The city of Edinburgh, Scotland has a government-funded rape crisis center (ERCC) which is intended to provide a space where women who've been victimized can feel safe. Until yesterday, the CEO of this organization was a trans woman named Mridul Wadhwa. But after the release of a damning report about how the center was run, Wadhwa had stepped down.

This week’s report, commissioned by Rape Crisis Scotland, found that Wadhwa had failed to ensure ERCC carried out its primary function: to deliver services to women and girls who have experienced sexual violence.

It said that the centre’s practices “caused damage” to survivors and some “did not feel safe” using it, according to the author, Vicky Ling, a legal specialist...

Ling said: “Putting women in the position of having to discuss whether the service they receive will be provided by someone who was born and continues to identify as female has caused damage and does not amount to the provision of protected ‘women-only’ spaces.”

The report also questioned the values adopted by ERCC which were not “fully consistent” with national service standards. Accepted criteria such as “survivor-centred”, “trauma-informed” and “gender-informed” were augmented by two new approaches, “loving” and “brave”...

After publication of the report, the ERCC board apologised and admitted: “We got things wrong.”

The whole point of a rape crisis center is to give victimized women a place where they can be away from men. But the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Center operated under the mantra of "trans women are women" and maintained there were no men there even as the CEO was a trans woman. 

What could possibly go wrong under this policy? Well, we don't have to speculate.

A male sexual predator who harboured “hostility towards women” accessed services at a controversial “trans-inclusive” female rape crisis centre, it has emerged.

Cameron Downing, a former SNP equalities officer who was this week given a nine-year sentence for a catalogue of attacks, claimed to have received extensive support from Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre (ERCC)...

Downing, who identifies as non-binary and was found by a jury to have falsely accused one of his victims of raping him, said in January 2022 that the ERCC was the reason he was “able to keep going” and that he “cannot put into words how much they’ve helped me.”

Clearly this is not the kind of person you want gaining access to a rape crisis center. They were allowed in under the center's policy of inclusiveness.

The investigation of the ERCC began after a former employee filed a "claim for constructive dismissal" which is the Scottish equivalent of a hostile work environment. Former ERCC worker Roz Adams said she became the victim of a "heresy hunt" after word spread that she had expressed gender critical views. The person behind that internal investigation was trans CEO Mridul Wadhwa.

Roz Adams won her claim of constructive dismissal against Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre, which is funded by the Scottish government, with the ­tribunal finding that she had been ­harassed and discriminated against...

Ian McFatridge, the employment judge, identified Mridul Wadhwa, a trans woman who is ERCC chief executive, as a key figure in an internal investigation that “should not have been launched in the first place”.

The tribunal, which has yet to decide on a settlement, heard that the dispute began when Adams spoke to colleagues about a rape victim who asked if her counsellor would be a “man or a woman” because she would feel “uncomfortable talking to a man”.

Since all of this was happening in Edinburgh, you may already have guessed that author JK Rowling, who lives there, was involved in the case. Because of the policies adopted by the ERCC, Rowling set up a rival center run only by women and funded it with her own money. She posted a thread on X about it yesterday.

According to the report's author, legal specialist Vicky Ling, the regime of the rape crisis centre under the trans-identified CEO “caused damage” to survivors. Some “did not feel safe” using it. 2/10

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) September 12, 2024

Responding to Ling's report, Rape Crisis Scotland said today: 'It is important that survivors can make informed choices about the services they access at Rape Crisis Centres, and we recognise that for some survivors this includes the choice of a single sex service.' 4/10

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) September 12, 2024

A staff SLACK conversation about @beirasplace came to light during Roz's tribunal. The opening of the new single-sex centre was described by one employee as 'really terrible news' and 'a festive stinker.' 6/10 pic.twitter.com/xRMeU0bLVi

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) September 12, 2024

Rowling points out that the people at the umbrella organization behind the ERCC supported Mridul Wadhwa but now they are all claiming ignorance.

Chief Executive Sandy Brindley appears to have been fine with Wadhwa's publicly expressed views that female survivors are 'bigots' if they don't want to share spaces with trans-identified men and that the best way to deal with gender critical staff is to fire them. 8/10 pic.twitter.com/pm18rqhznz

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) September 12, 2024

Some might have expected the Chief Exec and her 'amazing sister' to resign today, but no. The government continues to fund a service dominated by ideologues, vulnerable women have been denied help, and Brindley and Wadhwa continue to draw their salaries. 10/X

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) September 12, 2024

This report is a win for common sense. It's hard to imagine a similar win happening here. Maybe we'll get there eventually.