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. 🌟

God she's FANTASTIC. What a warrior for women's rights!

IWs tweets and the replies to them right now are awful:

twitter.com/IndiaWilloughby/status/1602261429150687232?t=5y3WDAcONy3-f5gi4ieXvg&s=19

Despite myself I did go and look for who might be kicking up a stink. And I don't want to focus on that instead of JKR's bloody brilliant work, but they are surely showing themselves up to be more stupid and blinkered than almost ever before.

Lots of crying about this being done out of 'spite' and out of a desire to 'radicalise people at their lowest'. It is insane this is what they take away.

IW said it excludes women who are trans, but presumably if you only consider "women" who are male.

I still get so many emails and letters from women who just want to ask questions: teaching assistants who see no big deal in little boys wearing dresses

@ResisterRex

I am confused by this. Do you think it is wrong for little boys (or big boys) to wear dresses? I am gender critical and I think that women and girls can wear trousers and men can wear dresses. Why on earth not? The style of clothes we wear is something totally socially constructed. Men in Scotland wear dresses (kilts) and pink was only recently seen as a female colour etc. etc. It really is not a big deal for boys to wear dresses. The point is, wearing a dress does not make you a woman or a girl. I does not change your sex

Oh my god, she is just (in the words of Ron Weasley) BLOODY BRILLIANT.

India is now asking if butch women who have been raped will be asked to 'drop their pants'.

India never fails to show up the crass sexism in gender ideology.

'The whole point of JK Rowling’s new centre is banning women who happen to be trans.
But what happens to butch women who could be men? Who the wardens suspect MIGHT be trans? Will they be asked to drop their pants? Chromosome tests?'

twitter.com/IndiaWilloughby/status/1602282197318504448?cxt=HHwWgMDQkerKubwsAAAA

It may be worth noting that nothing in the literature for Beira's Place that I've seen says anything - at all - about 'transwomen'.

I completely agree this is a day for celebrating the desperate needs of female people being met in a way that will make a massive difference to those women's lives.

And yes, absolutely this should not be a day to get hoovered up into refocusing on (yet again) on male feelings, wishes, desires and inner selves over those female people's material reality.

JKR - there are not enough words to say what I want to say about you.

Thank you for the light and for the hope. ✨

Isn't that what pretty much all of our politicians do though?

I had to read that sentence (of Suzanne's) twice By, but I'm sure it means what you say - people are coming to her worried that they can't even say a boy who wants to wear a dress is just that, rather than needing affirmation they could be a girl because of it.

Thank you JKR. Much needed and valued service.

She's amazing-talk about putting your money where your mouth is! Such generosity.

Wonderful woman!

Right, off to add to the DCs’ collections of fancy editions of Harry Potter.

Interesting to see that this has been covered by the Times, Woman's Hour and the Scottish press - but not yet by the Guardian or the other papers, or the BBC's main news channels, as far as I'm aware.

Amazing. Where can we donate?

Amusing myself by scrolling through twitter.com/search?q=beirasplace&src=typed_query&f=live I'm getting a sense of where this might go. The trans activists are saying "this is to exclude transwomen" and women are replying "of course, it's for women", which in the past was an invitation to get trans activists shouting "bigotry because transwomen are women". Except, the specific context here, ie the Equality Act Schedule 3 exceptions for single sex services, is clearly indicating that, no, transwomen aren't women.

The more the trans activists complain, the more they'll get debate going over the fact that transwomen can be excluded from women's single sex services because they're not women.

I was quoting the preceding paragraph to provide context. Obviously I don't think what you wear changes your sex!! You can't change sex

My favourite quote from HP is “Dark times lie ahead of us and there will be a time when we must choose between what is easy and what is right.”
JKR has certainly done what’s right and god knows it has not been easy for her. 👏👏👏

Here's the Suzanne Moore segment from Woman's Hour

Fabulous. And may turn into an important test case showing that yes, women's services can exclude males, however the males describe themselves.

The thing is India, if you are so unhappy about what JKR has done then you and your friends can do what us women have done in the past in similar circumstances when they weren’t happy with the status quo. You can work together, fund yourselves with the cumulative proceeds of raffles, car boot sales,jumble sales, tombolas, cake sales, donations etc etc etc and build your own trans only rape crisis centres, counselling clinics, refuges, support groups, spaces, safe houses or whatever. It’s not easy but flipping Ada, look what having a cervix did for us - the suffrage movement got us the vote, womens libbers got us equal pay , pension and maternity rights, Erin Pizzey got us refuges ………. if us women can manage all that then surely you and your pals can put together the funding to cobble together stuff for the further extremes of the alphabet soup.

OK you might not get the support of a JKR , with good funding, determination, and a cast iron refusal to be intimidated by rape and death threats , but hey, surely better to make a start than sit there bleating.

Didn't think it possible for me to admire JKR any more than I did.

I was wrong. Feeling quite emotional.

Thank you Jo you shero.

It’s just brilliant. She is such a class act.

Let people tantrum about it. She’s outplayed all the naysayers, and the more they froth on about it, the more they underline the strength and honesty of her position. Imagine being so lost to reason that you think she’s doing it to “own” trans people. Embarrassing.

She’s doing it because she cares about women and girls, she cares about supporting us through the aftermath of male violence, she has the means and she has the will.

I wish her and the board every success with it, and thank them all on behalf of the women of Scotland. Brava x

Yes because the only way to tell of someone is a man is to check for a penis.
We KNOW if someone is a man or woman - even when everyone was wearing a face mask we still bloody knew. It’s not difficult, the penis is the last thing we would need to check