Think about it Imagine that you’re a victim of childhood sexual abuse. You then get raped at a young age. You’ve felt all of your life that you are responsible and must have been “asking” for this.
You can also find groups for women that offer counselling services. These sessions are safe and supportive. Professionals are caring, helpful and kind.
You feel understood by them and can share your feelings with other women looking for help. Your confidence grows.
You then find out that there is also a female-identified transwoman who attends the sessions.
If you have been abused, raped or traumatized, it is urgent that you get away from men to heal.
So you feel threatened, and ask to be excluded from female-only sessions for the transwoman. Instead, suggest that they join a group specifically for transgender people.
Think about a victim of sexual abuse. While group counseling sessions are only available to women, you learn that the session is being attended by a transgender woman (stock image).
You are assured that they can attend the women-only groups as well as yours.
As the following report reveals, this is exactly what Sarah experienced. This is what’s happening to more women in Britain.
In response to the flood of domestic abuse and rape cases, feminists started to establish refuges for women and other services exclusively for women in the 1970s.
When I was young, in the 1980s, my volunteer work in domestic violence shelters three times a week. On a shift basis, I also ran a Rape Crisis Helpline.
The women who called the helpline and came to the refuge were desperate to speak to other women without the prying – and often judgmental – presence of a man.
Recollecting heartbreaking tales from girls about their childhoods, and how they were taught to be responsible for their own actions from a young age. They were afraid to report any type of sexual harassment, assault or other form of abuse because it would lead them to be dismissed or blamed.
Also, I remember the relief that the women felt when they heard everyone understood and was ready to support them.
Of course, we would talk about the difficulty of revealing such horrific details with male partners.
It is both saddening and alarming that Sarah, a 2021-aged woman, feels like she cannot access safe group support.
In the hopes of stopping trans activists from demanding women-only space, feminists offered to help them set up trans-women’s-only facilities. They have not expressed any interest in our offer.
This debate extends beyond the walls of therapy rooms. The head of the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre – the person ultimately responsible for its culture and policies – is currently a trans woman.
The Survivors’ Network and Edinburgh Rape Crisis have made it clear that trans women of any gender are included in the definition of ‘women’.
You feel so threatened that you ask if it is possible to exclude the trans woman from the female-only sessions, but you are told no, they have as every right to attend (stock image)
It is important for them to know that the 2010 Equality Act explicitly provides that trans women can be excluded from sessions of group sexual assault therapy when it is “a proportionate means to a valid aim”.
Gender self-identification in the UK is not protected by law. As a trans woman myself, I know first-hand what a negative effect it can have on the women-only support programs.
Canada’s self-identification laws allow men to transition without having to do so. Some of these men still have male reproductive organs, so it’s not required to undergo hormone treatment in order to obtain a certificate of gender recognition.
Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, which is home to pimps, drug dealers, and violent gangs that often sell young women as sex, was where I went.
Services have been set up by feminists to support young prostitutes and protect them from predators.
A charity I saw was described as providing a vital support system for women. I saw a group that looked almost like men sitting at a table in the dining room. Their beards were full of life and there was no indication that they would ever transition.
However, a volunteer said that the group was made up of women who arrived at the hostel. She added: “They came here because it is nicer than the homeless hostel. They know it’s illegal for them to be thrown out.”
Feminists put their blood, sweat, tears and soul into creating refuges and counseling sessions to deal with the aftermath of male violence.
Many women will find it difficult to speak out when they know that someone was born male.
It is shameful that the vital charities’ women directors have been so terrified of the translobby that they sold Sarah and other women to them.