>#JK Rowling launches women-only service for sex abuse victims
>Janice Turner
>Monday December 12 2022, 9.00am, The Times
>JK Rowling is founding and personally funding a new service for women survivors of sexual violence. Launched days before Nicola Sturgeon’s controversial Gender Recognition Reform Bill is expected to pass through the Scottish parliament, the Edinburgh-based centre, Beira’s Place, will be female-only.
>The author, who has written about the sexual and domestic abuse she suffered in her twenties, believes there is an “unmet need” for Scottish women who want “women-centred and women-delivered care at such a vulnerable time”. She hopes Beira’s Place, which will employ professional staff to provide free one-to-one and group counselling, “will enable more women to process and recover from their trauma”.
>Rowling’s board of directors are all vocal opponents of the Gender Recognition Reform Bill, which will permit anyone to change the legal sex on their birth certificate by making a simple statutory declaration, a process known as self-identification. Feminists, including Reem Alsalem, UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, have raised grave concerns it will open up women’s services and private spaces to abuse by male predators.
>Beira’s board comprises Rhona Hotchkiss, a former prison governor, who has opposed the Scottish government’s policy of moving trans-identified male sex offenders to women’s jails; Johann Lamont, a former leader of the Scottish Labour Party and a lawyer; Dr Margaret McCartney, an academic, broadcaster and Glasgow GP; and Susan Smith, director of For Women Scotland, a grassroots feminist group founded to fight the gender reform bill. Beira’s chief executive is Isabelle Kerr, a former manager of Glasgow Rape Crisis who received an MBE in 2020 for her work supporting British citizens who had been raped overseas.
>The provision of single-sex services has been a key battleground of the gender reform bill. Already in Scotland, most domestic violence refuges and rape support services are “trans inclusive” and accept referrals from both sexes. In recent years councils have removed grants from women-only refuges in favour of generic organisations. Monklands Women’s Aid in North Lanarkshire, which was set up more than 40 years ago, had its council funding withdrawn in favour of a social justice charity which also helps men.
>Most controversial is Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre whose chief executive, Mridul Wadhwa, a trans woman, told the Guilty Feminist podcast that women sexual assault victims who request female-only care will be “challenged on your prejudices” and told to “reframe your trauma”.
>Yet in her recent book Defending Women’s Spaces, veteran campaigner Karen Ingala Smith, the chief executive of Nia, a domestic abuse charity in London, describes how women traumatised by male violence fare better and feel safer in female therapeutic spaces.
>Beira’s Place is legally permitted to exclude males under the exemptions of the 2010 Equality Act, which allows single-sex services if they are “a proportionate means to achieve a legitimate end”.
>It is named after Beira, the Scottish goddess of winter. JK Rowling said: “Beira rules over the dark part of the year, handing over to her sister, Bride, when summer comes again. Beira represents female wisdom, power, and regeneration. Hers is a strength that endures during the difficult times, but her myth contains the promise that they will not last for ever.”
>The service is not a charity, but privately funded by Rowling, a noted philanthropist. The amount she will donate to set up and run Beira’s Place has not been disclosed.
Why does everything this woman do end up in the news? I’m genuinely curious why anyone cares?
Well done JK. Whatever you think about her views on trans rights, funding another much needed service for survivors of sexual abuse can only be a good thing
Sexual abuse doesn’t discriminate. Women, men and trans people are sexually assaulted every day. I understand that women can feel safer in more women-centric environments but the article is quick to yet again bring up the gender issues she is so vocal about.
Victims are victims and, speaking as a female survivor of sexual assault, gatekeeping trauma support is very dangerous.
I guess this is an “ok” outcome of her hate, but to put the message she only cares about sex abuse victims if they are “cis” women, only highlights her hate.
…after TERFs waged a campaign of death threats to shut down the existing crisis center, because it didn’t exclude trans women.
Rowling is an unpleasant person, for all her good intentions.
Great. I mean that sincerely, myself being a trans woman. I’ve said before that I have no problem with some women’s services not being open to trans women, and I have two concerns here, which if they are unfounded then I’m fully supportive.
1. That women’s services become intangible as a whole to trans women. I was raped by an ex boyfriend, it took years to get help because I was unable to access women’s services, and that trauma affected me deeply. It is why I support what Rowling is doing on the face of it, because if a woman is unable to leave an abusive partner or acquire aid because she will not go to a trans inclusive women’s service, that is an unacceptable outcome. No one should have to suffer an abusive relationship, or leave trauma unchecked. I have no problem with some services not being open to trans women, just as long as there are a reasonable amount that are.
2. That this is used as a weapon to attack trans people and inclusive women’s services. Inclusive women’s services have been attacked relentlessly, to the point that some had to shutter temporarily and offer reduced services, one example of RCS seems to be touched on positively in the article. If this service is a cynical attempt to do more of the same, and throw it’s weight around (eg by coming out against the GRA reform in Scotland saying they’d no longer be able to operate if it passed, which is patently false) then that would be disgusting.
