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/

"If you've been repeatedly raped the last thing you need is a penis in the vicinity."
Penis' are just a fact of life...half the population have them. 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, not with the trans woman accessing services. Do you demand to look in the pants of every female to make sure she isn't secretly bedecked with a penis? Do you start judging women on whether they are 'masculine' looking...they must have a dick.

Yes, ideally there should be a system in place for trans gender individuals, but there isn't an they still deserve help. But these types of facilities are very much stacked against anyone with a penis. There's very little out there for male victims of domestic abuse or sexual abuse. It's brushed under the rug. I guarantee someone is going to roll out a screed of stats in response to this claiming why men are so rarely the victim, but does that help the men that are? And how many male victims go unnoticed, feeling unable to seek help...that skews stats massively. Men have a shit time of it. They're stuck in a place where it's stigmatised to be the victim.

Fuck me Stonewall's salary costs are over £5 million a year!

But senior staff, made up of cis women,

Females. Again we see the criminal group named: its females. Female women are grouped and named the enemy. This is appearing more and more. Gynephobia.

This is also what happens when you allow staff places that were supposed to be for reserved for women to be used to employ male people. There is then inevitably leadership with skin in the game and to whom it is essential to maintain mixed sex access to women's shelters. I find the repeated stating that no women have a problem with mixed sex shelters disturbing, as it's plain not true. As this demonstrates. Women are saying this does not work for all women, and male people are saying they're being mean to say so. And it's better to have women's services that nurture male people than to meet the primary brief of all women's needs being met. Again, the focus is always on the male needs as superior to, more important than, and the females are the afterthought. Or the criminals if they defend female needs.

Mixed sex women's facilities do not work for all women. What happens to those women? Because people working in women's services need to realise, they have a duty to the female women too.

@SweetPetrichor

"If you've been repeatedly raped the last thing you need is a penis in the vicinity." Penis' are just a fact of life...half the population have them. 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, not with the trans woman accessing services. Do you demand to look in the pants of every female to make sure she isn't secretly bedecked with a penis? Do you start judging women on whether they are 'masculine' looking...they must have a dick.

Yes, ideally there should be a system in place for trans gender individuals, but there isn't an they still deserve help. But these types of facilities are very much stacked against anyone with a penis. There's very little out there for male victims of domestic abuse or sexual abuse. It's brushed under the rug. I guarantee someone is going to roll out a screed of stats in response to this claiming why men are so rarely the victim, but does that help the men that are? And how many male victims go unnoticed, feeling unable to seek help...that skews stats massively. Men have a shit time of it. They're stuck in a place where it's stigmatised to be the victim.

Services for male victims of domestic violence and indeed male perpetrators of domestic violence are woeful. You'll get no argument from me there.

But it's not women's problem to fix.

Fundraiser, campaign and agitate and get them built. That's what women did. In my lifetime, too.

@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.

Refreshing to gain your perspective. I doubt few on here would ever need to access a shelter to get away from mostly male violence, and therefore have no empathy. It's always "have you asked the women?"

You know what people? That is exactly what happens at shelters. The people who work there know exactly what they are facing and can best judge vulnerability and from whom....and indeed any risk of a trigger. The myth of it being some sort of trans predator is just off. It doesnt help the vulnerable women who actually need these services, versus those on here who pontificate on subjects they really know little on.

A little empathy ladies...goes a long way.... abuse is abuse. Full stop.

these types of facilities are very much stacked against anyone with a penis ... does that help the men ... Men have a shit time of it.

Wow. Speaking as someone with a penis, I can't imagine being so unempathetic. I'm embarrassed to share a sex with anyone that thinks like that.

Yes, there is far less provision of services for males in this area, because there is far less demand. It will be harder to find male accommodation for male victims of abuse, just as it will be harder to find female accommodation for female prisoners. That's down to the numbers.

You do not solve the latter problem by having mixed-sex prisons, and you do not solve the former problem by having mixes-sex shelters.

BECAUSE THAT WOULD CAUSE FAR BIGGER PROBLEMS.

@MishyJDI *
*
I* doubt few on here would ever need to access a shelter to get away from mostly male violence, and therefore have no empathy.*

Are you actually kidding me? You have absolutely no way of knowing who's on here.

@SweetPetrichor

Men can seek help from male focussed services.

But whilst men, as a class, have the power, the voice and the money, they can stay out of women’s spaces and advocate for their own.

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, not with the trans woman accessing services.

Please do share your penis differentiation skills? Please do educate us? It would be such a great tool to prevent the 1 in 4 women sexually assaulted by men, if they could tell beforehand which the bad penises were.

The people who work there know exactly what they are facing and can best judge vulnerability and from whom....and indeed any risk of a trigger.

Well, yes. They are the older so-called 'cis' women who are being demonised in the piece because they do know and thats why they have the policies they do.
And I completely agree that a little empathy would go a long way. It would be really nice to see trans activists extend it to natal women for example.

@MishyJDI

Many women on MN have used shelters or work in the VAWG space. Overwhelmingly, abused women do not want men in their spaces.

