Apparently female rape survivors 'need' mixed sex groups

[IamSarah]

Honestly. This is what my local rape crisis centre wrote in a letter to the EHRC.

Apparently women who have been raped need to welcome trans women into the rape crisis groups as they provide amazing value and are 'needed'.

Of course they haven't actually asked female survivors. None of it is trauma informed. I've no idea what the motivation is but its dodgy as hell.

survivorsnetwork.org.uk/our-letter-to-the-equalities-and-human-rights-commission/

@LK1972
”@Discovereads I don't think anyone hates you, at least on the GC side. It appears you're GC, as you support rights to single-sex provision, where required, and you accept they are, sometimes, required. You mistake disagreement with your arguments with hate. It's not.”

oh, I don’t think anyone on this thread hates me. )Well maybe @BotCrossHuns secretly does a bit) but everyone else on this thread has been great. I was talking more in general.

Lol. In reality, there is a lot of overlap between men and women in terms of foot sizes, limb lengths, and pelvis width. So it is quite possible to pass with enough masculising or feminising surgery. There are even men and women who have had no hormones and no surgery that are able to pass as the opposite sex due to their natural androgynous features.

Lol - a quick glance at the face and you can normally be 100% certain of chromosomes let alone genitals.

You do all realise that if there were single-sex spaces for women, a man could still get in by saying he’s a woman, if he wanted to invade a space that much.
Unless you expect the people who run the sessions to check everyone’s genitals before they join a group?

This assumption that trans women will be dishonest is pretty

And saying that there is such a thing as a 'man who says he's a woman' - if someone says they are a woman, that's what they are, isn't it?

But at the moment, there isn't a rule that's being broken. Transwomen are perfectly allowed in the women's group at this centre. She is asking for a group where they are not allowed. Yes, that might mean some people break the rules and try to use it anyway, but women are less likely to encounter a male-bodied person if the women's only group is available. So it IS necessary to provide this group in order to effectively meet the needs of all victims. It doesn't mean it's a perfect solution that can't prevent any man ever trying to use it, but it is better than having no groups available. Again, don't let perfect be the enemy of the good.

Other groups welcome transwomen, which is great - inclusive women's groups, and trans groups, and people are generally fully supportive of such services being provided as well.

@Discovereads it appears you have misunderstood. Those statements were made in the context of responding to a letter which suggested that women’s rape crisis meetings were massively enriched by including men who claim they are women and that such women NEED these men in their groups.

No woman in a women’s group NEEDS men in there. Most women are rightly outraged by such an extremist statement. No wonder the responses to such a ludicrous suggestion are strong.

The demand itself for female only women's groups is legal and not extremist, it’s some of the arguments being put forth in support that are extremist in language and tone

Those quotes are not extremist. It is reasonable, sensible and entirely based on women's lived experiences for women to be suspicious of a male in spaces where women are discussing their sexual assaults. It is naive in the extreme to think that only well-intentioned men will enter those spaces as they become opened to them. And of course there is no way to assess the intentions of the males who do when the ideology attacks ferociously anyone questioning the legitimacy of anyone's gender identity or expression.

Nor or is extreme for an actual survivor of male violence to point out that survivors needs men around like a hole in the head. Or does her lived experience not count? And no, she does not need to qualify that statement with 'NAWALT'

Nor is it extreme to say that it is not for 'professionals' to say what is good for female survivors without even consulting or researching what they think. That research has been done actually, and women using services were very clear on the need for women only spaces. The fact that research is now not been done on the effects of mixed sex spaces on women when they are vulnerable tells you everything you need to know about how this policy shift is ideology and not evidence led. Its standard practice in public services to do pilots on big policy changes and have robust evaluations. The fact that this is not being done on this major policy shift speaks volumes.

In fact, it shows just how low down the pecking order women are that these statements are considered 'extreme'.

@Discovereads

Not many as a proportion do pass though. I mean, look at some of the very high profile ones who are supposedly "passing" and it is actually quite obvious. And most do not achieve anywhere close to that.

I agree with you.

@Discovereads You appear to be tone-policing women who are, as Currywurst points out, are outraged that their demands for a legally mandated provision is met with 'women NEED transwomen in their spaces', by the organization responsible for that provision. The Survivors Network are quite deliberately NOT utilizing the exceptions available through legislation, because the DO NOT AGREE that women need them.