If neither are the case, then more power to them. Yes it’s also fucked up that private citizens need to step up and do what the government should, but that’s nothing to do with Rowling and her beliefs. That’s the Tories being greedy gutterwipes.
Knew this place would be frothing at the mouth over this.
The problem people have with this isn’t that it’s a service for women.
It’s that it’s specifically not a service for trans-women and serves to only further attack trans women.
1. Jk Rowling has made her online presence about attacking trans people
2. The board is made up of people against trans rights
3. The centre has been set up specifically as an objection to a rape crisis centre that already exists for women, trans-women and non-binary people because that charity has a trans person on board.
4. This is being launched now as a direct opposition to the gender reform bill due to go through Scotland in days.
This is a legitimising of JK Rowlings hate and will be used to further attack trans people.
Imagine if a racist set up a centre for abuse for people who didn’t want to be treated by somebody non-white.
Important context missing here is that transphobic harassment caused the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre to close, leaving a gap in support this group can fit into.
Obviously victims of abuse and violence need all the funding they can get but the fact that Rowling is using as a political move against trans people is abhorrent.
The fact that all the board members are terfs speaks volumes of the intent of the organisation. It’s also a red flag to me that it’s set up as a private organisation and not a charity so less regulatory oversight.
I hope that at least their primary focus will be actually helping victims and not political dog whistling so some good can come of it.
There is an argument that it might be better for the extremely wealthy to pay more taxes so that services could be provided to everyone who needs them, rather than just having to hope you belong to a demographic that some or other billionaire wants to be seen to support.
Jesus christ people here are so bigoted.
No one would bat an eyelid if this was a BAME only service, they’d be lauded for it.
No one would bat an eyelid if it was a trans only service, they’d be lauded for it.
Its HER money, and rather than squirrelling it away like Elon/Bezos and any number of billionaires in the UK and worldwide, she’s creating a much needed service.
If you want to fill whole in an area of society that needs help, there is nothing stopping you campaigning or donating to make that happen.
Does she have an agenda? Of course. So do those that only support poor black people/children or any other marginalised group.
Get over yourselves and feel some compassion for the VICTIMS who will get some much needed help without boiling everything down to political points scoring.
All I’ve heard from or about JK Rowling since the Harry Potter books, is in some way about trans people.
I kind of wish people just stuck to their field, and not everyone had to become a celebrity.
When they say women-only, does this mean they have someone inspecting the genitalia of the rape victims? If it looks like they had surgery, back out in the street? Do the victims have to bring proof that they were assigned female at birth? If you forget your papers or were chased out of your house by an abusive spouse, are you out of luck?
What about intersex people? How much femaleness is needed?
Or will this be done with chromosome testing? With the victims waiting in the room for a few days while they go and get the DNA examined.
What determines if someone is a woman at the service?
The easiest way to work this is that people who try to present at women can go in. But Rowling loves her cis women only and to hell with the rest.
This is an unfortunately vastly needed service that is marred by the bigotry of the sponsor. It’s like having the BNP sponsoring a food bank. Desperately needed. Good on them for spending the money on help instead of hate, like they usually do. Doesn’t make them any less disgusting.
It looks like a large number of people on here either don’t get subtext and implication, either because it’s not explicit and they are fooled by “offsetting goodness” or because they’re bigoted and determined to miss the significance of symbolic gestures.
Firstly, subtext is not a difficult concept to grasp if you’re neurotypical and of at least average intelligence. Essentially subtext is any use of symbolism to imply something other than the explicit wording. Authors like JKR or her male persona know about this approach to writing because it laces a lot more information into text than text alone. For instance, a pub that has a “whites only” and “non-whites only” section is broadcasting that it’s racist because of the attached meaning to those phrases, even if everything about those spaces is precisely equal.
JKR is using charity to spite her trans-issue critics from a supposedly uncriticisable position of a good action with only truths about abuse attached. This is generally how propaganda works. She’s allowed to do it and there will be good consequences, but she is also doing it to spite critics in a way to get at them in an infuriating way.
It does discourse no good to suggest that what she’s done is from a place of moral purity. It is at least part-sneer, and a mark of doubling down on the moral stance that trans-inclusivity is largely a kind of immoral scam to give rapist men access to vulnerable women.
Reddit has convinced me that people really need proper critical thought, subtext and implication education in English. Someone could say, “I think we should save all the white people from this flood,” and then if you criticise it, people would say “Why do you want white people to drown in that flood?” or “Saving white people from floods is objectively a good thing” or “That person never said to save ONLY white people, just that they would save white people.”
Intentionally missing the symbolism of the act -and the wider argument she is throwing time, platform and support to- is stupid.
