Category Archives: Single sex services

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Sarah Owen, MP, newly elected chair of the Women and Equalities Select Committee, on Woman’s Hour

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Sarah Owen, MP (Labour) for Luton North was elected Chair of the parliamentary Women and Equalities Select Committee (WESC) on 11th September 2024. The following morning, she was a guest on Woman’s Hour, presented by Anita Rani.  

Woman’s Hour was hardly quick to pick up on women’s legitimate concerns regarding the threats posed by the Gender Recognition Act, and transgender identity ideology more generally, to women’s sex based rights and protections. In fact, the BBC issued Woman’s Hours’s longest serving presenter, Jenni Murray, with an impartiality warning after a piece she had written for The Sunday Times Magazine (in March 2017) addressed whether men who had undergone ‘ a sex change operation ‘ (more accurately  described as gender affirmation surgery, because, quite simply, people cannot change sex) were different from ‘real women’. As Murray later wrote, ‘ I was roundly ticked off publicly and informed that I would not be allowed to chair any discussions on the trans question or proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act.’ Refusing to be silenced, Murray left the BBC just over three years later. Woman’s Hour’s refusal to tackle the issue increasingly undermined the programme’s claim to address ‘topical issues’ and slowly the embarrassing lacuna was filled. When Woman’s Hour presenter Anita Rani interviewed Owen, whilst some of us might have liked a more robust challenge to Owen’s responses, at least relevant questions were asked about the some of the issues in the clash between women’s and transgender rights.

Owen expressed sadness that people’s fears and concerns had been boiled down to body parts. This interpretation is her own and way behind the current state of debate. It is a central feminist position that women are more than our body parts. Of course, we are. The feminist position is that women’s bodies should not and need not define the entirety or scope of our lives, that our sex and socially prescribed sex roles are not the same. This is far from saying that we do not share the material reality of a sexed body.  

Owen was one of 452 MPs and 129 MSPs who were sent a complimentary copy of my book, Defending Women’s Spaces in a campaign by Woman’s Place UK and nia. The book makes clear that the needs of women in relation to single-sex spaces go way beyond matters of body parts. Of course, being sent a book is not the same as reading it, and if she hasn’t done so already, I’d suggest that Sarah spends some time with the book and considers some of the issues I raise from the perspective of someone who, for 34 years, has been involved in the provision of specialist services for women who have been subjected to men’s violence. Sarah, if you’ve misplaced your copy, could I further suggest that you buy one or even borrow someone else’s? Even if I say it myself, the book has important things to say about the importance of single sex services in particular for women victim-survivors of men’s violence.  

When asked what a woman is, Owen for some reason found herself unable to answer the question. Instead, she said ‘somebody that is going to be paid less than their male counterparts, somebody that is going to be less safe walking down the streets and somebody that faces more barriers in the workplace, education and health sector. These are not examples of what a woman is, they are examples of sex-inequality. They are examples of how the sex-hierarchy operates in patriarchal societies. Indeed, they are issues that we might suppose fall within the remit of the WESC. If we managed to eradicate all these examples of sex inequality, the biological category of women would still exist. But we need to be able to identify women if we are to show how we are discriminated against.

I was surprised to hear Owen say that most of the debate around the clash between women’s sex-based rights and protections had happened without ‘transwomen’s’ voices. Perhaps she hasn’t read the 2016 WESC Transgender Equality Report. I opened my book with a reference to this report. It included the nonsense claim that each of us is assigned sex at birth and quoted a newspaper article citing the disputed ‘sobering and distressing fact that in UK surveys of trans people about half of young people and a third of adults report that they have attempted suicide’. The report included quotes from the Scottish Transgender Alliance recommending the removal of the single-sex exceptions, from Galop, an LGBT anti-abuse charity, which claimed that transgender people are currently at serious risk of harm by being excluded from sexual and domestic violence and abuse services and one Mridul Wadhwa, who is quoted saying: ‘I am disappointed to think that someone has the right to refuse work to me and others like me in my sector [the sexual and domestic violence and abuse sector] just because they think that I might not be a woman.’  And we all know how his appointment turned out, don’t we?

