Remember Petra Wenham? The first transwoman to be on the WI mag cover?

@WomensInstituteDeclaration yes, signed the petition and, I’m please to report, several members of my WI branch DM’d me to say they’d thought the same but hadn’t been brave enough to raise it with the committee. Well, I’ve well and truly outed myself on our local message board now! And I’m not sorry 😎

@WittynotPretty have you joined us? Can't post email address here, but here's the website
wdwi.co.uk

I see this as simple theft. It's identity theft. Its the theft of a resource that is supposedly only for women. It's the theft of women's peace of mind, their privacy, their choice and their entitlement to say "no".

These males are thieves.

Probably outing but I don’t care.
I am a WI member . Recently I attended the annual conference in Cardiff. It necessitated an overnight stay. To save money I decided it would be ok to share a room.

it was only after I decided this I realised to my horror that there was a possibility I could end up with a male. But if I complained I would probably be outed as a witch.

I didn’t simply because it the moment the likelihood is to small , but I really now worry how many bloody men we now get joining the WI due to bloody Peter Dunham and his supersonic rise in the WI to being on the membership board.

I am furious about this but don’t know where to go with it. I don’t want to leave in protest because the WI won’t even notice if I do , and I would miss the activities I enjoy.

I am very aware that some of my friends have embraced his joining with open arms . They are very influential on the unofficial camps organisation. I would love to go on those too. ( and stay in a dorm) but it can only be a matter of time before he turns up to one of them too.

@Spaceforbiologicalfemalesonly " what I really want to know is where was this vote the WI had for letting in trans women. Was it across all members or just at federation committee level? Anyone know? "

Yes, i was wondering that too. Who was allowed to vote for petra to have a place on the committee? Don't the wider membership get a say? If not, that's very unfair.
I did see a meme with Les Dawsons Cissy, or was it Ada, hugging the tree which was quite funny.

The entitlement seems to know no bounds.

When you think those individuals wished to invade a private home where women were trying to support each other with sensitive information - it's bloody obvious they wanted nothing more than to prevent the group being allowed to happen, and to intimidate and control those women.

They didn't want to participate. They had no fucks to give about the women involved or the purpose of the group. It was purely about coercive control. And no remaining grip on reality.

Thank you! That Twitter OP seems like a fantastic person. Hope she’s ok, how scary to have these men showing up on your doorstep.

https://twitter.com/thefakehelena/status/1661419933354295308?cxt=HHwWmICw5Y6oxo4uAAAA

Well, I'm inspired by Petra's story. Only been in the WI for a few years - only actually been a woman for a few years! And now she's on the management committee.

It shows other women that you just need to work hard, put the effort in and you'll succeed 😀 oh, and be a man. That's the easiest way to succeed.

I saw a twitter thread a few weeks back where a group had disbanded to end being harassed by men insisting on attending and instead begun to meet as friends at one of their houses. The men turned up on the drive, demanded admission, and called the police to have their 'rights' enforced when the women said no. Thankfully the police told them they had no right at all to enter a private home uninvited.

that’s terrifying! Do you still have the twitter link?

That sounds right up my street, thanks for mentioning it 😃. Fingers crossed there's a group near me as I want to connect with other women (as Ricky Gervais said, the old fashioned type, not the ones with penises 😁) but haven't known how to.

Vote on Trans Women Joining Women's Institutes

https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/wi-vote-now#comments

Glad I never joined, one thing I don't need is a man being held up as an example of how to be a woman. FFS! ( sorry I rarely swear but I'm so fed up with this)

DH is a mason. Asked him if transmen were allowed to join. Absolutely not was his response.
BUT I’ve gone and seen if I can look it up, if you join as a biological man and then ‘become’ female you don’t have to leave. BUT you can only join if you’ve had surgery to be a male. (based on a doc from 2018, so might be old info now).

what I really want to know is where was this vote the WI had for letting in trans women. Was it across all members or just at federation committee level? Anyone know?

I help run a long standing craft group that since COVID is struggling to get members. It is for women and men but as far as I know has never had a male join. I am thinking that if we rebadge it as a women's group membership from trans women will soar (from zero) and our financial problems will be over.

I saw a twitter thread a few weeks back where a group had disbanded to end being harassed by men insisting on attending and instead begun to meet as friends at one of their houses. The men turned up on the drive, demanded admission, and called the police to have their 'rights' enforced when the women said no. Thankfully the police told them they had no right at all to enter a private home uninvited

JFC.

If you do leave the WI please write to Federation and whoever is in charge stating your reasons why. I think I’m right in thinking that they don’t ask why people leave. At least this was the case when I brought up a case of bullying and the numbers of people then leaving my then current WI. The dept. Federation Chair at the time said they didn’t ask why people leave.

Also, I’ve been looking at the NWR as I’d not heard of it. Can’t see anything about their stance on trans women etc. Can anyone enlighten me?

Thanks.
I emailed them earlier today, as yet no response.
Won't be rejoining, by the looks of things which is a shame as I enjoyed being a member of a group that was founded to meet the needs of women.

I imagine there's many women who have put decades of work into the WI who have had barely a mention in the magazine never mind a photo cover. Or who have never got anywhere near a place on the management committee.

Such a glittering trajectory for someone who found gender so late in life.

I thought The Onion was a satirical publication. Perhaps this was satirical when it was published in 2007 but honestly it reads like a straight piece now.

Like a press release for that man in Scotland who got appointed as a period officer (or whatever the job title was).

Or the self-congratulatory announcements during International Women’s Day that a man trans woman had been lined up as the keynote speaker 😞

All desperately sad and desperately unsurprising.

The entitlement…

I’m sure the newest committee member will, as well as telling me how to ‘woman’ better, let me know how best to appease the outraged man toddlering on my drive.

It's traditional on these threads to include this link:

Came to post that. It's nice to remember when the onion used to be really funny.

I've also just signed the petition to stop men self I.D.ing as women in Park Run.
I emailed them a while back but they didn't bother replying.
I also used to support Stand Up Against Racism. Until I got an email asking to join a rally in support of drag Queen story time.
Sorry for going off on a tangent, I'm just so angry with it all.

I saw that thread too. The absolutely staggering (male!) entitlement of thinking they had the right to be in someone’s actual home, uninvited! And the determination to deny women the right to boundaries. It’s psychologically akin to rape culture.

It’s so hard, what’s happening to women’s groups. There are now male attendees in pregnancy, breastfeeding, menopause groups - even endometriosis support too, I’m sure I’ve read.

I was told by another MNer of a female-specific health condition support group she was in which was invaded by males. Who promptly started posting pictures of themselves, legs akimbo etc. And totally dominated the group and (obviously) changed the dynamic beyond recognition.

I think they managed to get rid of the unwelcome, inappropriate intruders but had to completely close the group to prevent the same happening again, which obviously meant that no new women looking for support in that area would now be able to access it either, as they would have been able to in the past, so a truly valuable resource was lost.

And this phenomenon is repeated how many times? So much precious space, so many vital resources for women lost or rendered useless.

But “what harm does it do you? What business is it of yours?” as the activists and their allies like to say on twitter. 🙄

This. It demonstrates the total lack of respect that some men hold for women, and how little value they place on anything women do that is not serving them.