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Original poster

Big update on Rape Crisis legal challenge

1000 replies

IamSarah · 29/04/2022 13:29

I know many of you have been waiting for an update so first of all thank you for your patience and the many messages of support.

I am suing Survivors Network, the Sussex Rape Crisis service, as it refused to offer a single sex women’s group in addition to the mixed sex women’s groups. By mixed sex I mean inclusive of any males who identify as women.

I’ve been granted anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the case and it was submitted to Brighton County Court today.

I am being represented by law firm Didlaw and my Barrister is Naomi Cunningham (Chair of Sex Matters). So far they have acted pro bono which I am incredibly grateful for as it has taken a lot of time. The team are confident I have a good case but this is unchartered territory for women’s rights.

Many of you have very kindly offered to be involved and help with gardening. I don’t think I’m allowed to share details on here so please go to my Twitter page http://twitter.com/SarahSurviving/ which has all the info in a pinned post.

Of you’re not on Twitter feel free to send me a DM for more information on how you can help the case. Any publicity you can give the crowd funder would really help.

Thank you everyone.

Sarah x

OP posts:
Thread gallery
25
Artichokeleaves · 03/05/2022 21:49

Fenlandia · 03/05/2022 21:04

Do these TRA apologists work off the same hymn sheet? It's just like the one in Scotland telling women to reframe their trauma

Well, again it's useful to be able to say this in reply to TRAs.

TW need to reframe their trauma and go use male spaces.
TW need to reframe their boundaries and stay in male prisons.

What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander: if it's now all the fashion to be a cruel and uncaring fuckwit then everyone gets the cruel and uncaring fuckwit treatment equally. Not with a sex based privilege exemption card for penis bearers.

DodoPatrol · 03/05/2022 22:26

Artichokeleaves · 03/05/2022 16:57

Not general male services, which could well be cruel

How is this any crueller than telling female rape survivors to crack on with mixed sex groups or go without help? If it's ok to treat females like this, then it's ok to treat males like this too.

Are we back to the pre 19th century idea that females are this sub species that don't feel pain or emotion to the same extent that 'real' humans do? ie the male ones? And isn't this binary sex based thinking of one group who matter more and one group who matter less, and the defining feature of those groups is their biology? Which kind of totally fucks up the idea that the male people should be in the female provision because women, and no difference.

It isn’t ‘crueller’. It would be cruel if the trans service was not available. The trans service is available, so this is not a problem for transwomen. And anywhere without a trans service needs to get bloody Stonewall to pull its finger out, stop pointlessly ‘reeducating’ people and fund one.

But we need single sex provision for women.

It’s neither ok to treat women so dismissively nor to treat transwomen or transmen (do they get a mention?) that way. It shouldn’t be a race to the bottom.

Triotriotrio · 03/05/2022 22:52

Anyone know if NHS England commission this Rape Crisis Centre? Because this seems to go against section 8.4 of their specification:

SARCs specifically have a responsibility to assure the effective implementation of the
Equality Act as women and girls are the major group of sexually assaulted people.

There is also a significant cohort of men and boys who may be at risk of child sexual
abuse

Available here: www.england.nhs.uk/commissioning/health-just/sexual-assault-and-abuse/

If they do it might be worth raising with NHS England too...

MrsDanversBroom · 04/05/2022 00:26

CatherinaJTV · 01/05/2022 11:04

Above all, it is going to drain resources from the rape crisis centre that would have otherwise supported victims of sexual assault, so it is a very very slow clap from me.

Just DFOD

RhannionKPSS · 04/05/2022 03:18

CatherinaJTV · 01/05/2022 11:04

Above all, it is going to drain resources from the rape crisis centre that would have otherwise supported victims of sexual assault, so it is a very very slow clap from me.

No, it won’t and we don’t need your sarcasm and your predicable pandering HTH

Cismyfatarse · 04/05/2022 07:30

This was in the Times. Then no longer there. I have screenshots but it isn't allowing me to add them. Usually fine but must be new upgraded site issues. Will keep trying.

