How sexual abuse survivors like me were harmed by rape crisis centre's adherence to trans ideology

When I wrote of my own sexual abuse as a child in this newspaper more than two years ago, I promised it would be the first and last time that I would speak of it publicly. “I recovered from my ordeal,” I wrote. “Or at least I found a way of dealing with it by not speaking about it, by pretending I was not a victim, but a strong, powerful woman. I won’t speak of it again.”

But anger is a very powerful force. As I read the independent review into Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre (ERCC), which concluded that the centre had “damaged” victims of sexual violence, I could feel my fury rising.

I never sought counselling for the deep psychological damage done to me as a child. I allowed the memories to fester, sometimes self-medicating with alcohol. Gradually, I came to accept that what had happened to me was not because I was a bad person, but because a man I should have been able to trust was a sexual predator.

My heart breaks

But more than 50 years later, I still feel the pain on occasion, often when least expected. It goes to the very heart of how I feel about myself. Imagine how much worse it would have been, however, if I had sought help from an organisation whose sole purpose was to support survivors like me, but which actually damaged me even further.

My heart breaks for those women who were denied safe, female-only spaces by Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre, at the one time in their lives when what they needed most was the support and empathy that only another woman can offer. Instead, they were forced to accept the possibility that their counsellor may be male, or “reframe their trauma” as the centre’s chief executive, Mridul Wadhwa, whose resignation was revealed today, insisted in an interview in 2021. Comments that the review’s author, Vicky Ling, deemed damaging to individuals and to the reputation of the organisation.

Demonstrators take part in a 'Let Women Speak' rally in George Square, Glasgow, last year (Picture: Andy Buchanan) | AFP via Getty Images

The review of ERCC’s operations was commissioned by Rape Crisis Scotland, the umbrella body for Scotland’s network of rape crisis centres, following an employment tribunal judgement earlier this year that found that ERCC worker Roz Adams had been the victim of a “heresy hunt”. Adams, an experienced counsellor in her 50s, had dared to question Wadhwa’s insistence that trans women are women. Her punishment for this ‘transgression’ was to be victimised by Wadhwa’s ”invisible hand”, until she was forced to resign.

Catastrophic failure of governance

Wadhwa, who identifies as a trans woman, is heavily criticised in the report for a range of shortcomings, from a failure to set professional standards of behaviour to a chaotic approach in financial transparency and the safeguarding of staff and clients. Twenty-four hours after Ling's report was published Wadhwa stood down from the post. Not a moment too soon. 

But while Wadhwa has been responsible for the near-collapse of Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre, established in 1978 by second-wave feminists, the blame for this catastrophic failure of governance must be shared by Rape Crisis Scotland (RCS) and the politicians who agreed with Wadhwa’s view that sex is irrelevant, even in a service where sex matters more than anything.

Rape Crisis Scotland chief executive Sandy Brindley has been a fervent supporter of Wadhwa’s approach for years. “She is one of the most passionate and compassionate women I have had the privilege of working with,” she wrote on social media on hearing news of Wadhwa’s candidacy for the SNP in 2019. And Brindley has long argued that biological men should be allowed to work in rape crisis centres.

Sturgeon’s promotion of gender theory

But it was former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon's enthusiastic promotion of gender identity theory that created an atmosphere in which people like Wadhwa felt secure enough to dismiss female survivors of sexual abuse as bigots for wanting a woman-only service. As Sturgeon and Wadhwa smiled for selfies together, smug in their ‘progressiveness’, women were dubbed as transphobes for daring to argue against the mantra “transwomen are women”.

As Verdi Wilson, an experienced professional who has worked for Scottish Women’s Aid and other women’s support organisations, said to me after reading the report, it is a shocking indictment of how services intended to help the most vulnerable women have been “corrupted by gender ideology”. She added: “An ideology that has been facilitated and encouraged at the highest level in the Scottish Government.”

In the wake of Vicky Ling’s damming report, Rape Crisis Scotland has said it will not refer women to the Edinburgh centre until it produces a plan to implement the report’s recommendations. Too little, far too late. If it were not for Beira’s Place, the female-only service set up by author JK Rowling two years ago, women survivors of sexual abuse in the Lothians would today have nowhere to go for support.

A place where there are no men

But Beira’s Place cannot provide a service for the whole country. For years now, women’s rights campaigners have warned of a breakdown of trust between women and the services supposed to support them at their most vulnerable. They were told their views were not valid. Dismissed as naïve puppets of the far-right. Described as out of touch with contemporary culture.

But they persisted, and this week’s report has proved they were right all along. The Scottish Government must now fix the problem it largely created. Nothing less than a thorough review of all services for women survivors of violence and sexual abuse will do.

Today, there will be scores of women and girls across Scotland who are sexually assaulted. Some by a stranger, others by someone they trusted. Some will report the assault to the police. More will remain silent, too ashamed or frightened to speak of the crime against them.

All need to know that there is somewhere they can go for practical and emotional support. A place where they can heal. A place where there are no men. Is that too much to ask?