JKR opens a new support and advocacy service for women in Edinburgh

[ArabellaScott]

Amazing.

Suzanne Moore reports on the opening of 'Beira's Place':

'Beira’s Place is not a shelter or a drop-in. Rather, women will come, their needs will be assessed and then the appropriate therapy and help will be found for them. For free.

Sex-based crime in Scotland has been rising since 1974. Jo Rowling talks of answering unmet needs “As a survivor of sexual assault myself, I know how important it is that survivors have the option of women-centred and women-delivered care at such a vulnerable time.”

There are clearly so many unmet needs – waiting lists are huge for rape crisis centres all over the UK. Lack of funding is a key issue.

What Rowling has done here is astonishing. She has not only bought the building but is funding the entire service. This is not a charity. It does not depend on the whims of whoever is in power. While Rowling is covering the core costs, if people want to support it, they possibly could do so in future by donating towards extras such as service users’ travel or childcare expenses.'

....

'These women are fighting against male violence, and they really know what they are dealing with. Kerr and Domminney have between them more than three decades’ experience of running Glasgow and Clyde Rape Crisis. And Rowling has handpicked her dream team of board directors to support them: Rhona Hotchkiss, a former nurse, prison governor and advisor to the Scottish Government; Johann Lamont, Labour and Cooperative MSP, and a lifelong campaigner for the rights for women; Dr Margaret McCartney, a GP, academic and broadcaster; and Susan Smith, co-director of For Women Scotland, the largest grassroots women’s organisation in the country.'

suzannemoore.substack.com/p/an-exclusive-interview-with-jk-rowling?publication_id=22356

JKR gives the women of Edinburgh a wonderful early Christmas present. Thank you, JK. 🌟

Exactly.

The best and most failsafe way to ensure success is for male persons not to try to access this service, then the issue will not arise.

You really have to wonder why this appears to be so difficult.

I'm not interested in defining what "woman" or "gender" or "trans" means. I'm not setting up the service and I'm not trans and I don't think that's for me to do.

What I do know about is binary classification systems. You can't say, "you can always tell", just because you can sometimes tell.

You'd need to know that you have never got it wrong when you've tried to judge the sex someone was born, based on their presentation when you meet them. I just don't know how anyone can confidently say that.

I don't think the issue will not arise just because no one who is not permitted to access the service does not try to. The service won't know this in advance so they'll still have to make some sort of determination.

I'm not interested in defining what "woman" or "gender" or "trans" means. I'm not setting up the service and I'm not trans and I don't think that's for me to do.

What I do know about is binary classification systems. You can't say, "you can always tell", just because you can sometimes tell.

Why have you concluded that 'trans' is a binary state then, if you don't know what it is?
I don't believe 'you can always tell' someone's sex. I believe you usually can. But you are talking about whether someone is trans or not, not their sex.

For example, I'm female. I call myself a woman. I might also be described as 'trans'.
How would this description affect whether I am my sex or not?

Why have you concluded that 'trans' is a binary state then, if you don't know what it is?

You're right - the service says it's for females so it would have been more accurate to say that the binary classification system is whether a person is female, rather than whether they're trans. I don't think it changes the essential point though.

@ireadbooks

Your post is extremely flawed. Scrap the Jewish comparison for a start, that's not even in the same universe.

This service is not a refuge, and that is key.

Any males trying to access the system are going to be found out eventually if not at first attempt. They're not walking directly into a refuge with vulnerable women and I expect the layers of safeguarding will be water tight. You've exceptionally experienced experts on that board, including those who've worked within prisons.

This particular debate is worthwhile though as it illustrates the lunacy of self ID.

Well hang on - it seems exactly the same to me and I am Jewish, which doesn't necessarily mean I'm right but at least gives me a degree of insight. What is wrong about it?

I think I'm going to assume the impressive group of women leading this project will have thought about what they'll do in the various scenarios ireadbooks presents.

Look, some males might pass well enough that you don't notice on first or second glance. You will when they start speaking, though.

And I guess we're talking about predatory males who are trying to access this service by deceit. Every other rape service is open to males so why would someone in genuine need go to the one place that is specifically women-only?

I'm 100% confident that Beira's Place has a well-worked out policy on this and have considered all the possible ramifications. I don't think you need to be concerned books.

People can tell if someone is male or female. On the rare occasion when they can't, they might get it wrong. And that's just a chance they'll have to take.

A situation where they can't tell, and they ask for id and they still can't tell, is, in my opinion, going to be so rare as to not be an issue.

Yes, that makes more sense. Don't get caught up in the mindset that 'trans automatically means opposite sex'.

