A note on the note of support from the ‘Survivors’ Network
Two American philosophers (Dembroff and Brison) have shared a ‘note of support for trans inclusion’ from a UK-based organization called the ‘Survivors’ Network’.
The ‘Survivors’ Network’ sounds rather grand, like it’s a UK-wide ‘network’ (properly speaking) of rape crisis shelters. So on first blush, this media release looked to be significant.
But a quick google revealed the ‘Survivors’ Network’ to be just one organization based in just one local government area in the UK (Brighton and Hove). I felt mislead.
If you’re familiar with the UK, you’ll know that Brighton and Hove is no ordinary part of the UK either. It’s wealthy and highly educated and home to one of the UK’s largest LGBTQ populations. The only Member of Parliament the Green Party have in Westminster is Caroline Lucas who represents the constituency of Brighton Pavilion.
A ‘trans inclusive’ statement from one shelter in Brighton, then, isn’t really a breakthrough development.
One thing I do worry about though, is the potential class dynamics that could be at work when these kind of ‘statements’ are put out into the public domain by such organizations. Are highly educated, middle-class, Good Feminists coercively imposing top-down policies about housing trans women, even trans women like this and this, onto shelters full of working- and welfare-class women? Or are shelters’ policies and procedures being democratically developed from the ground up, so when these statements are released we can feel confident that their clients wholeheartedly and voluntarily support them? If the latter, do women who use shelters genuinely feel like they can say ‘no’ when they’re asked for their feelings about such matters? Are their trauma responses and their lack of control over their responses respected and empathized with? Or are they looked down upon from women who’ve put themselves up on moral podiums? Is enough space being left to account for uncertainties in how women best recover from trauma?
I have found it baffling that so many feminists won’t grapple with these complex questions, despite there being many experts, shelters and rape crisis clinics who insist on the importance, to at least some women’s recovery, of single-sex spaces. In the UK, check out organizations like NIA in London and the campaign group Object! for a different perspective on this issue.
I’ve also found it strange that the demand many feminists (but not all) have signed up to is for all such facilities to be made open to all self-identified trans women, rather than just some or enough for a city’s population. The more just approach, i think, would be to try to work towards ensuring there are enough facilities for all traumatized people’s needs, and not dishing out any judgment about what those needs are. This would be in line with supporting, for example, there being shelters that only cater for Asian people, rather than demanding these shelters be inclusive of all minority ethnic groups. Of course, in smaller towns this may be difficult to achieve and there may be some conflicts. But in places like Vancouver, why can’t even just one facility be left in peace to serve female persons who do not want to share safe spaces with male-bodied people and whose recovery depends on that?