Wadhwa should resign

The post by Naomi Cunningham that Maugham calls “profoundly offensive to trans people and their allies”:

Mridul Wadhwa is the CEO of Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre. The job was advertised as being restricted to women, under schedule 9 of the Equality Act 2010. 

So they hired a man.

At this point I must digress briefly. I have written before about “misgendering” (here and here). In writing about Wadhwa’s appointment to this role, I will use the nouns and pronouns appropriate to his biological sex. I do not apologise for doing so. I do so because I am writing about a situation in which sex matters. I have a serious point to make, and I intend to make it as clearly and powerfully as I am able to; I am not prepared to obscure my message with misplaced politeness.  

Indeed. The more we obscure our message by going along with the fantasy that some men are women, the less we can resist this relentless pressure to shut up about losing all our rights.

Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre didn’t have to hire Wadhwa, but it did anyway, despite advertising the job with “only women need apply.”

They declared an occupational requirement to be a woman in their job advert; but when Wadhwa applied for the job, they waived it in his favour. 

…

Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre’s misuse of its schedule 9 freedom to restrict a role to women has received wide public attention and has been the subject of many news reports. Its appointment of a man to its CEO role has operated – whether by accident or design – as a prominent show of strength: a demonstration to abused and traumatised women that there is no sanctuary for them where they can be sure that no men are present, and sure that no men are making decisions.

I’m sure they saw it as a much-needed warning to terfs.

But let’s cut to the chase.

That’s the legal situation as I understand it. But in truth, the legalities of the situation are peripheral. What really matters is the concrete reality. The concrete reality looks like this. 

Wadhwa is a man who has secured and continues to hold an appointment as CEO of a rape crisis centre that purports to provide an all-women space, to the profound dismay of many of its potential users (see e.g. Jo Bartosch’s account in her powerful piece in The Critic of the flood of responses from survivors that she received to a call for information; and this blog). 

Wadhwa is a man who has prioritised his own needs over the needs of service users, and has brought his male body into a space that should be wholly controlled by women; entered only with their consent, freely given. He has done that despite vociferous objections from many of the women concerned. He has implicitly characterised service users who object as “bigots.” 

No man should be made CEO of a rape crisis centre that purports to offer a female-only service; but especially not a man whose actions have demonstrated the open contempt for women’s boundaries that Wadhwa’s have. 

Wadhwa should resign.

Emphasis on “a man who has prioritised his own needs over the needs of service users” mine.

That’s the thing, see. It’s not even just that He’s A Man, it’s also that he’s the kind of man who puts what he wants ahead of the needs of abused women. It’s that it’s that it’s that. On the one hand women who have been through a hideous trauma and need help from fellow women who will understand the nature of the trauma, and on the other hand a selfish overbearing aggressive man who wants what he wants and does not care that it’s exactly what those women want to get away from. It’s appalling, and utterly disqualifying. His desire to get the job should have disqualified him from having the job.