World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) Files

By "he" do you mean a male rape victim?

I think if a male rape victim wants a male counsellor, that's fair enough. The question is who should provide one. As you say the fact that his rapist was probably male makes a difference, but OTOH he may well feel that a woman can't understand the specific humiliation for a man of being raped, so it's still possible. I wouldn't say that makes him bigoted, which is what Wadhwa felt no shame in saying about female rape victims. And not only that raped women were "bigoted", but that they were "relatively privileged" compared to "migrant trans women of colour", ie Wadhwa 🙄, and that they should expect to be challenged about their bigotry as part of the counselling process. Like, WTAF??

Anyway. As I understand it, in the past, male rape victims were transferred to male rape crisis centres generally run by gay organisations. I guess for a heterosexual male that might not be ideal. Or is that homophobia?

And to be blunt, if enough male counsellors aren't available, or of the "wrong" sexuality, that really isn't the fault of the female-run rape crisis centres. As Wadhwa said, those were set up by women with whatever funds they could get - not much at the time. So if there's an unmet need for male-run rape centres, then men should set those up, instead of taking over female-run ones.

Employers are entitled to employ whomever they wish, in accordance with laws in the jurisdiction in which they operate. ERCC as an employer or service provider has never sought to give anyone the impression that they operate or provide services only for women:

Established in 1978, Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre (ERCC) provides a specialist support, information and advocacy service for women, non-binary people, members of the trans community and young people aged 12 and over in Edinburgh, East and Midlothian who have experienced recent or historic sexual violence, including rape, sexual assault, childhood sexual abuse and commercial sexual exploitation. We also work in schools and with young people across Edinburgh and the Lothians, and strategically with multi-agency partners, towards preventing sexual violence.

https://goodmoves.org/vacancy/a4s3z00000SfD4HAAV/convener-of-the-board

Well yes except they weren't "bad organisational decisions" in the usual meaning of such expressions.

They really were bad organisational decisions by the Board of Management of the ERCC. Wadhwa was hired because it was thought they were a suitable candidate for the position of CEO, or Adams as a support worker. Wadhwa wasn’t targeted because they were shìt at their job, they were targeted because they are transgender, and they were targeted in previous employment long before they were ever hired by ERCC. Their bad decisions as a Board is what led to the independent investigation of the of the organisation:

The chief executive of a sexual assault support service has stood down after a review found it failed to protect women-only spaces.

Mridul Wadhwa – a trans woman – resigned after a Rape Crisis Scotland report found she failed to behave professionally while head of Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre (ERCC).

The investigation, carried out by an independent consultant, also found Ms Wadhwa “did not understand the limits of her authority” and the needs of survivors were not prioritised.

In a statement, the ERCC board said it was implementing recommendations from the review, but felt the “time was right for a change of leadership”.

I’d suggest that statement is putting it mildly, and that’s being kind.

EDIT: Susan may wish to correct the acronym in that tweet.

I'm failing to comprehend the point you are trying to make 😑

Agree with the point but Wolf is a mentalist and not somebody I'd use to emphasise a point.

The allegation was not that male counsellors were incompetent. They might have been the best counsellors there, in absolute terms.

The issue was that some women and girls who had been abused and raped had a trauma response that meant they were in fight-or-flight mode every time they were in close contact with males, and that women in that situation would not be able to benefit from counselling by a male, however gifted and even kind and empathetic he was.

The other question, more specifically about Mridul Wadhwa's approach to this question, was that in terms of effective counselling, the very worst way for counsellors to react to this trauma would be to call such women and girls "bigots" and to "challenge" them on their "prejudice". That is not a client-centred approach, and is neither empathetic nor effective. IOW Wadhwa was showing themselves to be a terrible counsellor by that reaction.

Being male was not a disqualifying criterion. The point is that employers, in this case ERCC, are not restricted to applying the Genuine Occupational Requirement provision.

I’m not missing what is definitely a problem for you and the people who share your views, and I can understand why you’re presenting the circumstances as a person being targeted for not being university-educated when the position applied for requires that you have a degree. Being disqualified from consideration because one doesn’t meet the educational criteria required of the role is not the same thing - because being university-educated or not, is not a protected characteristic.

It’s why charity organisations will often parachute in a candidate from the private sector for the position of CEO though they may not possess a relevant academic qualification in social care - they possess the relevant qualifications, education and experience in industry and in business to fulfil the role of CEO, and generally speaking they know not to go beyond the authority of their position. There are exceptions - Wadhwa is just one, of many.

