A woman driven out of her therapy group by a trans woman's presence

[PostingForTheFirstTime]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10249633/Rape-victim-forced-quit-therapy-sessions-feels-threatened-6ft-trans-woman.html

@IamSarah

Hi OP, thanks for sharing this. I am Sarah from the article. I'm a regular on here but NC for this as nervous about backlash from trans activists.

Happy to answer any questions, particularly from anyone who thinks I'm in the wrong or being hateful.

Well done for speaking out, thats a good article. How dare the rape crisis centres abuse rape victims like that.

I hope you’ve been able to access some therapy

Sorry to hear about this Sarah. Don't ever doubt yourself. You have done nothing wrong.

Thanks again everyone.

I tried posting in a local women's Facebook group to see if anyone knew of women's only services. My post was swiftly removed by admin. Trans activists really, really don't want women to have these spaces.

Sarah I applaud your bravery. Survivors Network are a joke. I know someone who works for them and she is a trans activist so I am hardly surprised. She also works for the Guides….

I’m so angry on your behalf Sarah I don’t know what to say

How DARE those Fb admins send you that shit?? “We’re terribly sorry you were raped but some men are now cross you’ve asked fir a space without them and frankly our fear of them outweighs our compassion fir you”

@IamSarah

Thanks again everyone.

I tried posting in a local women's Facebook group to see if anyone knew of women's only services. My post was swiftly removed by admin. Trans activists really, really don't want women to have these spaces.

SO all this gives lie to the CEO of Stonewall's claim that there are single sex survivor spaces for women - that they have choice between single sex spaces or not. Not only do they not exist but you can't even ask about where they are. Of course, Nancy whilst claiming there are single sex services also said one cannot lobby for the continuation of them (as JKR did). Which will of course lead to the eradication of these spaces.

Women really don't matter, do they?

@Theeyeballsinthesky

I’m so angry on your behalf Sarah I don’t know what to say

How DARE those Fb admins send you that shit?? “We’re terribly sorry you were raped but some men are now cross you’ve asked fir a space without them and frankly our fear of them outweighs our compassion fir you”

Yup that's it.

I am furious for Sarah. I am furious for all women. I am furious with the women who support this shit. I am furious with the men who want this shit.

The Survivors' Network have long been on my radar

As we might expect, in addition to promoting misogynist policies that further traumatise vulnerable women, they also promotote batshit theories about multiple selves relating to so called "ritual abuse" and DID.

evidential links

re "ritual abuse" and false memories
<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200705220955/survivorsnetwork.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/SN-Self-Help-Guide.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20200705220955/survivorsnetwork.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/SN-Self-Help-Guide.pdf

pp 10 and 11 are of interest to researchers into memory and false memories
pp 18 mentions "regression"
pp 20 claims that the body "can hold trauma from rape or sexual abuse" (an unproven theory beloved of abusive sex cultists and "tantric" yoni massagers) there are other pages of interest to academics and skeptical researchers in the field of memory and false memories
pp35 recommends the book The Courage To Heal by Ellen Bass and Laura Davies - a notorious tome -the authors have no mental health qualifications and both have long associations with the new age centre Esalen. The book promotes the idea that unexplained medical symptoms and various life problems are the result of child sexual abuse that has been forgotten and that embarking on a journey to recover memories of abuse is the way forward. It is absolutely appalling that this dangerous book is promoted by anyone in this day and age.

re DID
<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20211003201517/survivorsnetwork.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/DID.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20211003201517/survivorsnetwork.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/DID.pdf

of special concern in the above link are the organisations recommended in the final section, which are well know to any rational / skeptical persons familiar with the spread of the satanic panic and its links to mental health abuses and quackery including abusive so called "body psychotherapies"

those organisations are
Positive Outcomes for Dissociative Survivors (PODS)
an organisation that promotes dangerous quackery about body memories and "ritual abuse"