Far from the voices of trans identified males not having been heard, the government announced that the Gender Recognition Act was to be reviewed following recommendations of the WESC report. The committee, then chaired by Maria Miller MP, had called 20 people (outside of MPs) as witnesses to the inquiry which preceded the report. Kathleen Stock summarised those who were called as witnesses thus: eleven of the twenty represented trans activist organisations, while the remaining nine were relatively neutral experts, though some of these were also trans themselves. No women’s groups were called to give evidence, though some had made written submissions, and neither was anyone who had voiced concerns about transitioning. In fact, one of the reasons that Woman’s Place UK was founded in 2017 was to help ensure that women’s voices were heard – as it was ours, not those of males who identified as transgender or organisations servicing their interests, which had been excluded. In addition, when I gave evidence to the WESC about whether specialist providers of services for women  who had been subjected to men’s violence understood the provisions of the Equality Act regarding single-sex spaces, one of the other two people interviewed was a trans identified man called Diana James. Perhaps it is understandable that the day after her appointment as Chair was announced, Owen was not familiar with the history of the committee, including the highly significant report that it had published eight years earlier. But this gap in her knowledge should not have resulted in her making a claim whichwas quite the opposite of the history of the committee that she now chairs. It hardly suggests that she is capable of hearing women’s concerns or recognising when we are not heard by others. And, I’d add, the ‘say what you want to think is true because it suits your narrative regardless of its basis in fact’ is entirely consistent with the input of transgender identity ideology advocates: their false claims about suicide, denial of the harms of puberty blockers, denial of the extent of the medicalisation and sterilisation of minors, exaggeration of the levels of serious harm and violence to persons with transgender identities in the UK and so on.

Owen also claims that polarised views mean that we haven’t seen any progress in addressing the conflict between women’s sex-based rights and protections and transgender identify ideology and she bemoaned the lack of respectful debate. Again, she is quite wrong. Feminist interventions have been largely respectful but most of all she is wrong to deny women’s gains. As Professor Jo Phoenix summarised ‘the count so far (of employment tribunals involving secular gender critical claimants and including full admissions of liability as wins’) is: ‘12 wins (admission of liability + claims upheld @ ET/EAT), two settled by agreement, two ongoing appeals, two unsuccessful and one dismissed at preliminary hearing stage (ruled out of time and/or claimant did not have employment status)’. This, Phoenix explains is in the context of less than five percent of belief discrimination claims winning at hearing & around 15-20% being unsuccessful at hearing in the last fifteen years while we (those of us who understand that sex is a material fact and refuse to pretend otherwise) are winning at a rate of 78 percent with three percent being unsuccessful. There are many progressions outside courtrooms too and of course the battles fought inside the courtroom themselves have implications outside it.

Quite simply, women have refused to be silenced and we continue to make gains. We will not let our rights be given away. We will not let demands that we ‘be kind’ prevent us from fighting to protect our interests. The chair of the Women and Equalities Committee is only one member of the committee and I hope others on the committee will ensure that issues are examined and robust challenges are made. I recognise that the remit of the committee is women and (other) equality and inequality issues. But surely there’s an indication in the name of the committee that women’s interests should not be ignored or diminished. And sadly, it doesn’t fill me with confidence that the new chair can’t even define what a woman is.  

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Trauma-Informed Services for Women Subjected to Men’s Violence Must be Single-Sex Services

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For many women and girls, the boundaries between domestic and sexual violence and abuse, are very much blurred. For some this abuse includes prostitution and other forms of sexual exploitation too.

It’s not unusual for women who’ve been subjected to men’s violence to develop a trauma response. These sometimes develop after a single incident of violence, particularly with regards to sexual violence, though sometimes it can develop after years or months of living in fear, walking on egg-shells, recognising that tone of voice, that look in the eyes, that sigh, that pause, that silence, that change in his breathing. Some women have lived this, with a succession of perpetrators starting from their dad – who may have been physically, sexually or emotionally violent, abusive and controlling or a mixture of them all – all their lives.

