The Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre debacle rumbles on. From the Times this morning:
JK Rowling is leading calls for resignations across Scotland’s rape crisis service after a report found a centre in Edinburgh had “damaged” survivors.
The author intervened after Mridul Wadhwa, a trans woman, quit as chief executive of Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre (ERCC) having been found to have “failed to set professional standards of behaviour” and for not understanding “the limits on her role’s authority”.
Wadhwa was identified by an employment judge in May as the “invisible hand” behind a “heresy hunt” against staff espousing gender-critical views.
Wadhwa had caused a furore after suggesting in a 2021 podcast that victims of sexual assault who wanted a female counsellor were “bigots”, advising them to “reframe” their trauma and have “a more positive relationship with it”.
Rowling used the website X to demand that “those who appointed, enabled and protected” Wadhwa were fired.
Well yes – Wadhwa didn't appoint himself. Those responsible knew who and what he was, but were seemingly transfixed by the progressive allure of trans ideology – with no thought given to the women who actually used and needed the service.
Wadhwa was appointed by the ERCC board but Rowling said Sandy Brindley, the chief executive of the umbrella organisation Rape Crisis Scotland, was also culpable. The chief executive highlighted a social media post made by Brindley in 2019 referring to Wadhwa as “an amazing sister”….
For critics of Rape Crisis Scotland, the row erupting about ERCC symbolises the ideological capture of the Scottish government by trans activists.
They point to a joint letter condemning a UK government decision to block Holyrood’s Gender Recognition Reform Act, which would have enabled gender self-identification, signed by 14 organisations, including Rape Crisis Scotland, 13 of whom received direct funding from the Scottish government.
The feminist campaign group For Women Scotland said the official sanctioning of self-ID allowed Wadhwa to pursue an “extreme and egregious version of gender identity ideology” and relentlessly pursued anyone who dared to question the policy.
The group added that similar problems remained “apparent in other centres in Scotland and in Rape Crisis Scotland itself”.
Also:
Reminder that when 3 women's aid groups in Lanarkshire had funding pulled for remaining women-only, Mridul Wadhwa's partner received the £1.4 million contract that they lost.
This is the narcissistic rage of entitlement.@EdinRapeCrisis #WomenWontWheeshthttps://t.co/Nq7Jv32zof pic.twitter.com/BVfN9FdfvA
— Genevieve Gluck (@WomenReadWomen) September 16, 2021
Mick Hartley 
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