~
“Above all, what stopped me from speaking out before I retired were the
consequences for the women and children in our refuges. The threat of loss of
contracts, time spent fighting legal challenges – they are the ones impacted.
"It is just another fight that we don’t need.
"We are fighting every day to keep our
services open anyway, and to keep women and children alive. I’m not frightened
of abusive men, and I’m not frightened of what people say about me – but I do
care about vulnerable women and children.” - Professional
~
“The threat to organisations who take a stand on protecting female-only service
provision is very real.
"Securing year-on-year funding for VAWG services in the current climate is hard enough and I don’t want to risk our services.
"However, to say nothing is to be complicit in the silencing of debate and discussion on the
implications of self-ID for VAWG services." - Professional
~
“Those of us that still exist are all too aware that we are only one contract-cycle
away from forced closure on the grounds of loss of funding.
"As CEO, I have been reminded by commissioners of the inequality of our relationship on several occasions, from a robust challenge to a local authority attempt to escape their responsibility to house a vulnerable woman, to nia’s refusal to be deflected from prioritising women. I am disappointed but not surprised, and indeed completely understand, why many representatives of women’s organisations are afraid to speak out.”
- Professional
~
“I personally have to be very careful about what I say in public for fear it could
affect the organisation I work for and my job there.” - Professional
~
“When you see someone accused of transphobia, and calls for them to be
sacked, simply because they have signed a letter saying that women should be
able to talk about a change to the law without fear of violence, this has a chilling effect.
"I have spoken to women MPs who are very concerned about these changes, but frightened of speaking out, journalists who are frightened to write about the issue and women’s organisations who are frightened to discuss the issue in public.
"I know academics who have chosen not to write or teach about these issues because they have seen colleagues face organised campaigns by students to get them sacked.
"None of these people are ‘transphobic’ –
they all want to protect the human rights of trans people.
"They just recognise that human rights are always a question of balancing the needs and rights of different groups.”
- Professional
~
"I am disappointed and furious that so-called second tier organisations who are
supposed to represent us appear to be choosing not to. I don’t know whether
that is through lack of comprehension or fear" - Service user & survivor
~
"I feel utterly betrayed by Survivors Network in Brighton.
"They advertise their services for all self-identifying women but have no policy to share with women who want to understand what this means in practice, have done no research on the impact on female survivors of their failure to invoke exemptions, and they
have no referral pathway for the women for whom sharing therapeutic or self-
help space with male-bodied people is harmful to their own recovery.
"Female survivors of childhood sexual abuse must be permitted to put our own needs
first in the services that we set up with our own money and efforts"
- A service user & survivor
~
“Women-centred providers and feminists who understand domestic violence and feminist theory are the ones who are aware and are afraid to speak out.
"But a large number in the sector have no idea of the dangers, of the needs
of traumatised victims, of the problems these policies would cause.
"They have no clue of the dangers these would pose to women and children.
"When I started in ’81 I remember there was a spate of murders in the early days.
"Women were murdered in women’s refuges. That’s changed because of lessons
learned and now these murders have stopped. But men are still a threat to
women"
- Professional
~
"Twenty years on from the physical and sexual abuse I suffered, I am happily
married to a gentle and kind man.
"However, I am still very nervous and jumpy
around men I do not know and feel afraid if I am in situations where I feel
vulnerable with unknown males around.
"Female-only spaces are incredibly
important to me and I place huge value on them as they are spaces in which I
can feel safe and know that I will not encounter anyone with a male body.
"I am incredibly distressed by the idea that I and other women like me may be about
to lose those spaces, and the idea that people with an agenda are dismissing
my fears as irrational and weaponising it as transphobia just adds to that.
"Please keep women-only spaces for natal women, they are so important"
- Service user & survivor
~
“I have been consistently bombarded with demands to admit men who say they
are victims of abuse which they have experienced from women.
"I have always refused because the Freedom Programme must provide a safe women-only
space.
"I have also received regular death threats from men who object to my
assertion that men are violent to women. "Today I receive hostile messages on
twitter and bullying emails from people who say we should support what they
call transwomen.”