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) can develop in response to trauma that may have occurred recently or in the distant past. Those who have experienced sexual trauma, especially whilst young are at greater risk, with victims of multiple forms of childhood abuse and neglect most at risk of lifetime trauma[i] Women victim-survivors of child sexual abuse are at least twice as likely to experience adult sexual victimisation[ii]. 51% of adults who were abused as children experienced domestic abuse in later life and approximately one in six adults who were abused as a child had been subjected to domestic violence and abuse in the previous year[iii].

Studies of women involved in prostitution found that between 63-80% reported being subjected violence in the course of being prostituted[iv]. One study found that women in prostitution were murdered at a rate 12 times above that of non-prostituted women[v]. Many women in prostitution describe sexual encounters as non-consensual, coerced or economically coerced rape. Two-Thirds of women in prostitution suffer PTSD.[vi]

After trauma, the brain can be triggered by something that would barely register for someone else, interpreting something that for many people would be unthreatening as a serious threat or danger, for example the presence of a man, particularly where not expected.

PTSD/trauma responses happen in a part of the brain called the amygdala. The amygdala detects a threat or perceived threat and can activate a “fight or flight” response.  This releases adrenaline, norepinephrine, and glucose into the body, and if the threat continues, cortisol. A part of the prefrontal cortex (an area in the front of the brain that processes emotions and behavioural reactions) assesses the threat and can either calm or reinforce the fight or flight response. People suffering trauma/PTSD have a hyper reactive amygdala and a less effective calming prefrontal cortex reaction. The brain becomes overwhelmed by the trauma (pre-frontal cortex shutdown) leading to disorientation and confusion as the higher brain functions of reasoning and language are disrupted.  Thinking and reasoning can be drowned out by feeling and being. Prolonged stress can lead to permanent change in the prefrontal cortex.

A trauma-informed safe space creates space for action and recovery from violence and abuse and places the woman victim-survivor in control and in the centre. The trauma response described earlier is the antithesis of a space for action and recovery, so a trauma informed approach is based on understanding the physical, social, and emotional impact of trauma caused by experiencing violence and abuse. A trauma-informed service for women understands the importance of creating an environment – physical and relational – that feels safe to victims-survivors in all the ways I’ve just mentioned. For many women this means excluding men from their recovery space, and yes, this includes those who don’t identify as men.  Their behaviour, the likelihood that they themselves may be abusive, is not relevant. If it is not women-only, it is not trauma informed for women who have been subjected to men’s violence.

We know that at least 80% of males who hold a gender recognition certificate retain their penis, but anyway, in almost every case, we don’t need to know what’s in their pants to know they are a man. Women experiencing trauma after violence and abuse will, like most of us – almost always instantly read someone who might be the most kind and gentle trans identified male in the world – as male; and they may experience a debilitating trauma response as a result. It’s not their fault, it’s not a choice and it’s not something they can be educated out of. It’s not hate. It’s not bigotry. It’s not transphobia. It is an impact of abuse and they need space, support and sometimes therapy – not increased confrontation with a trauma inducing trigger; not nowhere to go that offers a woman-only space.

To properly heal from trauma, in particular that caused by sexual violence, a course of counselling/therapy from a counsellor/therapist specially trained to deal with trauma/PTSD from sexual or domestic violence and abuse is often needed. Unfortunately, far too few women are offered this opportunity. Specialist women-led women-only organisations supporting victim-survivors of men’s violence are rarely funded to the extent that we can meet the levels of need that exist. All too often we’re contracted to do what commissioners value, this isn’t always what women want and need.

