'Never a risk' Women's refuges grapple with court ruling

Women's refuges grapple with court ruling

- Libby Brooks

I have a list as long as my arm that I worry about daily," said Katie Russell, chief executive and co-founder of the service Support After Rape and Sexual Violence Leeds (SARSVL). "The funding landscape, a broken criminal justice system, the global threat of violent misogyny."

A few streets away from where she lives, two women were seriously injured last weekend in a crossbow attack by a man who espoused misogynist hate online.

"But trans women have never felt like a risk or a threat or a problem," she said. "While I can't speak for every individual over the last 15 years, I honestly cannot think of an example where our trans-inclusive policy has been a problem for a service user."

While it has been weaponised in recent years by the likes of Nigel Farage and Donald Trump, the debate around allowing trans people to use single-sex spaces started with some professionals working in the domestic abuse and rape crisis spheres. Some were concerned the presence of a transgender woman would distress other survivors and that abusers could pretend to be trans women in order to gain access to victims.

A case will be heard in September in which a survivor is suing Brighton's Rape Crisis Centre Survivors' Network for discrimination because it allegedly refused to provide a women-only peer support group.

Others have said that such concerns are sometimes based on a stereotyped view of what a trans woman is like, as well as a misunderstanding of how such services maintain users' privacy and risk assess thoroughly before bringing survivors together.