The Founder of PODS Carolyn Spring is quoted as stating
“There is a slave trade still in this country—yes, the real and horrific sex and human trafficking trade run by organised criminal gangs, which is appalling and must be stopped. But there's the hidden slavery too of children exploited and used within their own families, within organised and ritual abuse.”
― Carolyn Spring, Living with the Reality of Dissociative Identity Disorder: Campaigning Voices

International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation
A notoriously abusive organisation whose various "experts" have been at the centre of multiple lawsuits regarding mental health abuses, false memories and even a murder. Possibly the most influential organisation in history re promoting QAnon / Pizzagate style conspiracies about satanic rital abuse. Many ISSTD POIs have connections to abusive "tantric" cults.

First Person Plural
I dont know where to start on First Person Plural, a truly bizarre and shocking organisation that infantilises women and promotes SRA narratives - I would be here all day writing about them and some of the most notorious promoters of the satanic panic in days of yore are still active in relation to this fascinating organisation

a link of interest
there is a mention of "The Survivors' Network" on pp6 of this leaflet published in November 2006 bt First Person Plural under the section titled "Making multiple friends by Boo" in which Boo describes attending The Survivor’s Network Inaugural conference - this may be an earlier manifestation of the SN or a different one, unfortunately there are many different dodgy "survivors" organisations promoting Qanon and other SRA conspiracy theories and abusing the vulnerable people who contact them.

Anyway, here's the link which I include partly because it demonstrates the infantilisation and general batshit nature of the organisation fairly clearly

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20211128085112/www.firstpersonplural.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/fpp-vol7.2.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20211128085112/www.firstpersonplural.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/fpp-vol7.2.pdf

There is also a link between the Survivor's Network and the All About Trans organisation via a fascinating organisation called On Road Media

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160508111644/www.onroadmedia.org.uk/work/working-with-the-transgender-community/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20160508111644/www.onroadmedia.org.uk/work/working-with-the-transgender-community/

ORM have launched their own "survivors" project which should be of concern and interest to persons with critical thinking capacities

@IamSarah

Thank you for the messages of support. Once the charity told me their groups weren't for me they completely stopped responding my emails and made it clear I wasn't welcome back.

All I asked was for one separate group which wasn't accessible to people born male which is completely legal and even supported by the CEO of Stonewall.

Really upset with how they've treated me, and completely dismissed my concerns, hence why I've shared the story.

This is just shocking. Thanks for joining this thread @IamSarah, and I'm so sorry to hear what you've been through.

@Theeyeballsinthesky

I’m so angry on your behalf Sarah I don’t know what to say

How DARE those Fb admins send you that shit?? “We’re terribly sorry you were raped but some men are now cross you’ve asked fir a space without them and frankly our fear of them outweighs our compassion fir you”

Admin are there to carry out a role.

They need to make their response public. It will be eye-opening to see where the women align themselves. I'm trying not to be pessimistic but believe that the admins are in thrall to preference falsification.

Preference falsification, according to the economist Timur Kuran, is the act of misrepresenting one’s wants under perceived social pressures. It happens frequently in everyday life, such as when we tell the host of a dinner party that we are enjoying the food when we actually find it bland. In Private Truths, Public Lies , Kuran argues convincingly that the phenomenon not only is ubiquitous but has huge social and political consequences. Drawing on diverse intellectual traditions, including those rooted in economics, psychology, sociology, and political science, Kuran provides a unified theory of how preference falsification shapes collective decisions, orients structural change, sustains social stability, distorts human knowledge, and conceals political possibilities.

A common effect of preference falsification is the preservation of widely disliked structures. Another is the conferment of an aura of stability on structures vulnerable to sudden collapse. When the support of a policy, tradition, or regime is largely contrived, a minor event may activate a bandwagon that generates massive yet unanticipated change.