- Professional
~
“Over the course of many years, I’ve watched the public realm become increasingly toxic with accusations of transphobia, ‘literal violence’ and ‘questioning the right of trans people to exist’ as females – some, but not all of them, feminists – asked questions about the potential impact of self-ID on
VAWG services and, more broadly, on female-only spaces.
"I’ve watched as trans activists and their supporters target funders, employers, meeting venues, and political parties in response to people asking for a broader public dialogue on the issue.
"There urgently needs to be a public debate on gender self-ID and its implication for the protections offered to women as a biological sex class.
"Of course, to say this is to out oneself to the trans lobby as a TERF.”
Professional
~
“It is not a new concept to posit that men pose a threat to female people.
"It is entirely rational for women to be
afraid of males in spaces that are supposed to be safe. And whether or not people are inclined to agree with it, that
includes natal males who now identify as women.”
- Service user & survivor
~
“In six years of working in women’s refuges… we only once [permitted] a man to
come on a childcare outing.
"It was successful, he was het, quite atypical of the average male being the oldest of nine kids.
"But we never did it again because
the mothers were anxious that retraumatising situations could happen.
"We had been lucky that time … trans-identified males being allowed near, in any way, or to enter a women’s and children’s refuge [is] not protecting women’s and
children’s needs.
"Since when do we allow women’s safety to suffer to appease people’s identity issues?” - Professional
~
“We do not feel safe having males in our spaces.
"If my rapist follows me you will
ring 999.
"You will get the police to do safety checks on my welfare.
"If he comes near the refuge you will force me to leave there for my own safety and the
safety of other women, yet if he puts on a dress and calls himself a woman you
could welcome him into the refuge – and call women bigots for objecting.”
- Survivor's org FOVAS
~
“There is no assessment and no price that can be put on how a woman feels after
male violence and how much she needs, if she so chooses, a female-only space.
"There is, however, research that has been done to evidence this need.” - Professional
~
"Coming from child sexual abuse and trauma by men and I would feel so at risk if
I had to be near trans-identified males.” Service user & survivor
~
“After I was physically assaulted (by a man I didn’t suspect would attack me) I
felt alert, vigilant and distrustful in male company and only felt more relaxed
comfortable and at ease in the absence of male company.
"My attacker’s genitals and my sexual parts were involved in a bodily attack.
"He didn’t care about my [gender] identity and at that point I didn’t care about his.”
- Service user & survivor
~
“I have experienced habitual male sexual violence since the age of five, when I was at school and supposed to be protected …
"I will not apologise for the fear I feel as a consequence of male behaviour. That is not my burden to bear.”
- Service user & survivor
~
“A frequent question I get from the women who come to our groups is. ‘Is this
a female-only group?’
"They ask that out of a place of fear. It feels important to me to hold that line – and we do.
"We support men and boys and we do that in a separate session. We are happy to support transwomen too, but in a separate
session.” - Professional
~
“In the refuges I have worked in over the years the kids arrived very traumatised
from the men in their lives. The male-free environment enabled them to flourish
and gain confidence again.
"They felt safe for the first time ever.
Many of them were bed wetters, would smear faeces, would shake when men were around.
The single-sex environment was essential for them to heal.”
- Professional
~
“… a great many of the women I supported had not just been abused by one man
but a succession of men, sometimes from childhood (including sexual abuse
by family members)
"They are entitled to feel safe in a refuge, which should be the one place in the world at that point that they can be assured that no men will be present.
"This applies also to the children who may very likely have been traumatised by witnessing male violence.”
- Professional
~
“I have worked, campaigned and volunteered alongside, and been friends with transwomen [throughout my twenty year career in this sector] in many
different capacities, and have always supported their right to live their lives
with safety, dignity and respect.
"But I am very worried that the move to self ID creates real risks for the safety and dignity of women.
“We provide services to both women and men, (including both transwomen and transmen) but organised so that there is a women-only space.
"The vast majority of our clients are women (to be clear I mean adult human females)
and we know from talking to them that women-only space is really important
to them to feel safe and to heal.
"The women we support have suffered from
horrific forms of male violence, sometimes over many, many years.
"Many have not spoken about their experiences to another person and it often takes a longtime for them to feel ready to contact us.
"We know that many of these women
come to our service because they know it is women-only and would not access
services if there were people they perceived to be male present.” - Professional
~
“[It is important to understand] how completely traumatised most women and children in refuges are.
