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/

Ok, so if the trans woman passes visually and aurally as a cis woman, it would be ok?

No, but if they passed that well (which hardly any do) who would know, unless they told them. Then they would be received the same as any other male.

So what you’re saying is that women need spaces free from people who look like men.

No, just from all males, regardless of identity, in these very important circumstances.

But it IS worth asking about trans men: Which group would they go to, and are there any limitations on their choice of a support group?

Here they are actually harder to support than transwomen. We have a blanket policy about transwomen but have found it harder to justify ANY policy about transmen.

They are female.

But almost all have all the surgery going and do tend to be more 'masculine' looking, keep up the voice coaching etc. So they do, unfortunately, trigger a few female clients. We have experienced this a couple of times and still don't have a policy we are comfortable with.

So we talk to them and find out which group they would prefer to be in, explain that we have to take the lead from our current clients base. Guess what? We have had no problem and understand the issues. We have had one group that was very welcoming and a second that tried but couldn't relax, the transman asked to be transferred to a mixed group. It was all so very goddamn polite and understanding on all sides. - cake was baked!

Very different from the one transwoman we had who was upset and loud. Others have agreed to go to the mixed group with no problem.

It causes us all sorts of issues as we don't always know before we meet them, at our 'secret' location. It has caused us issues with our client group that we could well do without. We have 'educated' our referral partners, but some of them just don't think!

I don’t imagine it would be very difficult for trans men to get their own funding to form their own groups.

I imagine a lot of dedicated support services for trans people could have been set up using the money wasted by Stonewall and SN trying to fight against women having single sex support.

Reed Smith could also have donated 50 hours' worth of the hourly charge out rate of the two lawyers working on this pro bono so they could get on with some actual work too.

I imagine a lot of dedicated support services for trans people could have been set up using the money wasted by Stonewall and SN trying to fight against women having single sex support.

Which proves how misogynistic their whole campaign is. Not about meeting trans people’s health and welfare needs. This needs to be publicised and pointed out at every opportunity.

You might like to know that for the last five years I have been making that point every time we make an application to various funding streams. I am not the only funding manager doing that 🤭

Finally managed to get my contribution to the garden accepted.