In distorting public opinion, preference falsification also corrupts public discourse and, hence, human knowledge. So structures held in place by preference falsification may, if the condition lasts long enough, achieve increasingly genuine acceptance. The book demonstrates how human knowledge and social structures co-evolve in complex and imperfectly predictable ways, without any guarantee of social efficiency.

www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674707580

My post was swiftly removed by admin. Trans activists really, really don't want women to have these spaces.

I am so sorry that the admin thought it was ok to send you that shit and centre men's feelings over women's safety.

(PS I don't know if it makes much difference, but bear in mind that (given that it started from a press article) this thread could well end up being reported more widely.)

Can't we start a new support group for Sarah and othe rwomen that doesn't allow biological males in (as allowed by law)?

I know that there's be backlash from the TRAs but it would be yet more sunlight for the general public. I'd happily contribute.

@NecessaryScene

Wow, that article is probably worth its own thread.

For Mridul, the question of trans inclusivity ultimately goes back to the very roots of exclusion — and the failure to build an intersectional VAWG sector lies with those who helped create it and maintain institutional power today.

“These services were set up by white women, and they mainly cater to white cis women,” she says. “So, our journey to inclusion has not just begun with inclusion of trans people. It’s about the inclusion of any other minority who has been historically, and even currently, been excluded from how our services are organised.”

As always, transactivists trying to pretend women-only services somehow exclude black women. It doesn’t even make sense.

Can't we start a new support group for Sarah and othe rwomen that doesn't allow biological males in (as allowed by law)

It's certainly what's needed.

When men enter women's spaces they attempt to centre themselves. Even if women are able to complain, they eventually self-exclude and are therefore deprived of the help and support they need.

We need SOS protests here like the ones in Ireland yesterday. Does anyone know of groups organising these?

I'm so sorry for everything you've been put through @IamSarah. You are so brave for speaking up and I'm so thankful that you have.

My guess is the more publicity this type of situation gets, the more people will be peaked by this whole batshit insane ideology. How anyone can possibly take the TRA/MRA perspective on it is completely beyond me.

The main thing these days in trained professionals in funded centres when supporting a female victim of rape is to make sure that they and she have centred male needs, wishes and feelings first.

It's flat out male supremacism. It's indefensible. A male does not have a right to enforce their access to females with females told they either support this or lose access to services. This is the reality of 'inclusion'. Inclusivity excludes women. And women are being told this is righteous for their sins.

Sarah I am so bloody angry on your behalf. Males have all the options. Females enable male centrism or can gtf.

@IamSarah

Sorry, I only just read your post

You were treated in a disgusting, gaslighting manner in my opinion

I do hope you are able to access proper therapy at some point, although I have very low expecations in this respect as someone who has tried and failed to access proper, non-abusive therapy for trauma.

The trauma therapy field is awash with charlatans and useful idiots unfortunately

we all deserve better

I wanted to join a women’s circle recently. I was sent an email saying great you’re interested. All trans women are very welcome , however you identify. I replied saying I didn’t feel comfortable with a man being present and they ignored me. The world has gone mad.

@WalkOnGildedSplinters

Sarah said there was no outward physical sign that the new member was transitioning to become a woman and the recruit did not volunteer any comment about any sexual abuse that she may have suffered.

'I've no idea why she was there,' Sarah added. 'My paranoid side makes me think they were there for voyeuristic reasons. My rational side thinks they were probably there because they need help.'

I don’t think you’re paranoid, I think you’re right.

And it doesn’t matter why the transwoman was there, women deserve a single sex space.

Even Nancy Kelly begrudgingly admitted that on WH.

to @IamSarah

@IamSarah

If you think more people emailing the service might still help get the message across might be worth saying on the two threads on this now.

Appalling. Thanks for speaking up Sarah.

@IamSarah you have been very brave bringing this to a wider audience - I've seen you say before that there were a few reasons why to do so would be difficult for you which makes it even braver.

There are so many women, across the country, standing beside you in support, even if we'll never meet.