Women should not need to justify our desire for or the benefits of women-only space on the basis of violence perpetrated upon us or our sisters but we should recognise that some women need or benefit from it more than others. Not all women who are subjected to men’s violence and abuse will develop a trauma response. Not all women will be subjected to men’s violence and abuse, though globally one in three are at some point during our lifetime. Not all women who have been abused by men want women-only spaces but should they then take away the right of that space from those who do?

Of course, women who experience trauma/PTSD as a result of men’s violence are required to function in a world where men are present and for the most part, do. But women-only spaces in Rape Crisis Centres, refuges, women’s centres or women-only buildings or events, etc are spaces where women are not required to make all the mental self-adjustments to function in the presence of men. Women survivors and feminists (many of us both) created these spaces because we know how important this is. Somewhere we can function and feel OK, safe, maybe even relaxed and with our defences down and our vigilance switch turned low. Women who have been subjected to men’s violence deserve this down time, this head space.  Women-only space for women who have been subjected to men’s violence and abuse is something that must be protected by those of us who don’t need it, for those of us who do.

 

[i] Widom et al. 2008.
[ii] Classen, Palesh, & Aggarwal, 2005
[iii] ONS Impact of child abuse on later life, Crime Survey for England and Wales, year ending March 2016
[iv] Kinnell, 1993; Barnard et al., 2002, Campbell & Stoops, 2010
[v]Ward, Day & Weber, 1999
[vi] Farley, 1998.
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The importance of women only spaces and services for women and girls who’ve been subjected to men’s violence

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Speech to Scottish Parliament – January 14th 2020

 

nia is a charity based in north east London run by women, for women, girls and children who have been subjected to men’s violence– primarily sexual and domestic violence and abuse, including prostitution. nia has been operating for 45 years,  We provide advocacy and counselling through East London Rape Crisis for women and girls aged 11 and above, regardless of when they were subjected to sexual violence, who perpetrated it and how long ago it happened, we have two refuges, one for women with problematic substance use and one for women who have been involved in prostitution and we were provide a range of community based services for women subjected to domestic violence and abuse and prostitution. I’ve been CEO  of nia for the last 10 and altogether I’ve been working in specialist women’s services for almost 30 years. Last year, across nia’s various projects, we provided one-to-one face-to-face support to just over 1,500 women and girls, 8 men – and 5 people who identified as transgender, all male. We haven’t yet been approached by a trans-identified female, but given the changing profile of the trans population, we know this is just a matter of time. Then again, because they don’t consider themselves to be women and we are a women’s charity, perhaps they’ll choose not to access us; perhaps, we can expect to be contacted by them if they need us if they join the growing number of de-transitioners.

Where contracts require us to support men and some do, we do so; and male victims are treated with the same levels of skill, respect and dignity as women and girls. We do not support men in venues that we use to support women and we do not support men at all in our refuges or our therapeutic groups. We do not employ males.

A couple of years ago, nia’s board of trustees, in the latter stages of finalising the charity’s strategic plan, took the decision to identify supporting the preservation of women-only services as one of our strategic objectives. We agreed that if we did not speak out, we were being complicit in the erosion of women-led specialist services for survivors of men’s violence. We have developed a ‘Prioritising Women Policy’ which meets our obligations under the Equality Act and uses the single sex exemptions permitted therein.

We knew that this decision was not without risks. Like many small and medium sized charities, nia cannot take financial security for granted. We’re run on a handful of 2-3 year contracts. Each winter, as we look at the financial forecast for the coming year, there is a deficit. We carefully balance spending requirements, contracts that are still running, looking at those that are ending and asking ourselves whether we have a chance of retaining them, and how much we have in reserves just in case, and we hold our breath and tentatively continue. I’ve been doing this for 10 years now with nia and it doesn’t get any easier, and some years are definitely worse than others. Anyway, despite this, nia’s board bravely decided to focus on the bigger picture of what is best for women, in particular those subjected to men’s violence – and agreed that if, as a charity, this was going to be the hill we died on, we would go down fighting. We would go down fighting and prioritising women.

