Why Invisible Issues Matter Part 4535262
I see a couple of points on here which are worth keeping an eye out for.
1/ Someone suggested that they might go down the route of 'No Complaints Made'. I DON'T actually think they will go that far, but I think its something worth picking up on.
I refer to why this is NEVER a defence. The old adage of 'evidence of absence is not absence of evidence'.
If certain counsellors have higher drop out rates of service users than others, without complaint and without explaination this might be evidence. I wonder if this is noted. It SHOULD be - to see if there might be a hidden unaddressed problem.
The thing with really vulnerable groups is precisely the point that they often don't have a voice. They don't make complaints because a) they don't know how to b) they don't feel able to due to the stress of it c) the complaints procedure is something they don't trust / they feel doesn't work. Women with a lack of agency don't feel authority works for them so why bother to make a complaint? For similar reasons that women don't report rapes - because they don't think they will be listened to and taken seriously.
So you have to be really careful with service user satisfaction as a means to assess whether what you are doing is ok or not. You have to look for alternative ways to identify issues understanding that user feedback may well be highly unreliable.
I've talked a lot on MN over the years on this subject with regards to childbirth, Bounty and just generally when it comes to women generally being socialised to suck things up regardless in healthcare (often because they are guilt tripped into the concept that it could be worse and what the hell have they got to complain at - they should just be grateful). Its a reoccuring theme. Trust in authority (or lack of trust) is a reoccuring theme.
If you have a management team who don't understand how this works you have a management team that is already failing.
Women who are unhappy in this situation tend to just drop out the system and disappear or even up with even more unaddressed long term mental health problems. This is why follow ups on data are important (Hello Tavistock - yet another good example!).
2/ They are talking about gender identity to service users. They ASSUME that service users know about gender identity but they then use word salad to them.
We have a huge amount of data now that suggests that huge sections of the public don't really understand what a transwoman or a transman are (Thank Joey Barton for our latest exploration of this!). No politician is really addressing this - we don't have legal definitions and Stonewall is actively liking to blur stuff like this with its own terminology. Think how many people think that you have to have had surgery to be legally regarded as having changed gender too.
We have to remember that service users are particularly vulnerable women. Some will be educated but a hell of a lot will have very poor education levels for a variety of reasons and won't have a fucking clue what they are talking about.
Then you have to process that these are women in a very distressed state. Being able to assert yourself when you have very serious trauma or anxiety is something a lot of people can't do. They often hit authority and do a lot of nodding and deferring to what they are told because they don't feel you CAN say no. Because the lines on consent and automony have become so blurred. Its a passivity that SOOOO many people don't understand. The truth is they may be in a state where they lack the ability to truly consent due to lack of understanding or because they feel under duress to consent.
This is a MASSIVE fundamental lack of understanding of the needs of service users. ANY rape chairty need to be doing the safeguarding work on this and be understanding educational levels, understand that euphisms are poor practice because they lead to misunderstandings and are elitist and that this really is NOT the place to be brings ideas like this to work. It needs to be kept simple to avoid issues arising. Politicians and the NHS is JUST beginning to start waking up to this. But a Rape Service SHOULD be well ahead of the game on this.
The fact it isn't smacks a huge amount of radicalisation spawned from the middle classes and universities. Its not part of the culture of so many working class or ethnic communities - and whether anyone likes this or not - THIS MATTERS.
Its very clearly a management issues which shows up how out of touch with service users and their needs they are.
I think we will continue to see more of the same as this hearing goes on. We need to start recognising it more and more.
3/ All of this is VERY relevant if you have a case where a member of staff has been forced out for believing in sex (not necessarily being 'gender critical') and you have a bunch of staff who believe only in gender identity including one very senior one who seems to have said on record that any staff member who believes in biological sex should be managed out (and is not being a witness for the defence in this case)...
...especially when the Equality Act states that you CAN discriminate on the basis of sex in certain situations which a Rape Charity would firmly fall into.
They are trying to impose the Equality Act wrongly to a situation where the Equality Act has clear exemptions anyway.
Saying something along the lines of the following:
Doesn't agree clients have the right to know the biological sex of staff
Is a VERY interesting move. Why? Because its demonstrating they don't actually know or understand the law here nor their responsibilities to service users in terms of safeguarding. ESPECIALLY when advertising jobs under the exemption clause. I think theres real room for legal cases for any service user here should anyone be brave enough to go down that route.
(This is also where the law needs cleaning up to reinforce the point that sex as detailed in the Equality Act means biological sex not legal sex or we will be FUCKED though).