16 comments
>#JK Rowling launches women-only service for sex abuse victims
>Janice Turner
>Monday December 12 2022, 9.00am, The Times
>JK Rowling is founding and personally funding a new service for women survivors of sexual violence. Launched days before Nicola Sturgeon’s controversial Gender Recognition Reform Bill is expected to pass through the Scottish parliament, the Edinburgh-based centre, Beira’s Place, will be female-only.
>The author, who has written about the sexual and domestic abuse she suffered in her twenties, believes there is an “unmet need” for Scottish women who want “women-centred and women-delivered care at such a vulnerable time”. She hopes Beira’s Place, which will employ professional staff to provide free one-to-one and group counselling, “will enable more women to process and recover from their trauma”.
>Rowling’s board of directors are all vocal opponents of the Gender Recognition Reform Bill, which will permit anyone to change the legal sex on their birth certificate by making a simple statutory declaration, a process known as self-identification. Feminists, including Reem Alsalem, UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, have raised grave concerns it will open up women’s services and private spaces to abuse by male predators.
>Beira’s board comprises Rhona Hotchkiss, a former prison governor, who has opposed the Scottish government’s policy of moving trans-identified male sex offenders to women’s jails; Johann Lamont, a former leader of the Scottish Labour Party and a lawyer; Dr Margaret McCartney, an academic, broadcaster and Glasgow GP; and Susan Smith, director of For Women Scotland, a grassroots feminist group founded to fight the gender reform bill. Beira’s chief executive is Isabelle Kerr, a former manager of Glasgow Rape Crisis who received an MBE in 2020 for her work supporting British citizens who had been raped overseas.
>The provision of single-sex services has been a key battleground of the gender reform bill. Already in Scotland, most domestic violence refuges and rape support services are “trans inclusive” and accept referrals from both sexes. In recent years councils have removed grants from women-only refuges in favour of generic organisations. Monklands Women’s Aid in North Lanarkshire, which was set up more than 40 years ago, had its council funding withdrawn in favour of a social justice charity which also helps men.
>Most controversial is Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre whose chief executive, Mridul Wadhwa, a trans woman, told the Guilty Feminist podcast that women sexual assault victims who request female-only care will be “challenged on your prejudices” and told to “reframe your trauma”.
>Yet in her recent book Defending Women’s Spaces, veteran campaigner Karen Ingala Smith, the chief executive of Nia, a domestic abuse charity in London, describes how women traumatised by male violence fare better and feel safer in female therapeutic spaces.
>Beira’s Place is legally permitted to exclude males under the exemptions of the 2010 Equality Act, which allows single-sex services if they are “a proportionate means to achieve a legitimate end”.
>It is named after Beira, the Scottish goddess of winter. JK Rowling said: “Beira rules over the dark part of the year, handing over to her sister, Bride, when summer comes again. Beira represents female wisdom, power, and regeneration. Hers is a strength that endures during the difficult times, but her myth contains the promise that they will not last for ever.”
>The service is not a charity, but privately funded by Rowling, a noted philanthropist. The amount she will donate to set up and run Beira’s Place has not been disclosed.
Why does everything this woman do end up in the news? I’m genuinely curious why anyone cares?
Well done JK. Whatever you think about her views on trans rights, funding another much needed service for survivors of sexual abuse can only be a good thing
Sexual abuse doesn’t discriminate. Women, men and trans people are sexually assaulted every day. I understand that women can feel safer in more women-centric environments but the article is quick to yet again bring up the gender issues she is so vocal about.
Victims are victims and, speaking as a female survivor of sexual assault, gatekeeping trauma support is very dangerous.
I guess this is an “ok” outcome of her hate, but to put the message she only cares about sex abuse victims if they are “cis” women, only highlights her hate.
…after TERFs waged a campaign of death threats to shut down the existing crisis center, because it didn’t exclude trans women.
Rowling is an unpleasant person, for all her good intentions.
Great. I mean that sincerely, myself being a trans woman. I’ve said before that I have no problem with some women’s services not being open to trans women, and I have two concerns here, which if they are unfounded then I’m fully supportive.
1. That women’s services become intangible as a whole to trans women. I was raped by an ex boyfriend, it took years to get help because I was unable to access women’s services, and that trauma affected me deeply. It is why I support what Rowling is doing on the face of it, because if a woman is unable to leave an abusive partner or acquire aid because she will not go to a trans inclusive women’s service, that is an unacceptable outcome. No one should have to suffer an abusive relationship, or leave trauma unchecked. I have no problem with some services not being open to trans women, just as long as there are a reasonable amount that are.
2. That this is used as a weapon to attack trans people and inclusive women’s services. Inclusive women’s services have been attacked relentlessly, to the point that some had to shutter temporarily and offer reduced services, one example of RCS seems to be touched on positively in the article. If this service is a cynical attempt to do more of the same, and throw it’s weight around (eg by coming out against the GRA reform in Scotland saying they’d no longer be able to operate if it passed, which is patently false) then that would be disgusting.
