Many of these women are traumatised. Having to change the venue multiple times due to harassment and worrying that events will be picketed – it’s a nightmare.
We set up a service for women who have been through violence and abuse because all the services in the area are actually mixed sex, including the rape crisis centre. They claim to be women-only but they accept anyone who identifies as a woman. Hundreds of women have told me they self-exclude from those services, either because they’ve had a bad experience in those spaces, or because they just don’t like the idea of men being present.
A single-sex space for women centred around supporting victim-survivors of sexual violence, is proportionate and legitimate. It serves marginalised women who had been struggling without support. However, activists have relentlessly harassed us, and posted our information all over social media. The trouble started when we planned a trauma-sensitive yoga class for women who have experienced male abuse. It has to be women-only because some women have a trauma response to men – it makes no difference if those men identify as women. When activists found out about it, the venue was inundated with demands to cancel our booking. It ended up cancelling, so we found another one. We tried to keep it private but someone figured it out, and again the staff got harassed and the manager was worried about their safety.
We eventually found a venue that would accept us but we have to keep it secret. We can’t be visible at public events, either, for fear of being attacked – we couldn’t have a stall at this year’s International Women’s Day event. We thought after the Supreme Court judgment women-only services would be okay. Apparently not.