"How important it is to them to have a safe haven where they won’t encounter
any males.
"Adult sons are not even allowed to visit their mothers in refuge.
"These are wonderful safe places that are for women to recover and heal.
"The presence of a male, however said male identifies, could be enough to
trigger a woman into leaving refuge and going back to her abuser.”
- Professional
~
"I was a woman’s aid volunteer in Northern Ireland, both in the refuge and in a charity shop.
"Men were never allowed in the refuge, or to attend the classes.
"However one day when I was taking advantage of the upstairs room in the charity shop to breastfeed my very small baby, a man was permitted to come upstairs.
"He sat himself down and watched me feed my baby without asking permission and I felt unable and unsafe to ask him to leave as I didn’t know him or how he would react if I asked/told him to leave.
"This memory has stayed with me for 40 years. I repeat 40 years!
"We all know that over 90% of violence is caused by men. It is not ok to throw women’s rights, safety and language ...
To be told that women can be educated out of a trauma response is gaslighting.
"[We are told] that ‘transwomen are women’ and therefore of no risk to us, even as we see headlines about these males who have raped, abused and even killed women.
"We are told that not all are ‘like that’ but we have yet to be told how we are to recognise which of these males are safe to be around and which are not.
".... trauma cannot be switched off like a light switch.
"To expect women to turn off their responses to possible danger is to abuse them more, and to open them to further abuse.
"Women had to fund and build refuges, fight for toilets and fund and build other women only space. Now we are told that we must allow males in because they are also female/ women.
Ali Bee (Worked in refuges and women’s services in County Antrim)
~
“Anecdotally, I was chatting to a refuge worker the other day.
"She said they asked all the women how they would feel about having a transwoman in the
refuge. Every single one of them said they would leave.”
- Professional
~
“I am very concerned about Women’s Aid refuges admitting men who say they
are women, either as users of the refuge service or as staff.
"Having been both a Women’s Aid Advice worker and a refuge worker I would be very unhappy in either case.
"Women’s refuges are by definition a place of sanctuary.
"Women coming to refuge are expecting a female-only environment both in terms of staff and other refuge users.
"I believe it will seriously affect whether a
woman will stay in the refuge if there are men there who are saying they are
women.”
- Professional
~
“I was raped as a child and again as an adult.
"It has affected every single part
of my life. Every relationship.
"Most of them were abusive because my sense of self was so destroyed, that I thought I was worth nothing.
"Women’s Aid gave me the strength to leave my abuser and save my children and myself. But even now, I am terrified around strange men.
"If I even find myself alone in a lift with
a strange man, I have to get out because I can feel an anxiety attack starting.
"It is an in-built biological reaction to years of rape and abuse.
"If a male bodied person was in a shelter or a rape crisis group with me, I would be compelled to leave. I would no longer feel safe.”
- Service user & survivor
~
“I am a survivor of an abusive Lesbian relationship.
"I did not know about refuges at the time and did not use one.
"I understand that women’s refuges are considering having men who say they are women as staff and also to come
into refuges if they need to.
"I do not consider these men to be women. If I was in that situation again and the refuge had male staff or men coming into
refuge I would not consider this a safe space for me and would not use the
refuge.”
- Service user & survivor
~
“As a woman I believe I have the right to feel safe and secure when seeking
help.
"As a woman abused by a man I would not have sought support from an
environment that permitted men there, in whatever guise.
"To be able to disclose and accept support I would want to feel safe in my surroundings and there is absolutely no way that I would have accessed a refuge that permitted men or indeed transwomen.”
- Service user & survivor
~
“When working in women’s refuges I worked with women who were terrified
that their cross- dressing partners would follow them into the refuge”
Professional
~
“My father used to dress up in my mum’s clothes and a mask to abuse me. It’s
essential for me to have women only space.” - Service user & survivor
~
“What we found was the Islamic community would tolerate women in refuges as
they knew they were a woman-only space.
“They still told women lies to stop them coming.
"Some were fleeing from forced marriages. They would say they prostitute people there, they make porn videos, they will sell you.