One of the most important ways that we can contribute to creating a ‘safe space’ for women who have experienced men’s violence ……. is quite simply by keeping men out. Men are far more likely to commit violence than women. Exclude men and you are very significantly reducing the prevalence of violence.

Over the last 10 years, 85% of those found guilty of domestic homicide in Scotland were males. Also in Scotland, in the year ending March 2017:

  • 86% of homicide suspects were male
  • 79% of prosecutions for common assault were of males
  • 91% of prosecutions for serious assault were of males
  • 98% of prosecutions for sexual violence were against males.

I’m not naive or dishonest enough to claim that women are never violent – of course some women are.  But when women are violent – and remember it’s statistically way less frequent – when we are – we generally cause less harm than violent men. And, there is no credible evidence suggesting that males who identify as trans commit violence against women at lower rates than those who do not.  I’m not saying that men who identify as transgender are inherently violent or that all trans identified males are violent – just that they are no less violent that other males. And they are males.

In addition, but just as importantly, we know -– and independent research confirms – that women subjected to men’s violence feel safer and fare better in women only spaces and value those run by independent women-led charities most of all.

Some say that ‘we’ – those of us working is specialist women’s services – can use risk assessments to assess whether a male who says he is trans poses a risk to women.  Let’s look at this in relation to women’s refuges:

When a risk assessment is completed with a woman looking to move in to a refuge, time is usually critical. You need to help her to get to a place of safety and quickly. She’s either already left her home or is planning to do so urgently because she is in danger. Maybe she’s called and needs to get out whilst her partner is due to be out of the house for a few hours.  You’re also looking at whether the location of the refuge offers safety and can meet the woman’s needs and those of her children if she has them, and whether she herself might pose a risk to others living in the refuge. With risk assessment, you’re assessing the risk she is facing from her partner and planning how you can help her to reduce the often intensified risks associated with actually leaving an abusive man. The Femicide Census, a project I co-founded, told us that a third of women who are killed by a partner/ex-partner, are killed after they have left him. Of these about a third are killed within the first month and two-thirds within the first year. Leaving an abusive man is dangerous and difficult. Risk assessment with safety planning can help save lives.  Risk assessment is not about assessing whether or not a woman is, in reality, a violent male.

If you expect refuges to accommodate males who identify as trans, you’re asking staff in already under-resourced women’s refuges (Scottish Women’s Aid report that cuts to Scottish refuges have increased from 14% to 41% between 2009 and 2016. Their annual survey reported that 30% of survivors who sought refuge in Scotland had to be turned away), you’re asking staff in already under-resourced women’s refuges, to differentiate between:

  • Transgender people born male who have genuinely experienced men’s violence and have managed to unpick their male socialisation and who will not use their sense of male entitlement or sexism or misogyny to harm, reduce and control women in the refuge and
  • those transgender people born male who have genuinely experienced violence but are still dripping in male privilege and advantage and who hate or resent women; and
  • those transgender people born male who are narcissistic perpetrators who have managed to convince themselves (and others) that they are victims , and
  • those transgender people born male who are seeking validation, which some, if they were self-aware and able to be honest, would recognise as a need that can never be satisfied, and who might prioritise their validation above the needs of women, and
  • those transgender people born male who are autogynophiles (that’s a male who is sexually aroused by the thought of himself as a female) or other fetishists, and,
  • finally other men who are pretending to be trans in order to track down a particular woman or predatory men trying to access women in general. And we do know that violent and abusive men lie and manipulate. Violent and abusive men stand up in court, swear to tell the truth and lie and manipulate.

No one’s yet explained to me how risk assessment is supposed to screen out most of those men – let alone convinced me of the wisdom of trying to make a bedroom for a fox in a henhouse. Risk assessment is about identifying risks posed by violent men and mitigating against them, not chucking in a few extra because you can.

But …. let’s set that small matter aside. Let’s imagine for a moment that you could, as some claim, risk assess trans-identified males for their suitability and safety to inhabit your space or attend your service, which of course is now no-longer women-only. What you’re ignoring if you do this is the impact of men’s presence on women who’ve been subjected to men’s violence.

