Rape Crisis NI will be joining trans allies to protest Let Women Speak event in Belfast on Sunday 16 April 2023 1pm

[IwantToRetire]

My Mum co-founded the first Rape Crisis Centre in Northern Ireland. I told her about the below(*), she was shaking with rage and felt physically ill. I got a quote from her for @RapeCrisis_NI,

‘You are not feminists, what you’re doing goes against the ethos of any actual rape crisis in the world, which is about women being there for women and children. There will be true rape crisis counsellors at the #LetWomenSpeak event who have worked in this country for over 30 years supporting survivors of rape and sexual abuse whilst you handmaidens betray women.’

(*) See https://twitter.com/NoraUtd/status/1646874371129069569
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If you read the twitter thread you will see this in one of the responses

The original one that closed due to funding cuts was for women only. The new one that opened years later in 2020 seems to have changed the criteria to all. The previous one lost funding for being too specialist…. Wonder if this was a theme?
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The BBC have written a news story about the LWS Belfast event and planned protests and that The Women's Rights Network was able to show the film Adult Human Female in Belfast.

BBC report here with maybe a bit of a slant?! ie they aren't counter protests as LWS events are protest but freedom of speech for women events https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-65187388

What a topsy-turvy world. Amnesty International and Rape Crisis Centres doing their best to stop women from speaking.

WTF?

I can't get my head around a rape crisis service protesting against women.

NI Rape Crisis is presumably of the opinion that TWAW? Insane.

No, neither can I

if they said TWAW I can agree or disagree

but protesting against women many of whom speak about their personal stories of rape and abuse…..nah, I don’t get it, shameful

Oh god, that is just horrible.

It's so sad to see the achievements of the women's liberation movement being ripped apart, not even just by men but by women who call themselves feminists.

Humanity is doomed.

How horrific for a rape crisis centre to support an event silencing women.

We're going to have to rip it all up and start all over again. We need more Beira's place to replace the centres that are currently betraying females.

This is the really puzzling thing

I mean if the people who work there are all TWAW, well that’s BONKERS but everyone is entitled to their views

but going out of their way to stop women saying things they disagree with?

shameful

I can't get my head around this. A rape crisis centre joining forces with aggressive men to silence women. How can anyone sane think this is the right thing to do?

Well I gather that the barbie kardashian fan club have chartered buses from Dublin to shout at women too. It's going to open a lot of eyes. Seeing angry men in masks waving flags and making threatening noises and gestures in NI could be a very interesting look.

That sight must surely peak many, you'd think, Stephanie. I hope so.

The Good Media will simply not report any unflattering aspects. And as we all know, TRSOHers will never look at Impure Media.

That is actually sick.

Not just a difference of opinion.
Not just a refusal to provide a single sex service.
But actively seeking to silence the voice of the very group whose trauma is the basis of their funding.

It's more than sick. It's abusive and renders their whole organisation appropriative and exploitative.

It makes sense when you realise that the organisation appears to have been captured by those who follow the tenets of critical social justice/critical theory.

Once that happens the organisation gets hollowed out and the shell that's left looks like it's doing what it "says on the tin" but what it mostly seems to be doing, to the detriment of its original mission statement, is spending time on activism/perpetuating more theory - hence you get Edinburgh Rape Crisis employing a male with an identity as it's head who thinks part of the job is to confront women and get them to "reframe their trauma" and who believes they will not truly recover unless they addressed their “unacceptable beliefs” because “therapy is political” and said “We will work with you... but please expect to be challenged on your prejudices."

https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/19509343.outcry-plan-educate-bigoted-rape-survivors-trans-rights/

That this egregious fud is still in post never ceases to amaze me.

My contempt for those so-called Rape Crisis workers knows no bounds. It's absolutely disgusting that they have made an essential service inhospitable and potentially unusable to women who need it. Their behaviour absolutely turns my stomach.

When Rape Crisis Centres back the people trying to silence women then sections of society have truly lost their way.

They should be so fucking ashamed of themselves.

Have read Matt Foxes for the bbc so called report online.
It's such a poor piece of journalism as his bias is evident from the beginning through his choice of language.

It is evident he has never attended or even watched one of these free speech events.

It is evident that he has never watched Adult Human Female and just uses others uninformed bias to fill the page that he is being paid to produce.

It is evident that this is a lazy, irresponsible piece of typing that is merely bandwagonning off previous sensationally reported events and third hand and reactive, unresearched opinions.

Embarrassing.
Please feel free to complain to the bbc. I can no longer upper case them.

I agree Boiled.
This is how narcissists behave.

Who is challenging Wadhwa's discriminatory beliefs? Believing that woman is an experiencr men can identify into is the epitome of discrimination.

Perhaps they’ll reconsider their position after they inevitably find themselves on the same side of the crowd barrier as the violent woman-haters?

At the end of that article I noticed this quote from a trans charity - Trans women are not males who identify as women, trans women are women," he said.
The mental gymnastics I'm having to employ to understand this are tiring me out.

Great post Boiled

Shameful. Rape Crisis allying with violent misogynists silencing women.

Perhaps Rape Crisis centres should be left alone so they can help victims of rape, instead of harassing them and wasting their time because they support LGBT people?