"It is hard to tell when you are not from the UK what is true and what is not. But it reached a point where the community and
women knew that we had other Muslim women in the space, it was female only
and they could come back and say that honour had been served.
“Once the word gets out that these are no longer female-only spaces – and
it will – many Muslim women will no longer be able to use this space safely and it could have life-threatening consequences if they return to their communities.”
- Professional
~
“It should be obvious that in a place like [Survivors Network] what mattered wa s
we were all of the same sex, not that we shared a letter on a driving licence or
a reissued birth certificate.
I imagine myself in my late teens, plucking up the courage to go a meeting and finding myself sharing the space with someone
physically male. All the vital lessons – about truth telling, boundaries, trusting
my instincts and speaking up would have been undone in that moment. I would
have been uncomfortable and silenced – familiar experiences from years of
abuse – and retraumatised. I would not have gone back.”
- Service user & survivor
~
“The Stonewall report incensed me – suggesting women get lectured or guilt-
tripped for speaking out if they felt uncomfortable with males in their refuge.
It is wrong and it is a gross abuse of women. "You should be believing what they
say if there are issues they want to deal with.
~
“Many women who have been subjected to domestic violence and coercive
control struggle to assert boundaries because of the abuse they have been subjected to, and often because their reality has been so distorted they have to learn to be confident again in their ability to assert reality.
“To tell women in a refuge who have been subject to reality-distorting techniques by an abuser !that they cannot call a man a man but must call him a woman is horrific abuse.
“For that to happen within the confines of a refuge and for women to be publicly
called together in a group by so-called experts to be shamed and ‘re-educated’
is totalitarian, sinister and totally undermines everything a women-only
refuge should be about.
Shame on anyone who subjects women survivors to this.”
- Professional
~
“I’ve read in the [Stonewall] report how some professionals in the sector would
see the [women objecting to a male-bodied transwoman in their space] as a
chance to ‘re-educate’ survivors about trans issues.
"Apparently some feel it is akin to homophobia and racism.
"I’m afraid this is something I disagree with
entirely.
"We are not talking about a phobia of trans people here; we are talking about a male bodied person in a female space that is funded and promoted solely for the purpose of escaping and healing from traumatic male violence.
~
“We talk a lot about being ‘trauma informed’ in our sector. “Traumatic reactions are instinctive, they are not a choice
like homophobia and racism. Telling a traumatised survivor that a male bodied person, who instigates their terrifying
flash backs, is actually a woman is not only cruel, it doesn’t make sense.
~
“For those professionals suggesting that trainers and experts should be brought
into female spaces to re-educate survivors that the man they see, is actually a
woman, I’d suggest they’d be better investing money in their staff and training
them on trauma and person-centred approaches to female survivors.” - Professional
~
“You cannot make this gender-neutral or ignore the danger to women. This
is not just around re-education. You can’t just say ‘these women need to be
re-educated’. No they don’t. This is about male violence, their lived experience
and fear that exists for good reason. You can’t connect this with gender fluidity
– that makes no sense when you have the lens of violence against women and
girls.” - Professional
~
“My need for female-only spaces is hardwired into me as a result of the abuse I
suffered. Pretending that traumatised women can’t tell the difference between
male- and female-bodied people is gaslighting. Asking us to deny the effects of
our trauma, to override all those dreadful feelings destroying us from the inside
out, in order to be kind and inclusive, is simply wrong.” - Service user & survivor
~
“Amongst other female survivors I learned that I wasn’t alone, that it wasn’t my fault, that I was entitled to feel
angry, that my boundaries were important, my truth and understanding of reality were important – not the lies imposed on me by the man who assaulted and raped me.
That my instincts to protect myself – which I had suppressed in a situation where I had no hope of escape – were good ones to be trusted.
I needed women-only space
to learn these lessons. Because I had experienced very intimate sexual crimes – male violence against me as a girl
– I needed to be with members of my own sex. It is not easy
to share those very personal experiences.”
- Service user & survivor
~
"As survivors who are healing we know all too well the effects of trauma. Often
around males, especially those who don’t respect our boundaries, our bodies
grow tense, shoulders stiffen, breathing quickens, and thoughts become cloudy.
We fold in ourselves to try to make ourselves less visible, safe.
