Surely Mridul Wadhwa has to go now? Report into ERCC out.

[GargoylesofBeelzebub]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13842189/Edinburgh-Crisis-Centre-designed-protect-women-suffered-sexual-violence-condemned-failing-damning-report.html

Pretty scathing. Wadhwa cannot stay surely?

I would think any supervisor with a grip on reality and the capacity to say 'this isn't right' was witch hunted and chased away a long time ago.

absolutely. Brindley cannot see how wrong this is.

A good article on the cowardice of MSPs -

www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/scots-politicians-would-like-edinburgh-rape-crisis-centre-scandal-to-simply-vanish-4791974

Others in Holyrood have had second thoughts about gender ideology but they remain silent, either through fear of a backlash from angry and threatening activists or, as one MSP put it, because to admit they got this matter wrong would be to admit their stupidity and their cowardice.

Well that's interesting. There's a silent shift that's gone on. Even though they are too cowardly to say it (yet), something fundamental has changed. A newspaper is reporting off the record comments that wouldn't be being made even twelve months ago.

Meanwhile trust is ERCC will have gone for many many women. Would you use the service even now, with such a public display of unprofessional conduct and refusal to acknowledge that a man in charge absolutely was the core of the problem. He had a vested personal interest in making the service for men and forcing the compliance of women. A woman in charge, even if they are into gender woo or even a transman, doesn't have the same level of a conflict of personal interest.

I'm often reminded of a woman who worked in a rape crisis centre who spoke on here.

She said floors are carpeted so footfall isn't heard. No one slams doors. You talk in low voices. Even laughing out loud is discouraged.

Because loud voices, slamming doors, heavy footsteps, can be extremely triggering.

And the location secrecy. She said it's more like a witness protection programme than anything else.

Many women simply wouldn't, couldn't go anywhere near a centre if they employed men.

Much less run it.

It is quite something that Times article. I am glad it comes across the same way to others as it did to me. I got the same ‘vibe’ from Paula Vennells although very different circumstances. Horrid.

My only gripe with the summary in that excellent Scotsman piece is that as I understand it, there were no guaranteed women-only spaces, whether requested or not.

Women-only groups should be the norm for this environment. That is a fundamental part of the healing process.
Additionally, almost all women - and the majority of men - want female counsellors/therapists.

Even if funding is tied to opening up the service to male users, any governing authority which insists on mixed sex provision is inducing unlawful discrimination.

The kindest, most empathetic and professional man in the world, even if an abuse or SA survivor himself, would not have been appropriate for this job.

Would you use the service even now,

A very good point, and with links to Sarah's case.

Women should not have to take grudging crumbs of unwillingly provided service from an organisation who is addled in the belief that a woman wanting woman-centred care and women only service providers and spaces is a bigot who should be punished.

It's become extremely clear that services focused around providing for gender identity and services focused around providing for women cannot be one and the same, but need in fact to be two entirely separate things by groups with just that focus. You cannot provide a service inclusive to and focused on biological women when you think the very existence of such a term is evil and sinful. Refuges aren't bloody magdelen laundries.

No one wants to stop men having all the services they need, but women who do not consent to this need their own resources unaffected by those men and their supporters and politics and prejudices. Particularly when they are at their most vulnerable. I don't seriously believe its 2024 and that needs to be said.

It's very worrying at the end of the Times article that some people seem to accept that having a gender recoginition certificate makes a man eligible for a women's job.

I agree.

Wonen only should be the default every time.

Anastomosisrex
Women should not have to take grudging crumbs of unwillingly provided service from an organisation who is addled in the belief that a woman wanting woman-centred care and women only service providers and spaces is a bigot who should be punished.

Absolutely this👏

It's a position that some people are trapped into by logic.

We're not in a meat Lego matrix. We can still experience the unerring sense that it doesn't matter how much Lego there is, a GRC does not a woman make and particularly not in these circumstances.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4239164-Staying-Human-in-the-Meat-Lego-Matrix

It's not just logic. There are all kinds of ways in to this. For example it's also Brindley's stated position that "trans women are women" from which she seems to infer that we women are just a different kind of woman who sometimes have different needs from trans women, needs which might or might not be met depending on which kind of woman you think should have their needs prioritised.

That Times article wouldn't be out of place in the Guardian.

Could you imagine if a male CEO had phone numbers of multiple young women service users?! That is such a huge safeguarding red flag.

Isn't that a mahoosive breach of data protection law? Jesus, she just offered those women up on a plate to the media to save her own skin. That's beyond abhorrent. She should not be allowed to resign. She needs to be SACKED. Maggie Chapman needs to face the music too. Who the hell is protecting these sociopaths????

