Rape crisis centres led by trans women....what the appeal for males to be involved in the running g of the!

[mids2019]

I am glad of the departure of the man who ran a Scottish rape crisis centre as I guess a lot of people are.

However there seems something really dark about a male psyche (trans or not) that wants to be intimately involved in supporting victims of an extremely sensitive sexual crime. I guess tra may make the argument that men are raped too but there should be separate service for this.

The idea of a man listening to woman's description of degradation is applying to me. Had it not occurring to some that there may be men taking some form of macabre perverse pleasure (possibly sexual) in this?

I have a recollection of MW claiming to have personal experience of sexual abuse, I think in India. Can anyone remember or link to his exact wording?

Regards the keeping it fun thing, apparently that was taken out of context, the fun thing was referring to him cooking for his colleagues, allegedly. That certainly wouldn't make him any more trustworthy in my eyes though.

As PP said, though a man should clearly not have been in a job advertised for women only

Any man applying for a job advertised for women is already showing a disregard for boundaries and safeguarding that should exclude him from the post.

Indeed. And someone without a GRC - hence legally male as well as biologically - who applies for a job advertised for women is clearly taking the piss.

I understand what both of you mean with this, but it makes me deeply uncomfortable as this 'it is good for women traumatised by male violence to be ministered to by males' has been used by males and supporters of males in such spaces to justify and make nice the very idea of coercing women for their own good. This very idea of 'it's good for women' has been weaponised by males so that they can abuse women. Look at Wadwah's own comments in interviews about how good it was for women to be 'challenged on their bigotry and prejudices' as part of therapy.

This 'nice' idea that is about reminding us all that NAMALT and some men are lovely and wonderful therapists has been the step abusive people have stood on to take it the next step into paternalist 'it's good for women and if they fuss and say no they have to be made to'. And as discussed here, some - we have no idea how many - males are very much using this as means for furthering their own personal agendas for desired experiences using those women. It has been exploited into compliance training of women to enable men.

Where is the absolute focus on a woman who has experienced having her boundaries violated being listened to? Being the primary voice on what she needs (as opposed to what some authority sees as 'good for her' regardless of her feelings? Her right to set her own boundaries? To make her own choices and set her own pathway for the care that works for her? The respect for her as an autonomous person who is making the choices as opposed to being done to? And in the case of ERC, used as a resource largely to further the agendas and meet the needs of a male centric team?

It is becoming so important that women really pause and reflect before saying the on the surface nice, thoughtful, open minded things, and really focus on why they are saying them and to what purpose? I catch myself doing it. The 'oh we must think of x...' and the 'but of course with awareness of y' is, at heart, about me showing those I'm with that I'm a good person with intelligence, it's me meeting my needs about what I want in terms of validation and perception. But some of these habitual nice phrases are enabling the harm of other women.

I think you've read rather more into my post than I believed it contained. At no point have I suggested that survivors of rape should not have a choice in the sex of their therapist. However the option of a sensitive, good male therapist is a good thing to have available in some circumstances.
Sadly, women are not immune from behaving badly and some female therapists may be harmful and not respect a survivors boundaries. It should always be about listening to the survivor, while acknowledging that the expert in the process is likely to be the therapist.

This, exactly.

It should always be about listening to the survivor, while acknowledging that the expert in the process is likely to be the therapist.

Sadly this proviso again shows though that the listening to the woman whose experience and trauma is the entire reason for the service should come second to the expertise of the therapist.

I'm not attacking you or your post, just observing a pattern across a lot of threads and posts that disturb me. When nice women insist that it be accepted and normalised that men are just as good as women therapists or midwives or smear test nurses or intimate carers (in part because this is an important part of demonstrating the reasonability of their feminism, let's be honest, we all do it; or a part of 'I personally wouldn't have a problem so why should anyone else' which we so often see on these boards) then it's a very short step to 'and women's consent and equality needs to be kindly but firmly subordinated to the man who knows better in this situation. She needs to be 'educated'. She needs in other words to be put through some compliance training. And once we're there, we have to be honest that it is about teaching her that her consent and autonomy must be put second to the better understanding of and interests of a man.

Of course when she is in a situation where she has been promised that no men will be involved in this distressing, intimate situation, and then discovers that a man is but that she is now compelled to participate in a farce of pretence that he actually isn't because of his emotional needs, (and the other needs which must go unmentioned as too taboo to consider which means a blind eye will be turned even to questionable words and actions, or even exceptions made to usual standards), it gets even worse.

But the fact that these women have been through the hands of ERC and endured this, and that the people who perpetuated will move on without consequences, and the women who experienced them may never move on from the experiences they were put through at one of the worst times of their life? Rests a lot on that the subordination of women as lesser than men has become so normalised, so automatic, that it's re inforced through the automatic nice things to say about men. Men don't do this. Men don't rush to remind other men that women are just as good, because they don't need to. Because it is sadly, to do with power. Who has it, who hasn't. If we want to change situations like the ERC it is about going deeper and looking at the base of the iceberg, and forcing others particularly politicians to look there with us.

@Anastomosisrex At no point have I agreed that men pretending to be women have any place working with traumatised women. Never have I agreed that a space advertised as female only, should employ a man, whatever his delusions about himself may be.
We should both listen to survivors and utilise the expertise of properly trained and supervised therapists, neither of which happened at ERCC.

