More on Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre

[ChristinaXYZ]

Interesting thread on twitter about Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre advertising for self-identifying women as volunteers. Malcolm argues this is due to previous inaction by EHRC Scotland with regard to single sex exemptions.

twitter.com/Obsolesence/status/1467971487697145872

archive.md/1BuaE

Yes . Deliberately provocative move. This service is no longer viable and women have to set up something separate . Of course if no women go, the men won’t have anything to do that is very interesting so it will fold. Very very sad for the women that are still being assaulted and raped who need support.

Oof! That was well written.

Shocking that they are repeating the nifty little side step they did last time. Leaves them wide open to law suits, I would have thought!

A cynical person might say that critical organisations are being changed from within, and diverted from the original purpose of these organisations.

I work/volunteer in a sector that is directly at risk from this.

We have been formulating a legal defence for a while.

Last two years I worked hard on rewriting funding bids, defending our work with sme funding streams.

So far we have been lucky and all trans individuals have been accommodated without any direct negatve impact on our women's services.

But the indirect impact is huge: time. money, concerted effort, ongoing discussions and challenges. It is never ending.

We here, at the pointy end of things, won't be swayed. But I fear yet more of the larger organisations we rely on soon will be

I'm sorry, Hoarding. It's absurd and infuriating that so much of women's time and effort is having to be expended on this fight, to confirm basic reality that is so obvious and well known nobody could have ever imagined it would be challenged.

There is so much to be done. Think of all the energy that we could be expending on protecting women and girls, fighting for women's safety and challenging gender stereotypes, if we weren't simultaneously having to explain biology and logic.

May things change soon, and may women use all that we've learned in this extra struggle to improve the lives of women and girls.

Interesting that the advert specifies that they want women from underrepresented groups to apply. I assume this is because they recognise that for many women talking about extremely distressing events in their lives it is helpful to talk to women with whom they have a linguistic, ethnic, cultural or sexual communality, something I can understand. Which makes it all the more strange that women who merely ask to be mentored and counselled by other women are told they are being phobic and are denied the service.

Thank you @HoardingSamphireSaurus to you and your organisation for holding the line.

A cynical person might say that critical organisations are being changed from within, and diverted from the original purpose of these organisations.

That is exactly what happened in the case of the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre. People got on the board which culminated in an annual general meeting in 2018 where the the articles of incorporation were changed to include men and boys . Prior to this, there were several years of small changes. This slow car crash can be seen by reading the filings at Companies House.

If women want to protect rape crisis centres, they need to understand the organizational structures, join the organizations, attend AGMs and get elected to the boards.

As someone who has been a client of such services , and is now a supporter and fundraiser, I find what is going on abhorrent. If my local centre does this, they will lose my support (and fundraising!)

That’s a bat signal for any predatory male to go volunteer to get access to vulnerable women. Considering any man can this second say he identifies as female and walk in as a volunteer, I can’t see how this is at all done in good faith. They are putting women who have been assaulted by men in the crosshairs for what is basically a social experiment.

And for what? To prove what point? This is all about theatrics and validation of males over the safety and safeguarding of women and girls. And we all know that all it takes is on predatory male to infliltrate and wreak havoc.. and then more women and girls are left broken and shattered.

At what point do we say enough is enough? It’s the blatant disregard and trampling of the safety and the desire of women to have any male free space from men that makes me angry.

Any male can identify as a woman and gain access to a rape crises centre and people are acting like this is ok and normal. You need to ask yourself why they are so intent on getting into women only spaces.

In the case of the ERCC, it took apathy or connivance of female organization members to allow this to happen. People joined the organization as members. Members elected the board and members ratified the changes to the articles of incorporation. What is needed is for people to become voting members of these organizations (depending, of course, on organizational structure).

I just want to say that I'm sick of living in a state of constant vigilance.
Especially as I've just seen yet another man wail 'why aren't feminists doing anything about this'.

@ChristinaXYZ

Thank you *@HoardingSamphireSaurus* to you and your organisation for holding the line.

Not me. I only volunteer behind the scenes for them.

I am regular front of house in the food bank though. It's a loose association of about 15 local community charities, we share some of our repetitive Admin tasks and volunteers.

The apathy with which this is being treated by EHRC etc is really worrying.

Isn't the EHRC about to release an attempt to give clear guidance to these issues???

The apathy with which this is being treated by EHRC etc is really worrying.

Not sure if you mean ERCC (Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre). The trouble is that the Articles of Incorporation were changed by the membership in an annual general meeting and the ERCC is now acting acting within its redefined remit, men, boys, transwomen are now included. To become a member and be able to vote, you have to join the organization. This is NOT the same as being an employee.

It will be very difficult to change this organization back to being women only, because other language has been introduced to define who is eligible to join and therefore vote at the AGM.

@Thelnebriati

A cynical person might say that critical organisations are being changed from within, and diverted from the original purpose of these organisations.

It doesn't really count as a "conspiracy theory" when the baddy is on record going, "Here is my evil plan! Mwah ha ha ha!!"

"Resisting TERF’s and Transforming Their Organizations"
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3921532-Resisting-TERF-s-and-Transforming-Their-Organizations

The sort of women who are responsible for what has happened at ERCC get an honourable mention as the "allies" that enable the takeover of existing organisations.

BTW the same person also wrote an article arguing for the abolition of Sex Offender Registers because they "discriminate against trans people".

"No More Registries, No More Fear"
<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190821145026/medium.com/@laura.izaguirre/no-more-registries-no-more-fear-22d2776f963" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20190821145026/medium.com/@laura.izaguirre/no-more-registries-no-more-fear-22d2776f963

Like they say, when someone tells you who they are, believe them.

JFC

In the case of the ERCC, it took apathy or connivance of female organization members to allow this to happen. People joined the organization as members. Members elected the board and members ratified the changes to the articles of incorporation. What is needed is for people to become voting members of these organizations (depending, of course, on organizational structure).

YY.

That is exactly what happened in the case of the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre. People got on the board which culminated in an annual general meeting in 2018 where the the articles of incorporation were changed to include men and boys . Prior to this, there were several years of small changes. This slow car crash can be seen by reading the filings at Companies House.

From what I saw, they are mostly very young women. As I said on another thread no one should be using rape survivors to push their political agendas which are detrimental to the people they claim to want to help.

Great post Marshmallow I completely agree
I hope the media picks up on this, it’s an absolute travesty

I do some volunteer work for an organisation which also provides female only supported accommodation. Apparently Facebook recently pulled their posts looking for female only support staff because they breached community guidelines. I don't know if that means someone complained to FB about the (perfectly legal in terms of UK Equality Act 2010) job requirements or if FB themselves have some kind of algorithm that filters these things out. Absolutely infuriating because they do great work.

That's awful.