It is well known from the work of trauma experts that in such a state of hyper- or hypo arousal, healing cannot take place and attempts at processing what has happened to us simply re-traumatises us, taking us around in circles, which is why female-only spaces are vital to us.
“Demanding women who have been subjected to male violence accept the lie
that ‘this man is now a woman’ violates women’s material reality and reinforces
the lies and intimidations men inflict on women in order to dominate and
control us.” FOVAS
~
“As providers of services for women survivors of men’s violence, in refuges in
particular, we say that we are providing a safe space and one of the ways that
we do this is by providing a woman-only space.
For some women, this may be their first experience of being able to put themselves and/or themselves and their children first.
Too many women grew up being expected to serve and be secondary to their fathers and brothers, socialised to put others first and to be a care-giver before moving into a heterosexual relationship where sex-roles and inequality is repeated.
“I will never forget the woman who cried tears of joy when I worked in a refuge in the 1990s, because I gave her a choice
and she was not required to check with a man before she made it. She told me that it was the first time that she had done that in her life.
I don’t want to allow other women to
be robbed of the freedom that comes with a woman-only space. Freedom from the immediate threat of violence,
from men’s privilege and entitlement, from men’s scrutiny and from the male gaze.”
- Professional
~
“When Survivors Network was set up, we had discussions about our relationship
with similar groups for male survivors of childhood sexual abuse.
We decided that we wanted a relationship of solidarity but not shared space. This was not
only because including men would have hindered the valuable work I’ve just
described, but also because, as women, we are socialised to take care of men,
and didn’t want to also take on that care-taking role for male survivors.
For many of us, with boyfriends or husbands, this was the one space where we put
our own needs first.” - Service user & survivor
~
“I have previously worked in, and run, refuges for Women’s Aid.
The idea of any male who identifies as a woman having access scares me.
People … speak of the assessment process to access a refuge and how this would weed out potential abusers. Firstly, this is ridiculous because it is impossible to tell someone’s
intentions and many abusers are good at putting on a front (it’s the same logic
that says that women should automatically know who is a rapist and who isn’t).
“Secondly, I think people who believe this have no idea how basic the assessment to actually enter the refuge can be, especially if out of hours.
The over-the-phone assessment done at weekends or in the night is incredibly basic
(a handful of questions) and also relies on the person replying honestly and we did not meet the person before they turned up to the refuge…
In this situation a male could arrive on the doorstep of a house staffed by one female worker at three in the morning, with abused women and children in bed, and with hardly
any assessment of any kind.” Professional
~
“I am amazed at the bold claim by some professionals in [the Stonewall
report] that state they can risk assess for a sexual predator trying to access
a refuge! They really ought to tell the probation service, the police and
safeguarding professionals how this is done. It would save a lot of money
and, more importantly, a great deal of heartache for survivors of sexual
violence.” - Professional
~
“There wouldn’t even be a need to dress in women’s clothes – since we are
constantly told that the only thing that makes someone a woman is how they
identify. Since we can’t see inside the mind of another person, we can only
judge identity by what they say, so effectively self ID means anyone who says
they are a woman, is a woman.” - Professional
~
“The idea that an abusive man won’t try and use self-ID to get into a refuge is a nonsense. Beyond a shadow of a doubt they would.
I don’t see how referral systems would
work this out. How easy is it going to be for an abusive man to get in? It won’t take them long to work it out. “There is no acknowledgement that male perpetrators of violence will go to any
lengths to access vulnerable women and children.” - Professional
~
"With self-ID policies we will effectively be giving the keys to women’s refuges
to abusive men. If that happens, beyond a shadow of a doubt, women will die.
Never ever underestimate the potential for abusive men to track down, find and
torture their victim if they decide they are going to.
“I remember in the 80s when we were just starting to set up women’s refuges a
woman was kidnapped from a refuge and a short while later her cut up remains
were dumped on the refuge doorstep.
Police will rapidly respond to calls to
women’s refuges now but people are forgetting these experiences, the violence
we faced. They are throwing away the safety and security of women and
children if they throw away the lessons we have learnt from the past.
“These men will use anything, any piece of legislation they can find to try and
get at women and children.