It is important though that survivors can see there are some safe men.

Is the time for this really at rape counselling? I think not.

I'll add that aaaaages ago I saw something (forget what or where sorry) that indicated Male survivors of rape also wanted women counsellors.

And adding more, after the Gisele pelicot case in France, we are all wondering if any man is really safe. Maybe the five who refused to rape her, yet inexplicably also didnt report it.

Sorry if I mangled her name but if I leave this site to search for something I lose all my post.

I always used to think that the male cops who specialise in child sex crime are paedos.
I also worked with a woman who wanted to legalise child rape (PiE) but she went by a fake identity so I couldn't even consent to being in her home and car alone, she visited children daily as part of her job.

You assume he isn't.

But can we not just have one fucking thread about women without NAMALTING on the THIRD RESPONSE.

Fucks sake. We are fucked.

I thought my perspective was relevant to the thread, given the op asked about men working with women survivors. This is a thread about men working with women survivors, not just about women.

I'll add that aaaaages ago I saw something (forget what or where sorry) that indicated Male survivors of rape also wanted women counsellors.

There's some truth in that. Thinking of a man I know who only had a breakthrough dealing with his trauma when he met a female therapist who he clicked with. I don't think he could have opened up in the same way to another man. And she was able to see some of his experiences as abusive when he had never thought of them that way.

But there's also truth to the stereotype in therapy that women do better face to face and men do better shoulder to shoulder. Men will often do better in some embodied activity rather than talking therapy.

But anyway, dealing with survivors in the aftermath of trauma is definitely the wrong time to present them with a nice man, no matter how genuinely nice he is.

Because the handmaidens in the third sector in Scotland fawn over Transwomen to show how progressive they are.

JL at Glinners Substack keeping tally.
'Over the last three years we have written much and frequently about ERCC and Mridul Wadhwa himself. Over time, we reported the following.

• Wadhwa has no GRC and is legally male.
• He concealed his sex to secure a job at Forth Valley Rape Crisis Centre.
• He objected to an amendment allowing rape victims to choose the sex of the medical clinician who examines them.
• He is ‘disappointed’ by the single-sex provisions allowed for in the Equality Act 2010 and finds them ‘discriminatory’ against ‘transwomen’.
• He sided with serial litigant and period-obsessed paedophile, Jonathan Yaniv, against a group of migrant women.
• He deems it appropriate to discuss whether rape victims experience orgasm.

dealing with survivors in the aftermath of trauma is definitely the wrong time to present them with a nice man, no matter how genuinely nice he is.

Amen.

Or to begin some self indulgent bullshit about how 'good' it is for traumatised women to work with nice men (which is also weaponised to help force the whole so no barriers to this nice man who identifies as a woman bit), which rapidly becomes the paternal 'now reframe your trauma dear, this is good for you'. And if you're going to be a silly girl, you can go without services at all .

It is NOT good for women at all. As a sex class.

Control and access to personal information of course.

Let's hope the board of Edinburgh Rape Crisis centre have given themselves a kick, and will now use charitable funds for the purpose for which they were intended, that is supporting and protecting WOMEN. That is those with XX chromosomes for anyone who is confused. 🙄

...and meanwhile, our friends over on Reddit are vociferously condemning the injustice committed against a "transwoman" who was asked to vacate his position in a single-sex refuge. Lots of advice on possible legal recourse. Not a single thought given to the victims.

www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/comments/1f8rcp5/trans_women_working_in_single_sex_spaces/

As I understand it women are vastly over-represented in the fields of counselling, voluntary and public sector work. As such there should be no need for female survivors to be subjected to male providers especially in the context of sexual violence.
As far as people vouching for "nice guys" they know - a perpetrator can be a prolific predator in one context without doing so in any/every other arena or interpersonal relationship of their life. In many cases perpetrators will deliberately groom those around them to ensure ahead of time that anyone who did complain was not believed. Some of the worst serial predators we now know of were family men or well-liked and trusted in the community such as priests, social workers, charity volunteers, even tv celebrities. And when these predators were outed there was often no shortage of women saying "well he wasn't like that with me...". It doesn't matter that not every male is "like that" if we can't reliably tell the difference until it's too late.

hatboxes · 14/09/2024 10:47

I know an experienced male therapist who works with both female and male victims of sexual assault and CSA. He started working with male victims but over his career broadened into working with women too. He's absolutely not a misogynist or a perve.

There's a world of difference between informing a female victim that there is a male therapist available, if she's comfortable with that and a completely unqualified oddball man forcing his way in, to ask disturbing questions and scold and berate female victims, without their consent.

Male sexual assaults are also massively massively underreported. Of gay and of heterosexual men by other men

This is one reason why gender critical views are so unpopular with the general population, you have convinced yourself that trans people are only trans for sexual reasons (as an example look how often the derogatory term "AGP" is thrown around on this forum) this can be seen as transphobic and can potentially lead to some trans people facing wrongful accusations that could be harmful to them.

Polling shows that the majority of the general public hold gender critical views.

You need a new line mate.

Nobody cares about being called 'transphobic' as a phobia is an irrational fear or something. There is nothing irrational about wanting men kept out of women's things, spaces, groups, toilets, threads on mumsnet.