So then you're just assessing whether someone is female or not. Which I think in most cases will be clear. And as discussed, it would surely be unlikely for a male to both pass as female and have the desire to access this particular service.

It's also highly likely that the service will include sign posting to specific medical / psych staff who will have access to medical records.

Unfortunately we cannot stop predators 100% which is why services like this are vital.

If a person born male invades this space, he is a predator.

Any trans identifying male who tries to access this service will surely just be signposted to Edinburgh Rape Crisis centre.

What I am not clear on is where women who need a single sex shelter provision can be signposted to under the current regime. Will new spaces be created?

Regarding the how will they tell question.

I'm going to use the wonderful Blair White here as an example. When you first see Blair on the internet Blair looks like a woman. When you first hear Blair speak a couple of sentences Blair sounds like a woman.

However I was shown a video originally without knowing who I was watching. Within less than two minutes of watching one of Blair's videos for the first time I was under no illusions that I was watching a man. Thankfully Blair is under no illusion either and knows the people watching can tell they are a man.

Blair is very short, very petite, takes hormones, has lovely long hair, well manicured nails, expertly applied make-up, and has had a lot of feminising surgery. And still we can tell Blair is male.

I honestly don't think the women running JKR's new service are going to have to resort to genital checks.

I honestly don't think the women running JKR's new service are going to have to resort to genital checks.

Exactly. They'll just turn them away. And if they're wrong, they're wrong.

I have no idea what a Jewish person looks like but I know what a man looks like.
Presumably if someone did look “typically” Jewish (dark clothes, hat, hair covering, wig) then they could wear different clothes and no longer look Jewish.
It doesn’t matter what a man wears, he looks like a man

The only way I could pick out someone of the Jewish faith would be if I was sat outside a synagogue watching everyone come out.

I couldn't tell you if the people I pass in the street are of a certain faith or from a certain place but I sure as hell can tell the men from the women.

So if a few men want to act in bad faith and access a service that they know legally can exclude them, in order to better help the women who need the service, despite there being plenty of other places that will provide the men with exactly the help they need then you have to question the motives of the men trying to access the space.

I'm finding the Jewish issue totally ridiculous and laughable. There are indeed people on this planet who think that you are either one of the Chosen or you are not. There is a special name for this philosophy, which I won't name because it would derail this thread. Maybe that's what is intended? Not going to 'bite'.

The difference between the sexes is pretty much universally recognisable. Nobody needs to look into anyone else's underwear, other than in extremely rare medical cases of intersex.

Men, we can spot you. It's an instinctive reflex to categorise people according to sex. There are good reasons biologically for it and forcing women to misidentify men as women is actually harmful.

Making us all engage in an unwilling suspension of disbelief doesn't make you a woman.

We can tell. Always.

Let's assume that there's a transwoman who passes so well they get to use the service and the people there don't spot they're not of the permitted sex. Does that really matter when the service is free to exclude the Wadhwa types, the Drummond types, the Yaniv types, etc.

It's the same fallacy that trans activists always roll out: if your safeguarding isn't flawless, if it doesn't work perfectly and 100% of the time, there's no point having it.

I'm trying to imagine people arguing that someone can't have a "no dogs" rule, because "what about dogs that look like cats?"

It's just not a problem in reality.

Which is why we do sex segregation when we do it. Because it's easy.

Pretending simple things are complicated is a great way to fake sophistication though.

Yes I'm sure it's true that you can tell the sex someone was born with higher accuracy than whether they're Jewish. The example was to illustrate that people can be over-confident of how accurate they are, because they don't know about the false negatives. And I think some people's responses in this thread indicate that is the case. Maybe you can always tell - I don't know - but you don't know either.

I agree that it's extremely unlikely that anyone who is not permitted to use the service is going to try to access it.

Didnt the woman who runs the Giggle app have this problem and uses facial recognition? Which, as far as I know, was 100% accurate.

A man who was convinced he passed as a woman tried 40 times to access the app, and was rejected each time. Much to his fury.

People can tell, for the most part, every time. If they can't, and it becomes an issue, steps will be taken, I have no doubt. None of which will involve looking at genitals.

The only people trying to use this service under false pretenses will be men.

The example was to illustrate that people can be over-confident of how accurate they are, because they don't know about the false negatives.

You're making some patronising assumptions about the women running this service (and also posters on this board, most of whom I'm sure understand the concept of false negatives perfectly well.)

The question is how much a false negative would matter in practice. If a hypothetical TW who genuinely 'passed' - both in appearance and behaviour turned up at Beira's place innocently not realising it was single sex - then that person wouldn't be a problem for the women using the service. Which is what matters. Not scoring points but serving the needs of those women.