Mick Hartley

Jo Bartosch at Spiked on the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre scandal:

Do rape-crisis centres exist to support rape victims, or to validate the beliefs of gender ideologues? This was the question at the heart of a recent UK tribunal ruling….

It has long been clear that [Mridul] Wadhwa has put his trans activism ahead of the needs of the women the ERCC is supposed to serve. Back in 2021, he appeared on the popular podcast, The Guilty Feminist, to talk about his career. When asked about whether women should be entitled to access rape-crisis centres that are free of men, he said:

‘Sexual violence happens to bigoted people as well. And so, you know, it is not a discerning crime… These spaces are also for you. But if you bring unacceptable beliefs that are discriminatory in nature, we will begin to work with you on your journey of recovery from trauma. But please also expect to be challenged on your prejudices.’

There could hardly be a more glaring example of Wadhwa’s lack of respect for women’s boundaries. This is a man – biologically and legally (he does not have a gender-recognition certificate) – who thinks he has a right not only to run a women’s shelter, but also to ‘re-educate’ and chastise the women who come there seeking help.

As it happens, there is a service in Scotland for those supposedly ‘bigoted’ survivors of sexual violence who need support. In 2022, in part as a response to the takeover of the women’s sector by trans activists, JK Rowling funded a single-sex centre called Beira’s Place. But workers at the ERCC were barred from referring women there or even advising them of its existence. Wadhwa told ERCC staff that Beira’s Place is an organisation ‘founded on a platform of exclusion, misinformation and what I would describe as white feminist imperialism, that interesting combination of the flaws of white feminism and the white saviourism of colonialists and of course capitalism of which the founder is a beneficiary’. This is a long-winded way of saying that ERCC staff should go out of their way to avoid helping women who don’t share the boss’s ideology.

While also throwing out some suitably radical-sounding catch phrases – "white feminist imperialism", "white saviourism of colonialists" – to attract the non-thinking progressive and disguise the blatant misogyny at the heart of his ERCC takeover.

With what a feminist might refer to as male entitlement, Wadhwa has pushed himself into the women’s sector where he and his cronies have reshaped the services that desperate women rely on. Those who were brave enough to question him, those for whom looking after women was their highest priority, were frozen out and silenced.

It takes courage for a survivor of sexual violence to pick up the phone and ask for help. It can often be decades before women make the decision to ask for support. When they do, what they need is unconditional understanding, not judgement or chastisement. Rape-crisis centres ought to serve survivors, not pander to the eccentric beliefs of men.