The trans activist who destroyed a rape crisis centre

As anyone who’s spent time working at a charity will tell you, good causes often attract utter bastards. The women’s sector would seem to be no exception, with dubious do-gooders using worthy organisations to polish their image and promote their pet causes. Nothing illustrates this more powerfully than the reputational destruction of Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre (ERCC) by one man on a mission.

This week, it was revealed that Mridul Wadhwa, the trans activist who was appointed as chief executive of ERCC in 2021, has quietly slithered on to pastures new. He has long enjoyed a successful career in the women’s sector, having worked at Shakti Women’s Aid, Rape Crisis Scotland and Forth Valley Rape Crisis Centre. Wadhwa identifies as a woman, but he is male and has boasted that he doesn’t have a gender-recognition certificate. You might have expected his maleness to be a barrier to working in rape-crisis centres, but it seems many in the women’s sector were desperate to crown him as queen of the feminists. He has been feted by Scottish movers-and-shakers and even once stood for the SNP on an all-woman shortlist.

News of his resignation follows a report by Rape Crisis Scotland (RCS), which found he had failed to understand the limits of his authority and that, under his tenure, ERCC did ‘not put survivors first’.

Wadhwa had been on leave since June, just weeks after an employment tribunal named him as the ‘invisible hand’ behind a ‘heresy hunt’ against former ERCC employee Roz Adams. This began when Adams asked for clarification about the centre’s policy on gender self-identification after a rape survivor requested to be seen by a woman. For the crime of advocating for a service user, Adams was investigated, labelled a transphobe and effectively hounded out of her job. The tribunal found in her favour.

The case highlighted serious failings that were subsequently picked up on in the RCS report, including that ERCC turned away rape survivors who were suspected of being gender-critical. It was revealed that desperate women who got in touch to ask about single-sex services were classed as bigots and their communications were stored in a folder called ‘hate emails’.

Wadhwa has never hidden his views on the gender debate. In a 2021 interview on the Guilty Feminist podcast, he announced that ‘bigoted’ (ie, gender-critical) rape survivors in need of support should be prepared to be challenged on their views when accessing services. As RCS’s report noted, Wadhwa ‘saw firing people as a way of ensuring the staff in the organisation fully complied with her (sic) definition of trans inclusion’.

The destructive influence of Wadhwa has left the centre in disarray. Nevertheless, he is unlikely to be standing in the Job Centre queue. He is currently a director at green-transport consultancy Vahanomy, which describes itself as ‘a kind company that believes in equality for all’.

Wadhwa’s career in the women’s sector illustrates how trans activism has corrupted our institutions. A man colonised a centre that had been built by grassroots feminists and rebuilt it in his own image to suit his needs. Wadhwa’s ego, and the stupidity of those who enabled him, left survivors of male sexual violence with nowhere to turn. His belief that certain survivors are bigoted and in need of re-education recalled an era when rape and domestic abuse were thought to shame female victims, not male perpetrators.

Women who have survived rape have already experienced a breach of trust. That a service they turned to for support betrayed their trust again is unforgivable.

Jo Bartosch is a journalist campaigning for the rights of women and girls.