My first ever volunteer post was back in 1980, at a Women’s Aid refuge for victims of domestic violence. I will never forget the sight of those women coming in through the doors, crying with desperate relief at having escaped abusive husbands; finding comfort in the company of other women who had experienced the same.
That safe environment, where women could flee and open up about their abuse without feeling frightened or belittled, saved many lives. The need for such services was recognised and acted upon by feminist movements back in the Sixties, at a time when the state did not recognise domestic violence or rape in marriage as a crime.
But, having provided necessary sanctuary for more than five decades, their continued existence is now in doubt, under attack from all sides. The Right slashes their funding. The Left, swept along by misogynistic transgender ideology, is moving to deny the safety and succour of sex-segregated services to women traumatised by male violence. It is welcoming transgender women – natal men – in their rape crisis centres and domestic violence shelters. It’s not a stretch to see why traumatised females, abused by men, wouldn’t want to share their safe space with male genitalia.
Under the UK Equality Act, it is perfectly lawful to provide discrete services for men and women if this is a better or more effective way of providing the said service. You’d think this would very much apply to rape refuge centres. But the bullying and harassment from trans-activists towards politicians, funders, sponsors and patrons has frightened them into opening their doors to transgender women. The law that is supposed to be protecting women is left hanging by a thread.
This is not actually new problem. It may be a new front in the transgender turf wars in the UK. But Vancouver Rape Relief (VRR) a women’s support and campaigning NGO in Canada, has been victimised by transgender activists since the mid 1990s. Now after their long struggle, this small, grassroots, volunteer-led organisation is under threat of losing its funding.
I first heard of VRR in December 2003 when I saw a news report about a long-running legal battle that the organisation had with a transgender person, Kimberly Nixon.
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