Not the point of the thread but I've just remembered the name of the actress who Sandy Brindley reminds me of - it's Felicity Montagu.

I'd be concerned about who I was surrounded by at a meeting. And whether I was going to be berated if I made a minor comment that wasn't politically aligned with theirs. Not just on this subject but any subject. Because the entire environment has been politically poisoned effectively. I'd be concerned there was still a bully culture even amongst the women using it, because the survivors themselves have been used in this way.

It's this sense of 'well I wouldn't belong there' that's exclusionary in its own right.

In these survivors coming forward / being co-opted by Brindley, that's what's happened. It's a public demonstration of the 'preferred obedient client'.

I already have massive anxieties about falling through the cracks of services and not being listened to. I don't believe I'm isolated in these type of issue.

This would only close the door further, compounding the issues of previous years.

It's a trust issue and Brindley is successful adding to those lack of trust issues.

Thankfully I'm not in Edinburgh nor in need of such services.

On the whole it shows the contempt for service users which will take years to overcome and will lead to yet more self exclusion.

The Scottish government pays for these services in no small amount. The fact there's no questions shows the contempt for women who have been victims of male violence, just at a time when there's supposedly a big push to take the subject seriously. Which then reflects badly on the silence south of the border on these matters.

I've raised a complaint with RCS. I think the board are too pally with Sandy and too captured to actually do their job on this issue.

I plan to raise it further with OSCR.

Yes, my understanding is there was no guarantee of a woman only space, even if asked for. Iirc, during the court case there was the example of a rape survivor who asked for exactly this and she was told ERCC wasn't suitable for her. They didn't even sign post her to Beira's Place.

JKRowling on twitter
Sandy Brindley. the head of Rape Crisis Scotland who's currently under fire after a damning report about the Edinburgh branch offered a journalist rape victims' phone numbers. If this isn't a sacking offence, what is?

Julie Bindel (also retweeted by JKR)
I have spoken to several hard-nosed tabloid journalists in Scotland & England this week, all of whom are disgusted with Brindley for offering up rape victims/survivors to speak up for her. As one said, "It's like violent men getting an ex partner to say, "He never hurt me!"

Oh dear poor Sandy is going to get even more upset for JKR's actions in, checks notes, recounting Sandy's inappropriate and unprofessional actions.

Oh dear. Send flowers.

blistering reply to Brindley by JK on Twitter

x.com/jk_rowling/status/1837827858284093847?s=46&t=A2fpFNgDRyXF2d6ye97wEA

Can anyone post the rest of the tweets for the non Twitters please? Can only view the first one.

WarriorN

I can only see one of nine, because I'm not on there. If you have time, would you mind posting the other eight posts?

Dear Sandy,

While you've been in charge at Rape Crisis Scotland, a man now serving time in prison for multiple sexual assaults was 'treated' at the Edinburgh centre.

The man in charge of the Edinburgh centre called rape survivors who wanted single sex services 'bigots.' 1/9

Under your leadership, multiple women self-excluded from the Edinburgh centre because of the male CEO you defended and praised.

On your watch, a 14-year-old girl who'd been raped felt unable to access support because she wasn't guaranteed a single sex space. 2/9

You claim I misrepresented what happened at the meeting at which rape survivors were harangued by your trans activist partner, who shouldn't have been there at all. Here's the survivors' own account of what happened.
3/9
parliament.scot/-/media/files/…

For years, you've been told by women's groups and rape survivors themselves that your policies were harming vulnerable girls and women. You didn't care. You wouldn't listen. Backed by government funding, you behaved with arrogance and complacency. 4/9

I can only assume your cosy relationship with the SNP government, which is a big fan of gender identity ideology, made you feel untouchable. 5/9

You weren't ever going to respond to women's concerns unless someone high profile challenged you.

Finally, you've decided to respond publicly to one of the women with concerns - me. And how do you address those concerns? You claim you're my victim. 6/9

Perhaps you should 'reframe your trauma', as the man you backed publicly told rape survivors to do? Or we could have an in-person meeting where you express your pain, and my partner, who you didn't know would be present, harangues you - exactly as you did to rape survivors? 7/9

I set up Beira's Place, a single sex service for victims of sexual assault in Edinburgh, because survivors who found it deeply traumatising to be told they must consider men as women if the men want to be seen that way had literally nowhere else to go. 8/9

You've placed higher importance on validating trans-identified men than on needs of female survivors. If I'm not moved by your tears, it's because too many women have cried as a consequence of the ideology you insisted they should embrace they were at their most vulnerable. 9/X

Everyone absolutely avid to see what else JKR has to say!