@griffinkate Aaaargh I am having many thoughts that don't fit into the little boxes again! OK firstly to say I used to volunteer at a rape crisis centre here. England & Wales have a different umbrella org to Scotland and this new org is not inside the Scottish RC one either.

I agree it's not like opening a Tesco BUT, RC centres do a lot more than provide one-to-one support to survivors. They also do consent workshops in schools and unis, they train professionals who may work with survivors such as healthcare workers, HR, police, etc. They run awareness raising publicity campaigns. They may sit on multi-agency risk assessment conferences where individual cases are discussed. So there is a lot of scope to do direct harm to trans people even if none are referred to/refer themselves to the service directly, by spreading the usual transphobic misinformation about safeguarding, the Equality Act, the GRA etc etc etc.

@griffinkate Additionally... I'm not sure how exactly to express this, but I think an org is only as good as its net effect on long term movement building, even if it provides some things that are needed in the here and now. RC started as a genuinely grassroots feminist collective - people got a second phone number put in and put it on stickers/leaflets and just answered it when it rang. For a lot of volunteers at my RC centre, their training to take our calls was their first serious engagement with feminism as an intellectual and practical framework. I realise this centre (thankfully) won't be taking volunteers but like, imagine if they did? Or even staff honestly.

There's a big power struggle going on in RC at the moment over transphobia and it mostly (but by no means entirely) breaks over volunteer & front line staff vs more senior roles. The transphobes have far more power than I would like, but at least they know there's only so far they can push it

@griffinkate The thought that some of the worst offenders likely have the opportunity to flee to somewhere that welcomes their transphobia instead of fights it is giving me the shivers. (Probably it's better paid as well!). The thought of people in the sector looking around for one of the few job openings that come up each year and having to make the call on this centre's politics is making me grind my teeth. The thought of them speaking at all the conferences makes me break out in hives. I just. Urghh.

It would be one thing if BOTH sides were being all respectfully like 'we run our services differently but that's okay, there's room for both, survivors and professionals can choose whoever they prefer :)' but that is absolutely not the case. Rape Crisis Scotland are saying that kind of thing, but same people involved in this initiative are going to keep attacking & organising attacks on the existing centres, esp the Edinburgh one.

@griffinkate I don't know enough to really say what's going on (although I'm now asking around!) and I very sincerely hope the new centre offers high quality support to those who need it. But it's hard not to be cynical about it as also being a PR move for the transphobic movement. See quotes from them about how it'll make their critics look bad to attack a RC centre - meanwhile they of course do that themselves, regularly and intensely. My old centre was subject to some really bitter stuff which left a lasting mark, and it was nothing like on the scale of Edinburgh.

Like I'm actually vaguely in favour of the 'feminism but make it transphobic' lot actually going ahead with building their own orgs focused on supporting women instead of bashing trans people. They talk about it often enough, and it's not like I can stop them! But I say that with some resentment and suspicion, given they've taken great pleasure in wrecking everyone else's projects.

@andustar I did not know that rape crisis staff lent legitimacy to police raids!

The Nordic Model is one of those things that sounds so sensible in theory, if you don't listen to all the voices saying "hey, in real life this endangers us." And I'm v suspicious of its supporters because I think they're privileging their own morals over other people's lived experience. Which is the same shit you get with stuff like abortion bans. "Of COURSE they'll carry out this policy humanely, of course they will respect your humanity, of course they'll make an exception for X, Y, Z..." (no, they won't)

@griffinkate I didn't mean to imply they did so always/often, or even that they necessarily often get invited to. But it certainly Has Happened before somewhere I know of. I meant it more as an illustration that the centres' work goes beyond anonymous/confidential support of individual survivors, and out into the rest of the world - as it should and must, if your mission is to end sexual violence - and that your centre's politics will affect what that looks like.

Thank you for reading all that btw!