The experts at Amnesty International UK probably thought they were doing vital work last week when they released a report naming “anti-rights” groups across the country for threatening human rights.
But they must have known they were in for an argument when they chose to include a rape crisis centre in Edinburgh that offers trauma support for women over 16. That is because the centre they targeted is not starved of funding. And it knows how to fight back.
Amnesty was picking a fight with Beira’s Place, a centre set up by author JK Rowling with some of the wealth she earned from her Harry Potter books. The centre, named after a Scottish goddess, was founded in 2022 to help “women survivors” of sexual abuse regardless of when the abuse occurred. Rowling bought the townhouse it occupies and set up permanent funding for its services.
The key to its reasoning was in the support centre’s stated goal: to provide help for female survivors. It was on the wrong side of the argument over trans rights because it excluded men who had transitioned to being women. The Amnesty report drilled into a volcano guaranteed to erupt.
Beira’s Place exists because of years of dispute over Rape Crisis Scotland, a separate service once led by Mridul Wadhwa, who was born male and now identifies as a transgender woman. Wadhwa resigned in 2024 after a long dispute about whether female survivors should be able to seek support from women only. A review found Rape Crisis Scotland had caused damage to survivors by failing to ensure this. Wadhwa had argued that “bigoted” rape survivors had to be re-educated about trans rights.
So, Beira’s Place rejected the trans ideology – and Amnesty therefore saw it as a danger. Its report is called A Growing Threat: the Anti-Rights Movement in the UK. It also lists other groups that side with Rowling, such as For Women Scotland, an advocacy group set up in 2018 to campaign against the Scottish government’s plan for a Gender Recognition Act that allowed for the self-declaration of sex.
Rowling has become a hate figure for the trans rights movement because she argues that biological sex means someone born male cannot claim to be a woman.
But her concerns are deadly serious when criminals are known to have moved to a women’s prison because they identify as female. This is what happened in Britain in 2023 when Isla Bryson was found guilty of raping two women. The crimes were committed when Bryson was known as Adam Graham. After the verdict, the rapist was initially sent to a women’s prison.
Those on Rowling’s side are winning. In its case against the Scottish law, For Women Scotland gained victory last year when the Supreme Court ruled that a woman is defined by biological sex. Someone with a gender recognition certificate – for instance, a trans person who identifies as a woman – would not be called a “woman” under the law.
Another victory came a few days ago. Amnesty deleted the controversial report from its website after sustained ridicule from Rowling and others, as well as a threat of legal action from groups that might suffer financial damage from its “name and shame” list.