Do we need to be outraged more politely, making sure we don't hurt anyone's feelings in the process, like yours? After all, you seem to be objecting to the WAY the outrage is expressed, rather than the reasons for the outrage.

Please give us an example of 'reasonable' objection to the clear untruth that women NEED transwomen in their spaces, that no one will object to?

Sarah’s problem is that there was someone who looked like a man in the women’s session, which made her uncomfortable.

If this person was indeed a man, trying to invade the women’s space, then I’m saying he could do that in a cis woman’s space by saying he is a cis woman.

If this person is a woman, then why should she not be in the women’s space? Because she looks like how Sarah thinks a man should look? It’s not like she’s waving her penis around.

Surely if it wasn't a man that was all they needed to say?

I have yet to meet a transperson who passed
I have yet to meet a women I mistook for male

There are so many markers - voice, attitude , body motion

@Hedgehog12 Where organisations utilize legal exceptions to guarantee single-sex provision they somehow manage to screen out men, although you appear to be certain it's impossible to tell men from tall, skinny women. Perhaps they use dogs? Many rescue dogs are terrified of men, and are able to distinguish them from women, at all times? Or maybe they use their eyes, ears, brains and common sense, who knows.

I hope you're not trying to procreate Hedgehog, it'll be a long and difficult trial-and-error process for you I'm afraid.

Fuck me the number of people still pretending that we literally can’t tell the difference between men & women

no foot size, or leg length in of themselves are not inductors but when combined with everything such as pelvis width, smell, size of forehead etc then yes it perfectly possible to tell which is how the human race has managed to bloody reproduce!

see for example missy franklin Abd Ryan lochte. They are the same height & wingspan but it’s blindly obvious which one is a man & which one is a woman

Obviously in the vast majority you can tell by sight, but if someone claims otherwise, what are you gonna do about it?

My feelings are not hurt in the slightest by extremist arguments. I’m just pointing out they’re not factually true and represent an illogical extreme which is ultimately counter productive, which isn’t tone policing.

Its not tone policing to object to women presuming to speak for all female survivors (which include myself) and attributing to all female survivors opinions and needs (which are not opinions or needs I have). There’s nothing wrong with speaking up and saying, that may be your opinion/need but please do not presume that it applies to all of we female survivors.

I haven't had time to read this thread with the attention it requires. However, I'm confused. Discovereads seems to believe what most people here believe - that women should be able to access support in an all-female environment. Yet she seems to be trying to distance herself and place herself as some "middle way". I think people here also hold the middle way, by and large. No-one's trying to stop TW getting support.

If this person was indeed a man, trying to invade the women’s space, then I’m saying he could do that in a cis woman’s space by saying he is a cis woman.

I don't know what you mean by 'cis' but the thread is about single-sex groups, not gendered ones. No-one's asking for a 'cis woman''s group, because that assumes something about gender, which is not relevant.

This. This. This.

Nothing shows the reality denial that this ideology is based on more than its need to pretend that we cannot tell what sex someone is by looking at them, even though all of our entire and daily life experiences tell us that we can. They are a tiny proportion of people whose sex is not obvious from first glance - for everyone else - its obvious. We have evolved to do be able to do this for the purposes of reproduction.

If this person is a woman, then why should she not be in the women’s space? Because she looks like how Sarah thinks a man should look? For all history woman has referred to a female's sex. For this sentence to make sense, you have to throw out that meaning and replace it with? With what? What is that person identifying as? You have to be able to define what they are identifying as, and your movement just can't do that.
That person should not be in that space as they are male, and that space is a space for women recovering from male violence, and the women there have a right to do that without males listening to their accounts, and without doubts as to the motivations of the people at that group. Sarah has explained what this meant to her very articulately. If that has no resonance or power for you, you should not be commenting on what women's sexual violence recovery services should look like. No-one who can't understand that should be.

If someone who is obviously male tries to enter a female only space, by claiming they are a woman they should be told they cannot enter and be directed to the men's services, or trans specific services.

I'm sorry @Discovereads, I just don't see your examples from this thread as extremist.

'Itscalledmisogyny · 30/04/2022 21:23
This is just shocking misogyny. Women who have been raped do not need or want anyone with a penis in their safe spaces. Anyone claiming they do - without even bothering to ask the female rape victims, just speaking over them, is an out and out misogynist.'

Do YOU 'need or want anyone with a penis in their safe spaces', or do you merely NOT object when that is situation you find yourself in?

