Public back single-sex spaces for women who are victims of violence

The British public believes female victims of violence should have access to services that exclude biological men, a new survey has shown.

In a poll for Sex Matters, 84 per cent of adults surveyed said victims of rape, sexual assault or domestic violence should be able to receive support in a female-only environment.

Pollsters also found “strong support” for such services “to be clear that they exclude all males – including males who identify as women”.

Safety compromised

The survey formed part of a report by the campaign group on the impact of gender ‘self-identification’ on women’s services.

It said “the women’s sector has faced a new challenge: the idea, translated into law and policy, that people’s gender identity matters more than their sex”.

You will lose your job, the organisation loses its money and then we will lose the essential services that we need to deliver to survivors. It’s a very difficult environment. Domestic-abuse charity, Women’s Services: A Sector Silenced

Sex Matters’ report – Women’s Services: A Sector Silenced – documents the experiences of leaders in the sector who “describe being investigated, ostracised and pressured into adopting policies that compromise women’s welfare and safety”.

Equality Act

Based on its research, Sex Matters concluded that the Equality Act 2010 helpfully “outlaws discrimination and harassment on the basis of sex in many situations, while also allowing single-sex and separate-sex services to meet particular needs”.

However, it argued that the law “has been broken by the idea that people are whatever sex they say they are. This has created a hostile environment for organisations that serve women who have been victims of male violence.”

The group called on the UK Government to clarify the law so that a person’s “acquired gender” under the Gender Recognition Act 2004 “does not affect the status of the person as a man or woman”.

The woman can see that it’s a man, and the worker says, ‘No, no, she’s really a woman’… How can you expect women to trust you? Dr Karen Ingala Smith, Women’s Services: A Sector Silenced

Rape Crisis Centre

Last week, an employment tribunal in Scotland heard how Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre refused to tell a victim of sexual assault whether a volunteer was male or female.

Domestic abuse is overwhelmingly perpetrated by men and experienced by women. The statistics do not lie. We say that, but we are not prepared to say what a man or a woman is… unless we start naming what this is, we will never provide the safety that women need. Leader of domestic-abuse charity, Women’s Services: A Sector Silenced

Seeking to help the client, support worker Roz Adams suggested to colleagues that she be informed that the volunteer was “a woman at birth who now identifies as being non-binary”.

The email triggered an investigation for “misconduct”. Adams, who resigned in March, was subjected to a lengthy disciplinary process and branded a transphobe.

In 2021, Crisis Centre CEO Mridul Wadhwa – a man who identifies as a woman – was criticised for suggesting that victims who want single-sex spaces to be protected are “bigots” who should expect ‘to be challenged on their prejudices’.