Cismyfatarse · 04/05/2022 07:39

Managed it.

Cismyfatarse · 04/05/2022 07:41

No. Sorry. Epic fail. Happy to send if OP can't get it another way. Let me know here and I will check DMs for a way of sending it.

Original poster
IamSarah · 04/05/2022 08:36

Yes please @Cismyfatarse if you could DM me.

The story has been picked up by the Mail too.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10779947/amp/Rape-victims-legal-fight-transgender-woman-allowed-access-female-support-group.html

OP posts:
334bu · 04/05/2022 12:04

Thanks for link.

LK1972 · 04/05/2022 17:32

Good article by Josephine Bartosch unherd.com/thepost/the-survivors-network-succumbs-to-gender-ideology/

Cismyfatarse · 04/05/2022 18:32

It looks like this might work now.

Big update on Rape Crisis legal challenge
Big update on Rape Crisis legal challenge
Runningupthecurtains · 05/05/2022 23:50

Sarah as a Sussex resident (and human being capable of empathy) I have a made a small contribution to your fund. I have also had a very interesting conversation with DH who need me to explain three times before he could get his head around the notion of three groups available to a TW but none available to traumatized women who didn't want to relive her experience in front of a male person. He stammered "but, but that must be challengeable in court" so I told him that was what you were doing and he asked for the funding link.

Hoardasaurusterf · 06/05/2022 00:20

IamSarah · 03/05/2022 15:04

In answer to your question @Beowulfa I can copy the arguments that the RC sent me word for word.

It basically says men who identify as women are the most marginalised in society and women who have been raped must centre the feelings of trans people over their own and make them feel especially welcome:

From SN:

We recognise that the law allows organisations to legally exempt certain women (e.g., trans women) from women-only spaces and that some organisations have chosen to adopt this as their approach. However, for us, this approach would be problematic as we do not police gender and we do not define who is and is not a woman; we allow women to define this for themselves. Within allowing women to define this for themselves, it would feel incongruent to then run groups which specifically exclude a certain group of women, particularly where this group of women are amongst the most marginalised in society.

As such, we will not be running groups specifically for those AFAB as you have requested as it contravenes our principles to treat women as experts in themselves and their experiences, including how they define themselves.

We have previously run specific spaces for groups of women who struggle to access mainstream services (we refer to them as ‘specialist groups’) and they may be available for women from particular religious groups, women from the trans community, disabled women etc. Women who can access specialist groups are always able to access our mainstream services as well. We would never use this as an opportunity to limit attendance at these services as the overall aim of offering these separate spaces for under- represented groups is to enable them to feel able and welcomed to access the mainstream services.

Furthermore, we know from speaking to trans communities that trans women do not access women only services if they do not feel especially welcomed as they are not welcomed in so many spaces across their lives (either explicitly or in more subtle ways).

Gosh what a load of nonsense that statement is! So woke and open minded with their shite about not policing gender and women AFAB 🙄 not being a group worthy of its own space🤬
And the last paragraph scolding women for not being more welcoming to men appropriating womens spaces for themselves! Tut tut women just be kind 🙄🙄🙄

Original poster
IamSarah · 07/05/2022 10:47

Runningupthecurtains · 05/05/2022 23:50

Sarah as a Sussex resident (and human being capable of empathy) I have a made a small contribution to your fund. I have also had a very interesting conversation with DH who need me to explain three times before he could get his head around the notion of three groups available to a TW but none available to traumatized women who didn't want to relive her experience in front of a male person. He stammered "but, but that must be challengeable in court" so I told him that was what you were doing and he asked for the funding link.

Thank you so much to you and DH - every contribution helps.

OP posts:
TheWeeDonkey · 07/05/2022 11:18

I do think its a certain kind of evil for a person who chooses to work with survivors of rape and abuse to tell them they need to "reframe" their trauma and boundaries to centre males.