If neither are the case, then more power to them. Yes it’s also fucked up that private citizens need to step up and do what the government should, but that’s nothing to do with Rowling and her beliefs. That’s the Tories being greedy gutterwipes.
Knew this place would be frothing at the mouth over this.
The problem people have with this isn’t that it’s a service for women.
It’s that it’s specifically not a service for trans-women and serves to only further attack trans women.
1. Jk Rowling has made her online presence about attacking trans people
2. The board is made up of people against trans rights
3. The centre has been set up specifically as an objection to a rape crisis centre that already exists for women, trans-women and non-binary people because that charity has a trans person on board.
4. This is being launched now as a direct opposition to the gender reform bill due to go through Scotland in days.
This is a legitimising of JK Rowlings hate and will be used to further attack trans people.
Imagine if a racist set up a centre for abuse for people who didn’t want to be treated by somebody non-white.
Important context missing here is that transphobic harassment caused the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre to close, leaving a gap in support this group can fit into.
Obviously victims of abuse and violence need all the funding they can get but the fact that Rowling is using as a political move against trans people is abhorrent.
The fact that all the board members are terfs speaks volumes of the intent of the organisation. It’s also a red flag to me that it’s set up as a private organisation and not a charity so less regulatory oversight.
I hope that at least their primary focus will be actually helping victims and not political dog whistling so some good can come of it.
There is an argument that it might be better for the extremely wealthy to pay more taxes so that services could be provided to everyone who needs them, rather than just having to hope you belong to a demographic that some or other billionaire wants to be seen to support.
Jesus christ people here are so bigoted.
No one would bat an eyelid if this was a BAME only service, they’d be lauded for it.
No one would bat an eyelid if it was a trans only service, they’d be lauded for it.
Its HER money, and rather than squirrelling it away like Elon/Bezos and any number of billionaires in the UK and worldwide, she’s creating a much needed service.
If you want to fill whole in an area of society that needs help, there is nothing stopping you campaigning or donating to make that happen.
Does she have an agenda? Of course. So do those that only support poor black people/children or any other marginalised group.
Get over yourselves and feel some compassion for the VICTIMS who will get some much needed help without boiling everything down to political points scoring.
All I’ve heard from or about JK Rowling since the Harry Potter books, is in some way about trans people.
I kind of wish people just stuck to their field, and not everyone had to become a celebrity.
When they say women-only, does this mean they have someone inspecting the genitalia of the rape victims? If it looks like they had surgery, back out in the street? Do the victims have to bring proof that they were assigned female at birth? If you forget your papers or were chased out of your house by an abusive spouse, are you out of luck?
What about intersex people? How much femaleness is needed?
Or will this be done with chromosome testing? With the victims waiting in the room for a few days while they go and get the DNA examined.
What determines if someone is a woman at the service?
The easiest way to work this is that people who try to present at women can go in. But Rowling loves her cis women only and to hell with the rest.
This is an unfortunately vastly needed service that is marred by the bigotry of the sponsor. It’s like having the BNP sponsoring a food bank. Desperately needed. Good on them for spending the money on help instead of hate, like they usually do. Doesn’t make them any less disgusting.
It looks like a large number of people on here either don’t get subtext and implication, either because it’s not explicit and they are fooled by “offsetting goodness” or because they’re bigoted and determined to miss the significance of symbolic gestures.
Firstly, subtext is not a difficult concept to grasp if you’re neurotypical and of at least average intelligence. Essentially subtext is any use of symbolism to imply something other than the explicit wording. Authors like JKR or her male persona know about this approach to writing because it laces a lot more information into text than text alone. For instance, a pub that has a “whites only” and “non-whites only” section is broadcasting that it’s racist because of the attached meaning to those phrases, even if everything about those spaces is precisely equal.
JKR is using charity to spite her trans-issue critics from a supposedly uncriticisable position of a good action with only truths about abuse attached. This is generally how propaganda works. She’s allowed to do it and there will be good consequences, but she is also doing it to spite critics in a way to get at them in an infuriating way.
It does discourse no good to suggest that what she’s done is from a place of moral purity. It is at least part-sneer, and a mark of doubling down on the moral stance that trans-inclusivity is largely a kind of immoral scam to give rapist men access to vulnerable women.
Reddit has convinced me that people really need proper critical thought, subtext and implication education in English. Someone could say, “I think we should save all the white people from this flood,” and then if you criticise it, people would say “Why do you want white people to drown in that flood?” or “Saving white people from floods is objectively a good thing” or “That person never said to save ONLY white people, just that they would save white people.”
Intentionally missing the symbolism of the act -and the wider argument she is throwing time, platform and support to- is stupid.