But if you bring unacceptable beliefs
For Women Scotland has thoughts on the man who runs Rape Crisis Edinburgh and tells women to expect to “reframe” their trauma if they have to use his rape crisis centre.
They transcribed what he said in that interview:
But I think the other thing is that sexual violence happens to bigoted people as well. And so, you know, it is not discerning crime. But these spaces are also for you. But if you bring unacceptable beliefs that are discriminatory in nature, we will begin to work with you on your journey of recovery from trauma. But please also expect to be challenged on your prejudices, because how can you heal from trauma and build a new relationship with your trauma, because you can’t forget, and you can’t go back to life before traumatic incident or traumatic incidents. And some of us never, ever had a life before traumatic incidents.
So, women who think that men are not women must expect to be told they are bigoted if they are raped and seek help from the Edinburgh Rape Crisis centre. They will also be told, apparently, that men like Mridul Wadwha have never had a life before traumatic incidents, unlike them, Karen-bitches that they are.
But if you have to reframe your trauma, I think it is important as part of that reframing, having a more positive relationship with it, where it becomes a story that empowers you and allows you to go and do other more beautiful things with your life, you also have to rethink your relationship with prejudice. Otherwise, you can’t really, in my view, recover from trauma and I think that’s a very important message that I am often discussing with my colleagues that in various places. Because you know, to me, therapy is political, and it isn’t always seen as that.
What does he mean by “prejudice”? He means not believing that he is a woman. He’s declaring his intention of bullying rape victims who come to the rape crisis centre he runs into pretending to believe that he is a woman. He’s claiming that he’s the oppressed person in this scenario and raped women are his oppressors.
FWS continues:
The passage above is from a podcast featuring Mridul Wadhwa, the Chief Executive Officer of Edinburgh Rape Crisis. The podcast as a whole is a masterclass of gaslighting and features an extraordinary performance by the host Deborah Frances-White, who downplays the harassment women “might” get on a night bus at 1am when compared to the “very structurally violent constant flicks of eyes, and I don’t know, oh, God, and aggressive glares” that she says transwomen are exposed to.
They must be holding her hostage. It makes no sense any other way.
Frances-White’s naive, factually incorrect analysis of violence against women and how women feel in accessing services and support is never challenged by the supposed expert Wadhwa who is happy to allow Frances-White and co-host Kemah Bob to talk about abused women being obliged to “check your privilege”. A podcast interviewing the CEO of a rape centre becomes an exercise in proving that the person in charge of the centre is a more vulnerable person than the women accessing the service.
Which is all the more peculiar when you remember that the person in charge of the rape crisis centre IS A MAN.
Wadhwa’s statement quoted in the opening paragraph has distressed many women who are survivors of violence. The “bigots” Wadhwa identifies are women who want female only spaces in rape or domestic violence shelter and female only counselling.
…
It also concerned those with a background in counselling and mental health who wondered about the professional qualifications of one who apparently failed to understand that therapy must be non-judgemental. They also worried Wadhwa had reinvented or misunderstood the concept of “reframing trauma” which is supposed to enable a survivor to understand their natural response to attack and “reframe” any residual guilt they might feel in not having fought off the attacker or for having frozen. It is not supposed to be a vehicle for re-education or for making victims think they carry “prejudice” as suggested in the opening extract.
But Wadwha is here to change all that.
This is all so much worse than the stuff that people criticizing the VRCC could never possibly happen.
So a man lies about his sex to gain access to the most vulnerable women in society; he’s definitely going to lie about everything else, isn’t he? He doesn’t even have the polite legal fiction of a GRA certificate. He’s a man, legally. Why the hell did he get the job?
Because inclooosion. (I ranted about it here at the time.)
I know this is a stupid question, but how many transwomen (or people claiming to be so, which amounts to pretty much the same thing) actually are the victims of domestic abuse? It seems like it shouldn’t be all that many percentage wise. So apart from them not belonging there in the first place isn’t it likely that many of them are at the “rape shelter” for the express purpose of creeping on/intimidating women?
Or am I missing the plot?
I think you mean bullying them into pretending to believe that he is a woman?
I do indeed. Thank you; fixed.
No, I think you pretty much got it.
A policy like this like this is going to attract TiMs who will want to be counsellors and volunteers in order to gain access to vulnerable women, and or be “validated” as women, using rape survivors as props in their Brave and Stunning Story. “Oooh, tell me more details of your attack. What was it like? Did it make you feel more womanly? Lucky you! I’d just love some of that for myself! I have it so rough. I have to try so hard! It’s not fair. I was MISGENDERED today! And someone looked at me TWICE with some serious eye-flicking! I should be the one recieving therapy and support!”
Did he really make this comparison? I can hardly imagine an expression more hostile to women and girls. The contempt is palpable.
I have no idea what he means by that.
But it doesn’t sound good.
I think I know roughly what he means by it – it’s kind of a commonplace on the left, that everything is political. It’s not completely wrong, I think: often what looks like or is carefully disguised as “company policy” or “the rules of sport” or “good manners” is actually just another form of pointless hierarchy-enforcement. Foucault & power yadda yadda. But, clearly, it can be over-used and it can obfuscate. Is that what Wadhwa is doing? Pffff, of course it is.