October 16, 2024 - 7:00am

Pity Sandy Brindley, chief executive of Rape Crisis Scotland (RCS). Since October last year, she has been wrestling with the problem of defining “woman” within the context of providing support for survivors of sexual violence. That is despite a tribunal judge ordered Scotland’s national rape crisis service to enforce a clear definition of “woman” across all its centres.

This might not seem very difficult. I’m certain, for instance, that the stranger who assaulted me wasn’t a woman, despite never having had the chance to ask him his gender identity. Then again, I’m probably not as much of an “intersectional feminist” as Brindley — that’s “intersectional” not in the helpful sense of recognising that women experience intersecting oppressions, but in the off-the-wall one of deciding that “being a woman” can intersect with “not being one”.

Earlier this year, there was reason to hope that ideological capture of rape crisis services by trans activists might have been coming to an end in Scotland. In May Roz Adams won her claim for constructive dismissal against Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre (ERCC), having endured a “heresy hunt” after requesting clarity for abuse survivors regarding the sex of support workers. Last month, a damning report into ERCC led to the resignation of Mridul Wadhwa, the male CEO who told female rape survivors requiring single-sex support to “please expect to be challenged on your prejudices”.

This week Adams was awarded £35,000 in damages, a substantial amount in recognition of the hounding she suffered. By this point, one might hope to have seen plenty of fulsome, unqualified apologies, starting with those at the very top of RCS. Yet, as Adams has noted, there has been no real taking of responsibility, let alone any attempt to question the ideology which led to this crisis. On the contrary, statements offered by RCS perpetuate the very obfuscation that Adams identified. Even now, RCS and Brindley simply do not get it.

“It is important,” RCS’s website states, “that survivors can make informed choices about the services they access”, before adding that “at present, how women only spaces are defined is decided by individual rape crisis centres.” They might as well add “Ha! Gotcha! Don’t go thinking that when we say ‘woman only spaces’ we mean anything at all.”

If there has been any movement at all within RCS, it has been from total denial to performative ignorance. We all know what a woman is, and we all know why many women seek single-sex spaces in the aftermath of sexual assault. It should not be remotely difficult for someone such as Brindley to defend their boundaries and choices. Yet instead she makes meaningless statements about “recognising different women have different needs”, as if everyone will forget that if the need is for a woman-only space, you must still be clear about what a woman is.

It’s important to note that this is an issue that goes beyond the provision of single-sex services per se. What Brindley seems to miss is that gender ideology is hacking away at the very roots of a feminist understanding of rape. We know that predatory men exploit loopholes. We know that rape is not just about sex, but power and control. The most prominent trans activists have not taken any great effort to hide their regressive views on male power and female subjugation. Is it really that hard for the head of a national rape crisis organisation to decide whether to define “woman” as “adult human female” or as “an open mouth, an expectant asshole, blank, blank eyes”?

In the end, this is not about intersectionality or competing rights. It’s about whether an organisation still understands the politics of rape, or whether it has become too inconvenient for it to do so. RCS is digging in. The organisation has been forced — “begrudgingly”, as Adams puts it — to compensate one worker, but it won’t pay any price for the survivors it is alternately gaslighting, shaming and treating as fools.

It’s such a small thing to ask. One word. One space. If you won’t allow women that, intersectional or not, you’re no feminist at all.


Victoria Smith is a writer and creator of the Glosswitch newsletter.

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