(LifeSiteNews) — Of all the cruelties advocated by LGBT activists during the transgender culture war, none is as stark and unforgivable as their fight to force rape crisis organizations to accept trans-identifying men over the protest of vulnerable and victimized women.
The Survivor’s Network, a rape crisis charity in Brighton, UK, has been at the center of this fight for several years. A sexual assault victim going by the pseudonym “Sarah” told the BBC in 2022 that she was suing the charity because she could not bring herself to discuss the abuse she had suffered in front of a trans-identifying man, who had joined the group of women at a center in Sussex.
Sarah has experienced multiple traumas. She was sexually abused when she was a child, and then suffered rape in her twenties. After encountering her alleged rapist, she sought help at the Sussex center, and found the group sessions “helpful and supportive,” referring to them as a “safe space.” Then, a trans-identifying male joined.
According to the BBC: “Sarah says the trans woman presented as typically male in the way she [sic] looked and dressed, and Sarah felt uncomfortable in her [sic] presence. ‘I don’t trust men because I was raped by a man,’ she said at the time. ‘I don’t necessarily trust that men are always who they say they are.’” She stopped attending the sessions.
Sarah’s fight for a female-only space to speak about her trauma was affirmed this year when the UK Supreme Court ruled that women should have access to single-sex spaces, and that these spaces should be based on “biological sex” rather than transgender identities. The Survivor’s Network has now announced that they will be launching a group for biological women only.
It is worth noting here that even in their coverage of this case and Sarah’s trauma, the BBC—the taxpayer-funded state broadcaster—insists on referring to the man in question as “she,” thus implying that Sarah’s concerns are fundamentally invalid. If the trans-identifying man is actually a woman, Sarah’s complaint—that she does not want to share her trauma in front of a man—is false, even if sympathetic. The BBC also chose to report the launch of a women-only service for abuse survivors this way:
READ: How many children must suffer before courts stop indulging ‘transgender’ predators?
The charity, which provides support services for survivors of sexual violence in Sussex, says it will now run a new group for biological women who live as women, alongside its existing meetings that allow trans and non-binary people to take part.
Despite the UK Supreme Court’s directive, the state broadcaster is still reporting the news as if the premises of transgender ideology are true. They are, in short, reflecting their coverage through the lens of gender ideology, using clumsy phrases such as “biological women who live as women” rather than simply referring to “women.” The BBC is thus attempting to shape the response of their readers with inherently ideological coverage, and it is frankly disgraceful and offensive to survivors such as Sarah.
Biased coverage notwithstanding, Sarah—who goes by “Sarah Surviving” online—has won a significant victory. The announcement from the Survivor’s Network came prior to her lawsuit heading to trial in September, and she has reached an out-of-court agreement with the rape crisis charity. “For some biological women, such a space is imperative for their healing and acknowledges their trauma,” the Survivor Network’s co-chairs wrote begrudgingly on their website in notably qualified language.
The service will run first as a year-long pilot scheme with funding from the Office of Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner. According to Sarah: “This is the best possible outcome for sexual violence survivors in our city.” The BBC, again, qualified the news with language that reveals just how much work must be done to purge gender ideology from major government institutions, despite recent and notable victories:
The new group for biological women will exclude trans men (born female but identifying as men) and trans women (born male but identifying as women) as well as non-binary people (who don’t identify as either men or women).
Even when covering a victory for a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and subsequent rape, the BBC can’t help but take the opportunity to affirm the premises of the trans activists holding so many institutions hostage. Survivors deserve better from the BBC. To get it, big changes will clearly have to take place.
