Originally a comment by Vila Restal on The war on cis women.

As someone who works in the VAWG sector it’s interesting to note that the helpline number given at the end of the article is for Galop. Ostensibly for LBGT survivors, it’s focus is on male victims, and they’ve been given a lot of support and training by the women’s organisations.

You see women working in VAWG jobs do recognise that men can be victims – for example young gay men involved in the chemsex scene are vulnerable to abuse while under the influence of drugs and are reluctant to approach the police because of the illicit nature of the drugs involved. While male victims can’t be accommodated within the women’s sector, women have given freely of their time and expertise to help build up organisations supporting men.

And how has the male sector repaid those women? Every damn conference or training that the men’s sector are invited to ends up dominated by the Galop staff whose first and just about only contribution is ‘what about the trans women?’ and ‘why won’t you help trans women in the VAWG sector as TWAW?’ Every time they have a trans victim they make a point of trying to approach women’s organisations for assistance. Despite the fact that they have the expertise to deal with the trans woman – and often more financial support – they try and foist them on the women’s sector, or try and use the women’s sector for ancillary support such as legal advice. I believe it’s known as ‘forced teaming’ but there’s also gleeful pleasure in trying to make the Terfs deal with a traumatised TiM, and surrender their boundaries.

The willingness or otherwise of the organisation to take up a TiM’s case is then noted and the information fed back to the men’s rights / trans lobby so they know who to target – that would be Nia, Southall Black Sisters and the Centre for Women’s Justice, as singled out in the article.

I’d bet a week’s wages that a few of those anonymous women workers in the article are actually the men at Galop.