Don't get me started on "most marginalised" it enrages me! I can think of at least 10 groups off the top of my head who are way more marginalised who's voices are never heard because they aren't part of the sacred caste.

BethnalGreenBambinos · 10/05/2022 09:28

Bump. Total raised is steadily increasing.

Original poster
IamSarah · 10/05/2022 16:30

Thanks for the bump. Almost half way to target.

Thank you again to all the gardeners Flowers

OP posts:
FemaleAndLearning · 10/05/2022 21:05

IamSarah I thank you from the bottom of my heart for doing this for me, my daughters, my mother, sister, aunts, nieces, grandmother and my women friends.
I've made another contribution, this nonsense has to end. Not by women being educated and reframing our trauma but by being fair and not capitulating to men who think they have the right to push us out of everything. I'm so bloody angry about this. I've shared elsewhere too. I'm not a lawyer but it certainly looks like you have been did ruminated against. Three bloody choices for men and men who say they are women and fuck all for women.
Good luck and take no shit from the activists. They don't deserve the time of day from you xxx

thirdfiddle · 10/05/2022 23:50

Seems like orgs are afraid that if they offer a women only option, lots of women will want to use it and there won't be enough demand to sustain the mixed sex women's groups.

Schroedinger's feminists again. Until you open the box, you have no idea if they're a handful of US millionare right wing fundamentalists or the majority of the female population.

Artichokeleaves · 11/05/2022 08:52

Seems like orgs are afraid that if they offer a women only option, lots of women will want to use it and there won't be enough demand to sustain the mixed sex women's groups.

I've seen this about 'we can't provide female only toilets because they'll all want to use them and no one will go in the mixed sex ones but Layla Moran'.

Tough. You meet the needs of the population in front of you, in proportional ways. You do not deny 50% of the human race because less than 1% of the other 50% don't want you to unless you are an extremist nutjob.

Runningupthecurtains · 11/05/2022 09:01

Artichokeleaves · 11/05/2022 08:52

Seems like orgs are afraid that if they offer a women only option, lots of women will want to use it and there won't be enough demand to sustain the mixed sex women's groups.

I've seen this about 'we can't provide female only toilets because they'll all want to use them and no one will go in the mixed sex ones but Layla Moran'.

Tough. You meet the needs of the population in front of you, in proportional ways. You do not deny 50% of the human race because less than 1% of the other 50% don't want you to unless you are an extremist nutjob.

Nahh because we are a tiny minority of women (possibly one woman and a lot of socks) and the major don't care about sharing spaces with TW so it should be fine. In fact if it is only a few women who think that men can't be women I sure that means we should get everything we desire because tiny minorities are special and important and should be pandered to.

Original poster
IamSarah · 11/05/2022 10:50

It seems my case has shaken up a lot of trans activists as it shows how completely unreasonable it is to deny female rape survivors a space where they feel safe.

They've tried insisting that I want to deny trans survivors from getting help - not true

They've tried insisting that sex segregation for female rape survivors is like apartheid - ridiculous and racist.

They keep shouting that I'm a bigot and weaponising my trauma - clear lack of empathy.

It's really unpleasant but shows how desperately needed single sex rape crisis services are.

OP posts:
Helleofabore · 11/05/2022 11:04

I am sorry S that you have had to face those extreme reactions.

I saw some of it on twitter and it was detestable that blue ticks were simply lacking the critical thinking to see what it was that you were asking for, and were wholly focused on ensuring that certain males got access to every space that was available.

Original poster
IamSarah · 11/05/2022 11:28

Thanks yes it is detestable. I'm sure Survivors Network knew I would be a TRA target after releasing their pack of lies misleading statement.

Predictable headline in Prick News 'Rape Crisis Centre Sued for Helping Trans People'

I guess the truth doesn't have quite the same ring to it:

'Rape Crisis Centre sued for refusing to offer one female only group for traumatised rape survivors despite offering multiple mixed sex, trans inclusive women's groups and a dedicated support group just for trans survivors'

Was hoping SN would correct their statement but it's not looking likely.

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