Women can be fearful of men and of people they think are men.
Women who have suffered male violence should be entitled to maintain the privacy of their stories and to choose to whom they tell their stories. Nixon testified earlier that she signed on to the course in 1995 after recovering from an abusive relationship with a man. Nixon said she felt humiliated and suicidal when she was called aside during a training session, asked about he sex-change operation, and told volunteers could only be women who had had the experience of being treated as female since birth. Gray told tribunal chairwoman Heather McNaughton that Nixon was not the victim of discrimination. Just as the medical profession ought to be able to study the effect of a drug on people born with ovaries, so too Rape Relief ought to be able to engage in counsciousness-raising with people of a relevant similar life experience, undiluted by the experience of male privilege.