Refuge’s response to the ruling

[TheOnlyLivingBoyInNewCross]

Refuge - describing itself as an organisation “for women and children” - have nailed their colours quickly and firmly to the mast, in an early indication of how certain organisations might respond:

In response to today’s Supreme Court ruling on gender and single-sex spaces, Gemma Sherrington, CEO of Refuge, said:
“Today’s ruling by the Supreme Court will not change the way Refuge operates. We remain firmly committed to supporting all survivors of domestic abuse, including trans women.
“Refuge offers a range of specialist services that are accessible to trans women, including our helpline, community-based support, and some accommodation-based services. These are designed to provide safety, dignity, and tailored support to meet individual needs.
“Our commitment to compassion and inclusion remains at the heart of our work, and we continue to develop and strengthen services to meet the needs of every survivor.”

I don’t understand what you mean by ‘pretence’ here? Who, exactly, is pretending that trans people cannot have rights without removing women’s rights?

Trans activists.

Like many of us I stopped giving money to refuge when it was clear they were not single sex. I would possibly re start if they were clear about having single sex and mixed provisions.

what I would like to see is Beira s place expand nationally and grow to cover refuge. I would very much be setting up a standing order then. We have lost trust in refuge someone we trust needs to fill the gap and now they know they can defeat the push back they will get from TRA

I can see some men (the other type of MRAs, without the head tilt) taking action against refuges that ignore the SC ruling. If they let in TW but exclude other men then that's sex discrimination. They'll do it for the giggles gruff male chuckle and because they also hate women.

I was going to start a thread about this but then thought I cant be bothered.

First of all despite what the MSM (and the Queen!) might imply Refuge has always been a non feminist organisation but the media made out it was THE domestic violence service. (Its founder thought the problem of domestic violence was women, who she said were attracted to violent men as so it was their, women's, fault.)

And for years was not part of the federation of WA projects in England because it failed on so many grounds.

But they are now one of the largest corporate providers of services.

However even though I have a negative understanding of who they are, and am sick to death of everyone thinking because the MSM told them they are important, their statement is so politically clumsy it is hard to know whether it was approve at management level or some intern spewed it out so quickly.

They could so easily have said as one of the main providers of single sex services for women escaping DV we are happy with the Court ruling. And we will of course continue to provide services to other victims of DV including trans women.

Just to add, I dont think any women's aid project offers "mixed sex" services. But many do provide separate services to different groups ie women (biological), trans women and to men.

However, whether they all do this out of choice, or because funding conditions mean they have to offer services to different groups is another question.

As a foot note, Refuge has been so sucessful in misleading cornering the public image as THE DV service provider that they are now able to offer as though it was some amazing political step, rather than because they have so much money, refuge provision that is in individual units whether for a single person, or for someone with children.

So stopping giving money to Refuge is because they dont need individual donations. But your local domestic violence project does.

It is always worth looking behind the headlines. I have never understood, apart from lazy and sloppy journalism, why so many people still think Refuge is representative of WA in the UK.

That is their prerogative. That organization can provide services to whomever they choose. What changes is that another organization can be created that can choose to serve a particular population or that might provide separate services for different populations.

Everyone who needs help should be able to get it somewhere. The point is that the law should allow for options.

Indeed. Accessible options available to all. That will involve gatekeeping some of those groups and saying 'no, you cannot identify into this one, this one is not for you, that one is'.

It should never involve traumatised women having to discuss their awful experiences with or live alongside a man who has been permitted to be a special exception to the 'no men' rule, or her access to help being conditional on a requirement that she must engage in a fiction with him whether or not she can tolerate this, consents to it or believes in it. She is there for her, not for him.

No more men must be able to use women in this appalling way as has happened so far.

All those concerned about distressed men in this ruling should be considering how distressed those women were, and why this is not a bigger problem to them.

And this is why I don’t donate to them

I would hope that the funding instructions to LAs will now be changed to anything called a 'single sex' or 'women's' service or group must follow the definition of women and single sex in the Equality Act. And that where tax payer funding is being used by LAs to commission service provisions for groups, there must be accessible options available for all users, including a single sex women's group.

I would hope that Sarah Summers' case (and if not that one then others will come along, I wish no pressure on Sarah), will establish this if the guidelines don't shift as a result of yesterday.

I'm all in favour of men having access to any support they need - helplines, crisis centres, refuges, etc - but I deeply resent that they expect to be handed women's services on a plate. There are more or less as many men as there are women in society, so there's no reason why they can't organise themselves and develop their own support networks.
It will be much easier for them to do so, compared with the hand-to-mouth beginnings of many women's refuges and helplines. And there is no problem at all with single-sex men's mental health groups, men's sheds, men's helplines..

This is the statement from Solace Women's Aid. Slightly less bad than Refuge's. But still colluding with the misrepresentation that the Court ruling was anti trans.

As a service providing women only services you would have thought DV projects would welcome clarity that sex means biology rather than having this (get out the voilin strings) is an attack on trans rights.

(Sorry about only have text captured as an image, which I complain about because people with a visual impairment may not be able to read it, but this is all they provided. Apologies)

If someone wanted to find a women’s refuge. One that is in line with this ruling how hard or easy would that be?

You would go to the directory on Women's Aid (England & Wales) and search on that type of service.

Select "othe options" https://www.womensaid.org.uk/information-support/womens-aid-directory/

Not sure if the federations for Scotland and NI have the options.