Scottish Women's Aid are pulling an Edinburgh

[lcakethereforeIam]

This is typical, I'm so angry

https://archive.ph/JOOk1 paywall bypass

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/29/domestic-abuse-charity-applications-men-identify-women/

I just read this and they are miss applying the section 9 exception as they are allowing men both with and without a grc they aren't allowed to do that section 9 means no men including those with a grc
As for the ramifications for domestic abuse victims if another activist man gets this job is horrific

They have been doing this for more than a few years now, and advertise in line with the recent guidelines as issued by EHRC.

Dont have the time to find threads now but it is the difference between advertising under the EA (trans inclusive) and under the EA legitimate exclusion of trans women (SSE) https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5147779-do-the-ehrc-guidelines-on-dsicriminatory-adverts-help-make-sse-job-adverts-clearer-and-even-if-they-do-how-does-that-help-service-users

So it depends whether they have quoted the right sections of the act when advertising.

But as indicated by the thread (link above) none of this helps services users.

There doesn't seem to be any standard by which women services providers say whether their services are covered by the SSE or not.

Absolutely fecking disgraceful.

Am I fully hoping a TERF sweeps in to the post & makes ALL the changes? Yes. Am I terrified a certain MW might be about to change jobs? Yesser.
🥺

Assuming the telegraph is right then they have correctly advertised "protected characteristic of gender reassignment".

As I say cant find the link just now, but worth looking at the thread on the new guidelines from the EHRC, which has made the advertising of jobs clearly, but has done nothing to clarify the advertising of services.

ie if the EHRC thought it worthwhile to issue guide lines on "dscriminatory ads" then they should have done a comparable one for "discriminatory services".

Its already happened. Scottish Women's Aid has been trans inclusive for years.

And according to the EHRC legally able to do this.

The biggest issue is, why are so few women wanting to run genuinely women only services.

Complaining of FWR isn't going to make this happen.

If you aren't prepared to do this yourself / ourselves, then the only other option (which will never happen) is to campaign to politicians to say that all funders must fund a proportion of services that are genuinely women only.

Oh dear, from the article:

However, feminist groups argued that the SWA had misinterpreted the legislation and put the “feelings of men with trans identities before the needs of vulnerable women”.

If only these feminist groups had pointed out that the very recent guidelines from the EHRC says they can do this so there is no misrepresentation.

Far better to have a Telegraph article that deals with the reality, ie EHRC guidelines, than with a wrong understanding / preferred understanding.

https://archive.is/aBchz

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5120880-new-ehrc-guidelines-women-only-jobs

They have to be trans inclusive to protect their Scot gov funding

forwomen.scot/29/12/2019/funding-conditions/

The EHRC Guidance very clearly states

Schedule 9 also permits an occupational requirement to exclude transgender persons where it is objectively justified, and this can include those who have obtained a GRC. A ‘sex-based’ occupational requirement to be a woman under Schedule 9 cannot include transgender women who have not obtained a GRC, as they do not have legal status as women under the Equality Act 2010.

So SWA are choosing not to properly apply the guidance.

Still disgusting

NitroNine
Exactly. And they can exclude males with a GRC from this sort of job as well.
They're deliberately flouting the EHRC guidelines.

FFS

There is nothing sacred for women then?

Can we please move on from here. As set out in the links I gave, whether you like it or not the EHRC says:

Occupational requirements under Schedule 9 must relate to having a particular protected characteristic as defined in the Equality Act 2010. The protected characteristic of ‘sex’ means a person’s legal sex as recorded on their birth certificate or their Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). This means that a sex-based occupational requirement that an applicant is a woman – as is common within specialist support services for women, such as rape counselling – will include women who are recorded female at birth and also transgender women who have obtained a GRC.

But also says:

However, Schedule 9 also permits an occupational requirement to exclude transgender persons where it is objectively justified, and this can include those who have obtained a GRC. A ‘sex-based’ occupational requirement to be a woman under Schedule 9 cannot include transgender women who have not obtained a GRC, as they do not have legal status as women under the Equality Act 2010.

There have now been 3 or 4 threads since the EHRC published the latest guidelines about how this is now a confirmed fact.

ie under Schedule 9 so long as you quote the right clause you can either advertise as women only (trans inclusive) or women only (trans exclusive).

We really need to move on to the next stage** which is, given that the regulator says women only can mean either trans inclusive or trans exclusive, how do service providers accurately advertised their services to potential users? This is actually the most important aspect.

As well as the one we are all aware of, which is are funders putting pressure on providers to be trans inclusive? And if so, as I said upthread, should we be asking Government (or Angela Raynor) if local authorities can be made to ensure there is also a % of actual SSE funded services for women.

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** As opposed to the ideal next stage of repealing the GRA, which this Labour Government is never going to do. So this is where we are. Trans rights trump women's rights.

