Female survivors of male violence sign an open letter to women’s organizations asking them to support female-only spaces and reject proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act (GRA).
Dear Women’s Organisations,
We are women survivors of systemic male violence in all its forms. As you probably know, 98% of sexual offences and 80% of violent crimes are committed by males against females and not the reverse. We have suffered every kind of horror inflicted on our bodies and minds. For many of us we are battling every day with trauma symptoms. Speaking out is not easy for us and we respectfully ask that you listen. As you may be aware the government is considering changes to the Gender Recognition Act. See this fact sheet for more details: https://sages.org.uk/publications/sages-factsheet.html. We are extremely concerned about these proposed changes which will allow any biological male to easily self-identify as a woman and will take away our fundamental right to natal female spaces. This would make it very difficult for you to refuse any male in women’s spaces even under the Equality Act exemptions.
We are surprised that we, as survivors, are having to explain to you, women’s organisations, why we don’t want biological males in our spaces but we have no choice but to speak out in the face of a barrage of online verbal abuse, death threats and threats of male sexual torture. For many of us, we are only alive today because of women only spaces. We know how vital it is for our healing and we fear for other women. Some of us fear for our lives without the support of women’s services, which many of us will be unable to attend with a biological male presence there. We disagree with these proposed changes. We would like to keep our spaces for females only and we ask that you oppose the changes to the Gender Recognition Act in the up and coming consultation for the following reasons:
1. We object to being made invisible as survivors of male violence. We object to our needs being disregarded and made less of a priority than those of trans people. We are being put second in the following ways: a.We are being forced to submit to the transgender activist world view that a woman is a feeling in someone’s head, rather than a biological reality