The Times- The interests of victims should trump gender ideology and it is wrong that a place of support should prioritise its own beliefs over those it should be helping
The Times view on Edinburgh tribunal verdict: Rape Centre in Crisis
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The interests of victims should trump gender ideology and it is wrong that a place of support should prioritise its own beliefs over those it should be helping
The Times
The leaders of Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre conducted a “heresy hunt” against one of the organisation’s own employees because, an employment judge has ruled, they wished to “make an example” of her “because of her gender-critical beliefs”.
The manifestation of that belief was Roz Adams’ desire to reassure a woman seeking support from the centre that she would receive counselling from a woman. That is to say, a biological woman. Most people will instinctively understand that Adams’ views — and actions — were wholly reasonable. For many of her colleagues, however, they were “transphobic”.
The tribunal’s verdict is scathing. “Normal concepts of natural justice” were ignored, explanations offered by staff at the centre were “a nonsense” and the investigation into Adams “should not have been launched in the first place” — it was clearly motivated by bias and the prejudice that Adams’ views were “inherently hateful”. All this led to a “completely spurious and mishandled disciplinary process” that was “somewhat reminiscent of the work of Franz Kafka”.
In response to this, Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre’s board of directors merely say they are “saddened” by the tribunal’s outcome and that they “will take time to reflect” on it. Yet little time is needed to appreciate that the organisation needs new leadership and must henceforth act in a way which puts the interests of its users first. If the board cannot see that, a new board is required too.
Unfortunately, the attitudes and behaviour demonstrated by people in senior leadership positions at the centre are not confined to that organisation. In a series of cases, employment tribunals have consistently found in favour of women who were harassed, constructively dismissed and discriminated against on the basis of their sex-realist views.
In Scotland, moreover, the views evinced by centre employees and board members were until very recently expressions of what the Scottish government argued in court was a new reality: biological sex is not real and sex is not immutable. A network of largely state-funded organisations sharing this view has exerted considerable influence on government policy on a range of sex- and gender-related issues.
That gives further credence to the view that the Scottish government, in common with a significant potion of Scottish civil society, has been “captured” by special interest groups whose views do not necessarily survive contact with sunlight or scrutiny.
Some of these views are strikingly unorthodox. Mridul Wadhwa, a trans woman without a gender recognition certificate and consequently, legally, a male, was appointed chief executive of Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre despite the post being advertised as being open only to women.
Wadhwa, the judge concluded, was “the invisible hand” behind the harassment and discrimination that Adams endured. The chief executive believes that women
victims of rape or sexual abuse who object to being counselled by biological males are guilty of “bigotry” and should expect to have their prejudices “challenged”.
Wadhwa is entitled to this view but others are equally at liberty to note that the interests of victims should trump gender ideology and that it is unconscionable that a rape crisis centre should privilege its own ideological certainties at the expense of the vulnerable people it is supposed to support.
Trans people, of course, may be subject to prejudice or harassment themselves. They are entitled to the law’s protections too. Yet a striking feature of the arguments raging over sex and gender issues is that only one side wishes to curtail the legal speech rights enjoyed by the other. Only one side declares, as Nicola Sturgeon once put it, that there can be “no debate” or that the other’s views are simply “not valid”.
That is not a view that can be respected in a democratic, or liberal, society. The employment tribunal’s verdict is a welcome reminder that pluralism must be defended.
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