousaboutSamphire

Yes, there probably would be some people up in arms about it. Some people get irritated by all sorts of things.

But women here have told you they would support such a thing...

... why don't you take them at their word? You know, as you do a man who says he is now a woman?

Two women, including you have said they would support it. And I ask because I've discussed this elsewhere with GC people who said absolutely not, any funding must come from private sector donations and I wondered if that attitude was prevalent here.

If you can't differentiate between the penis that did you wrong and the penis of some poor person just going about her life, then the issue is with you,

Dear lord. Yes the women have an issue. That's the whole fucking point of having a refuge for them.

Unless you think they shouldn't have an issue for being subjected to male sexual violence?

I know this was earlier on in the thread, but it's so gobsmacking.

The misogyny is so intense, the poster is blaming the users of a refuge, for needing the refuge in the first place. The one they work in!!!

You see what women understand is that sex matters and women are physically at a disadvantage to men and that women's self preservation mechanisms are to distrust first in some situations

You completely fail to understand that many men understand this, don't feel threatened by it, and that's why men introduced the concept of spaces for women before women even had the vote