An update to the WI Announcement thread. My DH just got a reply to his application to join them.

Thanks OP for the reminder about the Parking bollard threads. That was probably my first experience of mumsnet. I'm chuckling at the memory.

Well done OP. Your hard work is appreciated.

I.ve commented on a sanctimonious thread about men being allowed into the WI on the insufferable Reddit According to the Women's Institute (probably one of the best organizations to decide who a woman is) have said on record that trans women are women, and are to be included in the Women's Institute. : r/transgenderUK which is a cesspit of misogynistic views and male supremacist wankery.

They hate that as they like to think they are so woke and inclusive.
All of it needs to be challenged.

@Another2Cats - This thread is now at 962 posts. Please make a Thread#2 before it hits 1000 so that you can post here with a link to the new thread.

Catches up on Fife posts after a marathon reading session. Congratulates self and turns to watched threads. Sees 158 new posts on this thread. Pours a large G&T and resigns self to another late night.

Quoting my own post i wrote a week or so ago.

Found out on Friday from Audrey Lugwig , a barrister (who spoke to our WI on Friday evening) a little more about the legal basis of the WI statement of case particularly this concept of trans inclusive. The originator is Jason Coppel who was the KC acting for EHRC in FWS who were appearing as Intervenors . Apparently he surmised this in a podcast he did 8 May with Zoe Gannon and Ruth Kennedy from the same chambers. And reported on by Sex Matters link here
https://sex-matters.org/posts/updates/why-are-lawyers-encouraging-confusion-about-the-law/

Jason Coppel has worked with the Good Law Project before though so there is a connection there and to Jolyon Maughan around the PPE scandal in 2022. Is he the “eminent KC” mentioned by JM in the article ? Perhaps?

Anyhow Audrey didn’t think much of the WI statement of case which i summarised for her. And pointed out the absurbity oc claiming or not a single sex exemption as if that is some group you sign up to . Either de facto you are or not depending on past actions. They are - end of.

People have written to them and received the same mass generated “wait until the guidance” waffly email back . Hopeless!

Busy investigating a bunny sanctuary for alleged 'transphobia'.

Where is the Charity Comission in all this? Do they not have to ensure that charities are following the law of the land?

This seems a sensible alternative if the WI decides to spaff its funds on a hopeless legal case. Independent Groups could set up arrangements to affiliate with each other and organically grow a new organisation.

Looking at the FAQs, if there was enough interest a whole Federation (Region) might break away:

NFWI stands for National Federation of Women’s Institutes and is responsible for running our charitable organisation as a whole. Its headquarters are located in Parsons Green, London.

There are 70 federations spread across the UK. Imagine them as regional offices, linking all the WI in its area with the NFWI in London.

Therefore, every single WI belongs to a federation. As an example: the "Guernsey Lilies" belong to the Guernsey federation, just like the Selby Swans belong to the North Yorkshire East federation and so on.

As a result, when a woman joins her local WI, she becomes a member of that particular WI and not her regional federation or the NFWI.

https://www.thewi.org.uk/faqs

This question has been raised before but I'm afraid I don't know the answer. It's something they're going to have to respond to though. Lots of women (I'd say most?) joined on the basis that it's a WOMEN's organisation and that's what they've paid for. If it's now not a women's organisation and members want to leave and want their money back I think they are entitled to it - it's false selling!

The whole thing is a massive mess of their own making.

Oh, one of those consultations. Where they tell you what to think? The SNP are good at them.

Completely out of left field, and I'm sure many of you ladies much cleverer than me would know better, but since the member constitution bars men, and women pay membership based on that constitution then technically could that not constitute fraud? Or taking money under false pretences?

If it's true, it can be used for diagnosis and remove any doubt. For some reason, there is no appetite for this.

I am sure they would tell us that TW brains are different to cross dressers- wasn't there a study finding this bullshit recently?

We need a flowchart 😂

And if their response to that would be that it's commonly understood that crossdresser = male (= fetish), isn't that an implicit, unintentional acknowledgment of the risk against which "no cross-dressers" is intended to safeguard - the kind of men they could potentially be inviting in? How, then, do they distinguish the cross-dresser from the TW? We're back to "living as a woman" again, which it increasingly feels necessary (not just a gotcha, as they may argue), to insist that they can define, for (as their own policy on "cross-dressers" would seem to acknowledge) their female members' dignity and potentially safety.

Back in the sixties, a Welsh WI group rebelled over not being able to conduct business in Welsh rather than English. The upshot was a new Welsh-language women's organisation, Merched y Wawr, which grew rapidly, alongside the WI. So it's been done before.

My DM's local WI disbanded in recent years because all their funds were going on dues and they didn't see much benefit in return. As DM tells it, two scary women from the national organisation turned up to one of their meetings to tell them it was a mistake to leave and something they would regret. It only seemed to have the effect of steeling the views of those who were on the fence into definitely leaving! Couldn't tell you what happened to the fees, but they are now [village name] women's group, not WI.

Sorry accident

@ThatCyanCat

Also votes in changes to the constitution etc tend to be done by a show of hands in public at the monthly meetings. Which means you’ve got to be seen to go against National (and whatever biased advice they’d give to go along with the vote) and ‘be unkind’.

The issue has not come up at my WI, and I’ll admit I’ve shied away from raising it. Though I was responsible for producing an equality and diversity policy, as we were told to do, and making sure it gets discussed at committee meetings. I completely ignored the trans question and we’ve focused discussions on issues such as accessibility for those with hearing loss and mobility problems. And yes, as a pp mentioned, it is ironical that one of the questions to consider that came from National was about what to do re male carers for members.

I do have my own line in the sand, and will leave if we have a transwoman join. It would change the whole basis of the group.

what I don’t know is if a local WI wanted to disaffiliate, if we can do so without disbanding, and reforming as a new separate organisation. I know of at least one that did some years ago (fed up of how much of the annual fee went to county and national). This might be important because what would happen to our cash? Can a local WI take its reserves with them if they disaffiliate.

The WI is not allowed to ask or assume though

Easy, the one with meat and two veg!

So they are a mixed sex organisation.

All female people are allowed to join.

Male people are allowed to join if they meet an arbitrary additional criterion which is not defined, which is expected to be simply understood, despite there being no universal agreement on what it means.

Dr Charlie Smith and Dr Alex Smith are married to each other. Both have short hair and exclusively wear trousers and Tshirts. They both work in tech and enjoy cookery, knitting, choir and bookclubs in their spare time. Neither of them give a hoot what pronouns are used of them and they are glad to both have gender-neutral forenames. One is male and one is female. There is no discernable difference between them in their lifestyle. Which one is living "as a woman"? How will the WI know which application to accept?