I've had enough. Why doesn't anyone ever address the real fucking question - should someone who would find women's suffering sexually arousing be hired for a job with abused women?!

why are so few women wanting to run genuinely women only services

Do you have data on this? There are plenty of reasons that could result in a lack of women running women-only services. Women not wanting to is probably the least of them.

Personally, I want them to be run but have no relevant skills or experience to do it myself.

If I did have the skills and experience that's no guarantee I'd get the job. Given what we've heard from certain boards of trustees, wanting to run the service as women only might well be a sure fire way to not get get it.

And we know that particularly in Scotland - but also other places - a lot of funding sources won't give money to genuinely women-only services. And without funding there's no service to run.

It's all so shitty, Bint, I guess that all that can be done is to keep pressure on the govt.

Do you have data on this?

That's exactly the point.

Most of us in FWR are commenting in a vacuum of knowledge.

We may all have principles we are happy to express, but dont know the whole picture.

It isn't relevant skills it is about an over arching principle of women only services.

Apart from those of us posting on FWR, not many other people care.

Added to which, for purely financialy reasons local councils are cutting women only services, such as refuges, because it is more economic to provide "refuge" to women fleeing domestic violence in some generic homeless project with homeless men. (3 in the past month)

This is nothing to do with trans issues. This is the underlying much more deeply entrenched patriarchal attitudes that women aren't important. Just as the NHS doesn't design safety equipment for women, council officers dont think about women.

And it is this underlying concept of men's perciptions are always right that allowed TRAs to get the foothold they got. If the majority of the population, not just men, dont or aren't aware of women's specific needs and values then the idea of men becoming women has no real consequnces because they never valued women as separate unique sex class.

And if you think like that, you probably dont think men providing support services to women who are victims of male violence is a problem, because the default setting is men's and women are just supposed to fit in. (eg many years ago now, a specialist support service for women seaking asylum who had experience exploitation and male violence had their funding cut and given to the Salvation Army. By a Labour run central London funding consortium. It took Boris Johnson some years later to provide funding for 4 rape crisis centres in London because their weren't any, despite London being predominantly Labour for decades.

From other threads, quite a few thought or think that men in women's sport would be like the turning point but it isn't. Or doesn't appear to have been.

There's lots of comments about how we have reached peak trans.

I suspect what are seeing is that the provision of specialist services run by women, for women, has peaked and it is all down hill from here.

That's the question how do we translate what we say here into a reality?

Exactly! A domestic abuse service for women employing males who don't respect women's boundaries, and who make women feel pressured and uncomfortable to satisfy their own needs. Its a continuation of the abuse!

How times have changed. Men weren't welcome in the Scottish Women's Aid network in 2016 but it's okay now, so long as they have a certificate saying they're a woman?

www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-37727026.amp

Gosh, a man who doesn't have a gender identity could well sue them for discrimination if they're not careful.

Men weren't welcome in the Scottish Women's Aid network in 2016 but it's okay now, so long as they have a certificate saying they're a woman?

This is the irony (worse) of the situation. Apparently (and as said up thread we dont have the real data) women working in / for women's services dont think there is a problem including trans women.

Women who aren't part of these services but looking in from outside are saying it is a problem.

And apart from a few brave women who have spoken up, there is no information about what women who use these services think.

Is it any wonder that funders are able to happily not provide adequate funding for actual single sex services.

ie nobody is listening to us.

How do we make them do that?

Apparently (and as said up thread we dont have the real data) women working in / for women's services dont think there is a problem including trans women.

But had anyone asked those frontline women's aid workers or SWA staff down the ranks? Or is this a decision thrust upon them by management and boards. Has there ever been any meaningful consultation with the women's aid network about what this means for service delivery? Not that I know of.

I think there was one, but carried out by Engender who is totally Stonewalled, so had to think their wasn't a slant in the survey. Remeber the video from about 18 months ago showing a woman being slow hand clapped out of a meeting for challening Nicola Sturgeon about actual women only services.

The real pressure would be to have women services users through some trusted 3rd party (Beira's Place?) be able to say what they would ideally want.

Although I suppose the usual suspects would then say it cant be trusted because it was carried out by a biased organisation.

After all the services are for the services users, ie women survivors of male violence. The services aren't for the vanity or politcal posturing of employees.

Slightly off specific group, but about attitudes within the VAWG sector, was interested to see in a new survey being carried out by Women's Aid England they do ask about both sex and gender:

What is your sex?
Female
Male
Intersex
Don’t Know
Prefer not to say

What best describes your gender?
Man
Non-binary
Woman
Don’t Know
Prefer not to say
I use another term (please specify)

Do you consider yourself to be transgender?
Yes
No
Don’t Know
Prefer not to say

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/FSR9956

Although the question about gender should have had the option none.

But at least it shows they recognised that sex and gender are not the same thing.

I am tired of being told by my DEI work wank that my lack of gender feels means I am agender.

I am not standing under that umbrella because I dont have a sense of an inner essence. They can fuck off