Mick Hartley

The recent case of "Katie" Dolatowski, a trans-identified paedophile who was permitted to stay at the Leeds Women’s Aid Refuge where he shared space reserved for women and children who'd fled male violence, is just the latest example of an abusive man exploiting loopholes in the system. 

Dr Shonagh Dillon, who has nearly three decades of experience working with victims and survivors of domestic abuse, sexual violence and stalking – Women’s refuges should be exactly that:

Unsurprisingly sex offenders have taken full advantage of the loopholes afforded to them by legislation and policies that enable them to identify as women to access female only spaces. We know from the stories of women and children already harmed by these policies – the only safe response is to keep men out of women’s spaces, altogether….

Providers should no longer be able to hide behind statements that profess they provide women only spaces, with policies in the background that state “transwomen are women”, because that is a gaslighting lie to victims. It is a policy that states men are women if they say so, and if women question or express their trauma at having to share their space with a man, they will be either “educated” to agree with the lie or refused a service….

The decision to leave a violent partner is an incredibly risky and traumatising time for women. Our job and our promise to those women is to keep them safe and offer them sanctuary. The point at which policies enable sex offenders to access those spaces means we have failed in our basic safeguarding duties and our trauma informed models. That evidence alone should be more than enough to give us confidence that single sex policies are proportionate and legitimate. 

It is time for some politicians, providers and commissioners to admit they were wrong and face up to the obvious: predatory men will always circumnavigate systems to get to their victims. The response should be swift and simple — keep single sex spaces limited to the biological sex of the user. 

Anything less means they are more interested in proving their ideological policy positions are right, than they are about protecting women and children.