'IamSarah · 30/04/2022 21:35
Of course female rape survivors don’t need to be around males, the embodiment of their abusers. They need it like a hole in the head.'

Again, factual statement, not extremism. Women rape survivors categorically DO NOT NEED to be around males, although some, like yourself, are fine with it.

'777magic · 01/05/2022 06:34
At the end of the day, it is a strange male and we don't know their intentions so they should never be in any women only space.'

You may be happy with a strange male in a previously women-only place, but many women are not, and are actively harmed by these males' presence through inability to use the service anymore. Hence the existence of the legal exceptions. What in earth is extreme about this?

Just catching up.
Utter madness. No woman who has been raped wants a penis near them.

If this person is a woman, then why should she not be in the women’s space? Because she looks like how Sarah thinks a man should look? It’s not like she’s waving her penis around.

But of course, if "she" was, that would be fine too, eh? See the defences of Wi Spa and that bloke who was literally taking pictures of himself naked with an erection in a women's shelter - the shelter actually defended him.

At this stage there is nothing that will not be defended when a man does it in a woman's space.

Which is exactly why it's so much more important than ever to keep them out.

That's the thing I failed to understand when I first heard of a crackdown on "transwomen" - those US bathroom bills. Turns out women are finding themselves having to become hardline on male admission because they see they can no longer rely on any sort of support when a problem arises.

What I feel is desperately (deliberately) lost in all of this is the women who have experienced male violence.

If we want to get into a pissing contest about who is the most marginalised, those women are very, very, very high on the list. I'm a survivor of childhood abuse (thanks dad) and by the age of 15, I was close to anorexic, I used to pull my own hair out, I was self-harming and I had what I now understand to have been selective mutism because I was so frightened of men. Not just him. All men. The anxiety that it caused, living with a violent bully, was indescribable. By the time my mother finally left him when I was 17, I was in a dreadful state. I dropped out of school and spent a year effectively in hiding. The one place that I could go was the gym at the local swimming pool which ran a female only session once a week, back when female only was allowed to mean female only, and they didn't even have any male staff on duty. I could walk there, I could go in the building without having a panic attack, I could use the gym, I could talk to the (older) women there, and it was such an important part of my recovery from him in that first year and I went there because I knew that I would not have to interact with any men. Because in that first year, I couldn't interact with men. I would panic and run home, or be unable to get on the bus if the driver was male, or lock myself in a public toilet and be unable to come out. I would freeze and be unable to speak. And I managed it by avoiding situations in which I'd have to have any contact with men.

I got over the fear though it's never gone completely, and I can deal with men now. But it took a long time and while I was in recovery, female only spaces were everything. I will not and cannot pretend that a mixed sex space is a female only space.

The fact that we are now facing a situation in which women like me are being told our needs are selfish and that there's something wrong with us for our response to what men have done to us makes me feel ill.

Helen Joyce just did an interview with American therapist Stephanie Winn - taking this opportunity to publicise it. There she cites an example of this "value" being provided:

I will say the first time I ever had experience with a quote-unquote "transgender" person in the mental health system was back in California around 2014, when I was working in a residential setting. We were helping primarily 18- to 24-year-olds with severe and persistent mental illness, so we're talking of schizoaffective disorder, schizophrenia, severe bipolar disorder. Most of our patients there were... Our facility was basically a step down from full hospitalisation. So it was a pretty intensive program.

And we had a young person who was male, and very large, and very male, and there was very little that was even feminine-presenting about this person, but who had some kind of psychosis. I don't know all of what was going on because I wasn't this person's primary counsellor; I was just responsible for admissions and for kind of day-to-day stuff. But I remember there being some internal debate over where to place this person, because rooms were shared by sex and because he identified as a "she" the director insisted that we place him with a female.

The female he was placed with was a young woman with complex trauma from, you know, childhood sexual abuse and she ran away. That was my first exposure to where this ideology can lead. I think that that was mishandled and also kind of tragically predictable. I mean what do you think is going to happen if you take someone who's already having a really rough go, you know, enough to need to be hospitalised, enough to need to be in an inpatient facility, and then you tell her that "we're here to help you heal - come here and get better, we're going to teach you life skills, we're going to help you get on your feet. Oh, and by the way, here's this 300-pound male who you have to go to bed in the same room as." Who will stick around for that?