It’s not unusual for women who’ve been subjected to men’s violence to develop a trauma response. These sometimes develop after a single incident of violence, especially with sexual violence, but also sometimes after years or months of living in fear, walking on egg-shells, recognising that tone of voice, that look in the eyes, that sigh, that pause, that silence, that change in his breathing. Some women have lived this, with a succession of perpetrators starting from their dad, all their lives.

A trauma informed approach is based on understanding the physical, social, and emotional impact of trauma caused by experiencing sexual and domestic violence and abuse. A trauma-informed service understands the importance of creating an environment – physical and relational – that feels safe to victims-survivors in all the ways I’ve just mentioned. A trauma-informed safe space creates space for action and recovery from violence and abuse and places the woman victim-survivor in control and in the centre. For many women this absolutely means excluding men from that space, including those who don’t identify as men.

Women are gas-lighted (manipulated to question their own judgement or even sanity) by their abusive male partners all the time. It is a cornerstone of coercive control. As a service provider you are in a position of power, no matter how you try to balance this out, and of course we do as much as possible to balance this out, but ultimately it is inescapable. You are not offering a trauma informed environment if you, in your position of power, gaslight traumatised women and pretend that someone that you both really know is a man, is actually a woman.  It is furthering the abuse to then expect women to share what you say is women-only space with males who say that they are women, because you and they know are not.  Part of your role is to help women to learn to trust themselves again, not replace the batshit that their abuser has filled their head with, with a new version. All this is on top of what I looked at earlier, that statistically women are safer in women only environments – because men commit violence at significantly higher rates.

It isn’t just women experiencing serious and debilitating trauma who benefit from women-only spaces and services. Women tell us that they want and value women-only space for safety, empathy, trust, comfort, a focus on women’s needs, the expertise of female staff often themselves survivors. They tell us they feel more confident and find them less intimidating. Women-only spaces offer not only a space away from the specific man that women are escaping or who has violated them but away from men in general; away from men’s control and demands for attention; away from men taking physical and mental space; away from the male gaze and men’s constant appraisal of women; away from men’s expectations to be cared for and, just as importantly, a space where women share in common experiences of abuse despite how these differ and despite all the other differences between us. A space with others who understand, to whom you don’t have to explain why you didn’t leave earlier and who know how easy it is to feel guilty or stupid because you didn’t.

We know that at least 80% of males who hold a gender recognition certificate retain their penis, but anyway, we don’t need to know what’s in their pants to know they are a man. Women experiencing trauma after violence and abuse will, like most of us – almost always instantly read someone who might be the most kind and gentle trans identified male in the world – as male; and they may experience debilitating terror immediately and involuntarily, they will modify their behaviour, their actions and expectations in countless ways, many that they are not consciously aware off. They need and deserve a break, don’t they?

Since I’ve spoken out to defend women-only services, I’ve lost count of the number of victim-survivors of men’s violence who have told me how important a women only service was to them. They’re often upset and emotional when they start to talk about this.

That any woman working in, but most of all those in leadership positions which are connected to women’s welfare, are prepared to sit on the fence about the importance of women-only spaces for victim survivors of men’s violence, and whether men can magically become women, makes me want to both rage – and weep. You cannot opt of this. You cannot sit back. You cannot, especially if you are happy to accept the salary and other perks of a leadership position claim to ‘have an opinion on this’ but in the next breath say it ‘isn’t safe for me to speak out’. None of women’s political gains were achieved by well-paid women who played safe and put themselves first rather than women as a class. How dare any woman take a leadership position and leave it to others, many of them victim-survivors, to do this? How dare they claim to care about women’s safety and look away, pretending that there is nothing to see here? Please don’t look away.

 This not about hate. It’s not about bigotry. It is not anti-trans.  It’s about women and children who have been subjected to men’s violence.  Can we please just sometimes – sometime like now – put them first?