What’s your experience of shelters that makes you think you are so much more qualified to speak that the many experienced women that post on this board?!

Although I do feel a bit bad about snapping at SweetPetrichor - at least they seem to be being honest and making the "what about the men" argument rather than pretending transwomen are somehow distinct from men in general.

I respect that, and it is a sane discussion you can have. Is there sufficient provision for each sex, what sort of provision do they need? (There's no reason to assume it's symmetrical).

And maybe there should be some mixed-sex provision, for various reasons. I'm not hardline to say all provision must be single-sex.

But I am hardline to say there must always be single-sex provision for women. And what we see is activists desperate to totally stamp it out. And when they've nearly succeeded, so they're down to one single-sex shelter in a city, like Vancouver Rape Relief, they go totally nuts.

So in general I still don't really buy the honest-seeming "what about provision for men" argument, even if that's what SweetPetrichor thinks they're supporting. What we're seeing here is the attempt to eliminate female-only provision. There's a motte-and-bailey thing going on here.

As Lachlan Stuart wrote about - for the core activists it's not the provision of trans (or men's) rights that interests them, it's the elimination of women's rights.

Pious, smug crap that doesn't give a shiny shit about the needs and feelings of actual, abused and traumatised women.

I divide my scorn equally between 'Cara', if she exists, and the writer.

Same here.

@BrassicaRabbit

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, not with the trans woman accessing services.

Please do share your penis differentiation skills? Please do educate us? It would be such a great tool to prevent the 1 in 4 women sexually assaulted by men, if they could tell beforehand which the bad penises were.

Yes, I never cease to be amazed by the amount of misogyny it takes to type that sort of shite, when talking about rape victims' trauma responses.

Petrichor if you're a bloke take yourself, your penis and your woman-hatred elsewhere please. If you're a woman, please seek counselling for your internalised misogyny.

As Lachlan Stuart wrote about - for the core activists it's not the provision of trans (or men's) rights that interests them, it's the elimination of women's rights.

YY.

Mridhul clearly has zero understanding of the needs of women

And not to forget, also fliounced from the SNP in a fit of pique because they voted for an amendment which allowed female rape survivors to specify that they wanted to be examined by a female person.

Perhaps if Transwomen were more supportive and empathetic towards vulnerable 'cis' women they would get more support. But they aren't.

I was 19 when I was attacked. Only 'attempted', as I was able to escape. But 15years later, I do still have trust issues towards men. Not all the time. Only at night, when I can't see an escape route. I take stairs rather than lifts. I walk rather than take a taxi.

The point of this is that trauma isn't a logical thing. If women are in a shelter, their trauma is fresh. Their fear of a Transwoman may be illogical, but it could be very real.

I don't think anyone would deny that men need access to DV support. Or that the Trans community could need access to it. But you can't take away from one vulnerable group to give to another. The need is for additional services.

As a 'GC feminist' I would happily help raise awareness for the need of Trans specific services for DV, sexual assault etc. Or for male services. But not for the removal of sex specific services.

@teawamutu

I read that piece last night.

Pious, smug crap that doesn't give a shiny shit about the needs and feelings of actual, abused and traumatised women.

I divide my scorn equally between 'Cara', if she exists, and the writer.

Oh cara definitely exists

www.benjerry.co.uk/whats-new/2019/07/cara-english

a “cohort of powerful feminists” is deliberately freezing out transwomen from accessing services for domestic violence victims.

Correction: Some people are deliberately (yes, deliberately!) standing up for the right of women and girls to access their own services for female victims of domestic violence without men being there? Good for them

I think anyone who plays an active role in forcing female survivors into the presence of men* in a refuge is cruel and sadistic.
The word "inclusive" has rapidly come to mean unsafe, unfair, inhumane.

Those that facilitate this are monstrous and I believe they are self-serving abusers who prioritise their own perceived wokeness above all the tormented women whose lives they damage and whose safety they risk.
I wouldn't be able to live with myself, yet there are people who would apparently pat themselves on the back for facilitating further damage to vulnerable women.

*Men: adult human males.
**Males: the biological sex class

Well I is staggered, Biscuits. Staggered.

I know, I actually found the findings of this article, where misguided virtue signalling young women wanting to centre males and who DGAF about the feelings of vulnerable women, weren't getting their own way, quite cheering.

"Cora" there are plenty of places you can work where your lack of consideration for female people will be validated. Go and work for Stonewall.

Stonewall have so much money that they don't know how to spend it. So Stonewall come on and make some shelter's for trans people.

Redshoe, that’s a brilliant idea. Stonewall jumped on the trans bandwagon when its original gay-rights aims were all achieved. It’s now caught up in child-safeguarding problems like GIDS. But why not do something genuinely useful and protect trans people who genuinely are suffering?

There's also an interview in the article with a white academic explaining how the only reason people are GC is because they are racist.

This leads to the surreal situation that gal-dem are accusing Southall Black Sisters of racism and white feminism.