Women’s Aid, a federation which oversees over 300 women’s only shelters and refuges are now reviewing their hiring policies to reconsider whether they should hire men who identify as women.

Having run for almost 50 years, these shelters have acted as refuges for vulnerable women who have often been physically or sexually abused. Because of the trauma many of these women have undergone, sometimes at the hands of husbands or boyfriends, sometimes they are fearful of men and wish to be kept in a women only space (even if only on a temporary basis).

But Women’s Aid are now considering giving into pressure from unnamed politically correct activists who insist that self-declared transgender “women” – men who may or may not have had their genitals removed, and who may or may not be taking cross sex hormones to imitate the opposite sex – should be allowed to enter and work in women only spaces.

For the first time, it seems that this has given Justine Greening (the former equalities minister who pushed for sex-change reforms) pause for thought as she admitted that the concerns of women’s groups must be taken into account. (Presumably also it is worth listening to the voices of the traumatised women who want women only shelters.)

Mary Mason, the board’s interim co-chairwoman, said: “We have agreed to start a review of our whole transgender policy, including the possibility of employment for self-declared transgender women without a gender recognition certificate.”

However, a number of feminists as well as those who have actually used these shelters have rightly made their objections clear. “A women-only space is one of the ways we can create a sanctuary for women to begin their recovery from men’s violence. Women and children escaping violent men should at the very least be able to expect this of a refuge” (Karen Ingala Smith, head of the women’s sexual and domestic violence charity NIA).

The difficulty here lies with our cultural acceptance of the transgender phenomenon in the first instance. If men who identify as women (transgender women) really are women, then of course they should be permitted to work in women’s only aid shelters. If however, men who identify as women (even taking cross sex hormones and having surgery) remain men, then of course they should not be permitted to work in women’s only aid shelters.

Evidently, despite the efforts from the media and political establishment to promote transgenderism at every level of society, the majority of the population, including vulnerable women, recognise that men who identify as women remain men, and as such, cannot be permitted into women’s only shelters. To do so would be to promote a most intolerant ideology over the mental (and possibly physical) well-being of vulnerable women.

As Women’s Aid review whether to permit men into their women’s only shelters, we should make clear that the public does not support this measure.

Please sign this petition to the CEO of Women’s Aid, Katie Ghose, asking her to put the well-being of vulnerable women who make use of these shelters first.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/womens-refuges-may-get-transgender-staff-3txhcr8mb