We must never forget that children in refuges have also been subject to horrendous abuse by male perpetrators who will stop at
nothing and will use every legal system going to regain control of the children,
and use that control as a lifelong weapon of abuse against their mothers.
They are making the same mistakes as some liberal refuges did in the early days who
decided to let in men. It wasn’t until things went wrong that they realised ‘Oh
that wasn’t such a good idea.’”- Professional
~
“Violent men lie. Of 37 men who pleaded not guilty to murdering women in 2016, 28 were found guilty of murder, four were found guilty of manslaughter, four remained
charged (by October 2017), only one was found not guilty
of murder.”- Professional
~
“Of course some women can be violent, of course there can be conflict between
women and of course there are inequalities between women – but refuges are
safer because they exclude men. We are no more casting aspersions on the
nature of a male who identifies as transgender than we are on men who do not
use violence. The fact remains that risk assessments are at best imperfect tools
and that blanket exclusions help us create safe spaces for women, and for many
women they are a necessary respite from which they can move forward after
abuse.” - Professional
~
“There are real issues for women’s safety in services that provide accommodation (like refuges) or in prisons as a result of self-ID.
This is already happening, before any
change in the law. Once you say that anyone who says they are a woman has to be allowed into a women-only space this creates opportunities for violent men to enter
those spaces. This is sometimes presented as a transphobic fear of transwomen – but the real risk is from men who are not trans, but claim to be so in order to enter women’s
services.”
- Professional
~
“Self-identification will increase the numbers of males, with a sense of
entitlement, fostered through their male socialisation, who feel justified in
attempting to access services developed to support women who have been
subjected to men’s violence.
Services that are already in short supply.” - Professional
~
“How will we prevent predatory males accessing women’s spaces when we
firstly have no access to their records to know if they are a rapist?
Secondly, [services] are not allowed to ask if they are trans and thirdly even if we know they are trans we are not able to prove this because under the GRA their birth
certificate will now say female.
How can services refuse any male on this basis?
If you do you could be subject to endless legal challenges draining time, energy
and resources. We also worry the onus will be put onto vulnerable women to
say they don’t want trans people in their spaces.” FOVAS (Survivor’s Collective)
~
“I have worked for decades in the area of violence against women and girls. This
is a gendered area in the sense of biological sex. It is about violent misogyny
against women and girls as a sex. If the data analysis starts getting blurred
because it is collected on the basis of gender identity not biological sex then
we are getting into real danger here. We will no longer be able to see the real
nature of this violence.” - Professional
~
“I remember having a bizarre conversation on the phone years ago with a psychiatric hospital who wanted to refer a patient. I spoke to the patient, who was clearly a man so I went to visit them on site because I wanted to be sure before taking them back to a place of safety, the refuge. This person was on a woman’s ward and the hospital had told me they were a woman, but they were clearly a man. Back then I could simply say ‘No, no men are allowed in a woman’s refuge’ – but now I don’t know if I would get away with that. For months afterwards he subjected me to relentless angry phone calls insisting
that he was a woman. How much worse will it now be if the law tells me I must
now accept that man as a woman.” - Professional
~
“I am a woman who comes from a background of domestic violence as a child. I am severely male -phobic due to the severity of the abuse I suffered.
Any sight of a male, finding out a person who I thought was a woman is a man, causes me
some distress and confusion.
- Service user & survivor
~
“Domestic violence on women is so raw – men, whether truly men or trans –
need to understand why women need their own space and think about setting
up their situation for those who don’t mind instead of criminalising women who
don’t feel safe or comfortable in situations which include men.” - Service user & survivor
~
“Most decent transwomen – and they are the majority – would understand how
triggering their presence could be and would not take a job in a refuge. Which
leaves those with less than honourable reasons, plus males who can ID as
female to access vulnerable women, including their ex partners.” - Professional
***
I suspect the truth is in all this. Stonewall have stage managed a report to give them the answers best fitting their own aims. They have bullied and cherry-picked to present a highly sanitised, ideological 'report'. Those who have experience in this field, and those who have used these spaces, are clear.
Women's refuges are between a rock and a hard place, terrified of activists. Several women's refuges have lost funding in 2021 alone, all for being single sex.
It is time to stand up for these women, their children and also for those trying to establish trans spaces.
Be brave. Not everyone can afford to. 