Adams was not fired, she chose to resign:

Allegations of misconduct were upheld, but no action was taken. Ms Adams then chose to resign.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1ee39wn30xo.amp

That is not a client-centred approach, and is neither empathetic nor effective. IOW Wadhwa was showing themselves to be a terrible counsellor by that reaction.

I’m now wondering to be honest - do you feel the same way about counsellors, therapists and advocates who favour what they call Gender Exploratory Therapy?

https://slate.com/technology/2023/05/gender-exploratory-therapy-trans-kids-what-is-it.html

At least EMDR only amounts to harmless, pseudoscientific nonsense:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_movement_desensitization_and_reprocessing

I don't know enough about either of those two approaches to have an opinion TBH. I do know something about trauma therapy though, though not EMDR, although what I understand of it is that by giving the person undergoing therapy a "task" to carry out at the same time as they discuss their trauma (ie keep their mind on moving their eyes in a certain pattern or a certain speed etc) this may allow them not to be overwhelmed by the memories of the trauma.

Which sounds quite plausible to me.

That’s fair enough, to be honest I figured you would know much more than I do about trauma therapy and all that entails anyway. I’ll be the first to admit that what I know could be written on the back of a postage stamp, with room for paragraphs and double spacing.

Don't forget you're talking about people who may be having uncontrollable flashbacks and even hallucinations due to trauma, so anything that enables the person to take back control over their mind/brain and redirect it to "reality" seems well worth trying to me.

And if it doesn't work for someone, well so what?

I’m acutely aware volchista, it just doesn’t seem appropriate to explain how I know, if you catch my drift? Recently I ended a phone conversation with a sleep clinic by telling the receptionist instead of the usual “thank you, goodbye”, I gave a rather chirpy “Sleep well”, before realising how incredibly inappropriate that was, that’s kinda the level you’re working with, it wasn’t intentional, I’ve had insomnia since childhood, and rohypnol’s side-effects are pretty trippy 😒

I’m going to assume on good faith basis we’re probably on the same level in terms of interpreting your ‘anything’ as anything within reason, which would exclude say for example the idiot across the hallway already regretting not closing the door to his office, being pointed at by a woman and three counsellors being told “I’ll talk to him”, so they all disappear upstairs while they decide what to do because it goes completely against the reams of lever-arch file filled policy documents and gigabytes of digital copies of those same policy documents, leaving the woman on her own in the room, staring at the wall, so she decides to take the initiative in spite of my attempts to reassure her that I am not the person to talk to (I just want to be left alone to eat my donuts and coffee).

She had some things she needed to get off her chest, and though I was incredibly uncomfortable and it was completely inappropriate, I figured it was more necessary for her to get some shìt off her chest than it was for me to finish my donuts and coffee. I really didn’t appreciate her reading me like a book, but she explained that she felt the women present were judging her. I figured it best not to attempt to correct her assumptions. If it doesn’t work, it leaves the person (I detest the language used in the industry to refer to people, whether it’s ‘clients’, or ‘service users’ or whatever else) in a much worse position than before.

In any case, I don't see the connection with a counsellor having their wish to be validated in a particular gender prioritised over the needs of the person being counselled.

It isn’t that a counsellor wished to have their gender validated or prioritised over the needs of the person being counselled, it’s that an employee sought to invalidate the policies of her employer that she disagreed with, using another employee and service users as a proxy for the implications of their “sex realist” beliefs. Whatever else is or isn’t covered in their policies, I’m pretty certain that maintaining confidentiality of service users and staff is covered in the Employee Handbook such that it wouldn’t even occur to an employee to violate the privacy of either service users or employees by seeking guidance from management on how to doxx them under the pretence of addressing questions from service users and the general public about that employee specifically. Whether they are a biological woman or not, or non-binary or whatever else, it does not justify violating their privacy and their right to a safe working environment by another employee in order to promote themselves and their “sex realist” beliefs. That’s what Adams should have been disciplined for, not the shìtshow that came about as a result of the Board of Management demonstrating their commitment to incompetence.

Ok but this is about who is suitable to be running a rape counselling centre. Not whether lesbians are perfect people (I don’t think anyone is saying that)

The point is you WOULD be regarded as a bigot by a thankfully vanishing minority

No idea what service users are, sounds very much like demeaning the trauma of women who have been raped to refer to them like they are a thing or object.

The job was advertised fora woman, they gave the job to a man who says he’s a woman.

I don’t understand your point about Adam’s. Sounds onto to me you’re mad at Adam’s, why? Didn’t she try and help the raped women.