A call to all wims to challenge registered charities who claim to be women’s services who include “transwomen”

Hundreds of similar but separate reports by hundreds of women will have more impact than a single letter

Perhaps we should start writing to the Charity Commission en masse, pointing out that the law is the law, has primacy over guidance & is in any case entirely clear as plainly set out in FWS, has just been confirmed by the complete dismissal (without "silver lining") of the attempt by the GLP & three anons to challenge the now-withdrawn EHRC interim update, & as regulators the CC's job is to ensure that charities act in accordance with the law.

A lack of EHRC guidance affords no derogation from the law.

Do you mean because they might all start doing the right thing once the guidance is issued or because we wouldn't be able to get anything done about it until then? Or both I suppose.

Cold data might help with momentum and pressure, but you're right that we should use our time effectively.

As Maya Forstater has stated on twitter the Charity Commission are breaking the law.
Guidance cannot override the law.
THe law was settled last April.

I don't have a problem with organisations who provide support for women also proving support for men, however they identify- but this often needs to be done separately, different groups, times, maybe different locations, to keep women safe, and with SS support for the many women who need it. All survivors should have access to services.

@IwantToRetire is right that groups like WRC recognise the need to be honest with survivors, use donated money for women just for women, and hold mixed and single sex groups at different times and /or different places so everyone can access help.
BUT this is NOT happening at present in many areas as so many abuse support orgs are now run by trans activists, like the many Bristol examples on page 1.

On X today are women(thanks to any mumsnetters involved!) saying they've had a complaint response from Charity Commission today to say they will not enforce the law about female only charities/ services as the EHRC guidance hasn't been published by the government . Those I have seen so far include

YHA (mixed sex 'female' dorms for girls )
Womankind
Sarsas (rape support)

So we are back to the government enabling VAWG and trying not to enforce the SC judgement. Wish the lot of them could be charged with MisConduct in Public Office!

I suspect there's a lot of performative misunderstanding going on!

Nobody wants to close down charities that are supposed to be to support women or girls. They just want them to use the funds to support women or girls.

It isn't a difficult concept to understand.

I think there's a definite case for writing to all the major trust funders too. If all the women's charities are being forced to accept men because the lottery or comic relief or esme fairburn are forcing them too then they need to be approached as well

Fair points @IwantToRetire and helpful info, thank you.

One thing though, by definition we don’t actually always know which charities are deliberately lying. I know of some that have always said “woman only”, except they included men with trans ID.

They may now (post SC ruling) have changed their underlying practices and be female only, but often that is not on their website and they do not respond to email queries on this topic (presumably as they don’t want to put it in writing out of fear of annoying the men).

Furthemore, they are still rife with gender ideology language like “cis” and gender identities and are unwelcoming to those who do not hold a belief in gender identity ideology.

I agree with the concept that groups that say they are women's groups need to be honest about what they mean when they advertise as being for women. If you remember these were the grounds on which Roz Adams won her court case. Not that she was against porviding services to TW but she was against lying to potential women service user if a support session was not going to be women only based on sex..

This is the existing guidance to funded women's groupd by the WRC which respresents women's groups. In all instances be honest.

ie many women's groups have women only services but also provide trans services along side (have never seen the number of TW users any of these services have)

And to be boringly practical as others have said, if to get funding for women only services they have to play lip service to also provide services for TW, most women's services will do that. Because in the end to able to provide services to women is their priority. And if that can be achieve by also putting on the odd session for TW they will do that.

I wonder if you have any idea how many women's services have lost their funding in the last few years. Nothing what so ever to do with TW but because the bean counters in local councils etc., do not think the cost of specialised services are justified in an era of cuts. Just try searching for the number of refuges that have been closedin the past 12 months because of funding cuts. Because councils think suvivors of domestic violence can after all get a bed space at a mixed hostel, which will include men and not have any support workers.

So in the nicest possible way I am not sure groups struggling to survive are going to respond to getting letters from individual women saying I dont think you should, as a minor aspect of your service, have something for trans women.

At this point in time, what is far worse are those organisations such as Edinburgh RCC and Survivors Network Brighton who deliberately lie to women by not revealing they are trans inclusive. ie that TW are not offered a separate service but are included in the "women only" services. ie the groups who have been Stonewalled and are deliberately lying.

Also many groups that you want to target, ie women service providers, are parts of federations such as Women's Aid England and they jointly decide policy. So if you want to target anyone you should find the federation or network contacts for which ever types of women's group you want to influence.

Or ask the Women's Resource Centre, who supposedly provide advice and guidance to women's groups why they aren't telling women's groups to be clear that if their aims and objectives for women, then they must either only provide services to women or change their aims and objectives.

WRC has already done a guidance for women's groups post the Supreme Court ruling. Most women's groups will follow that, unless they have been Stonewalled.

See https://www.wrc.org.uk/blog/sex-as-biological-and-the-impacts-on-the-womens-sector

And also the video of the training that followed this

There have already been threads about these but posted here for convenience.

If WRC was to have a more overt stand about being honest about whether a women's group really does mean women as a biological sex, or whether they mean women as a gender identity, this would probably have more impact.

"or the total.lack of empathy towards women who are different."

Males are not women. It's ironic you talk about empathy since you don't seem to have any for the female sex.

"because you can't handle the reality that some users might be trans?"

Er, no! It's because some of the womens charity users may be MALE.

Spoken like a male with Male Privilege. Females supporting organisations that support womens hard won sex based rights is NOT 'right wing nut job'.

In fact, tearing womens hard won rights away to benefit males is the right wing position.

By 'community' I think I mean a group of disparate people with little in common except an unhealthy, and mostly undeserved, sense of grievance and victimisation.

👏

Surely it's not beyond tras to build something for their own communities?

Is there even a 'community' there? I don't think so. Some creepy blokes and some desperately unhappy young women does not a community make. And that is 95% of it, as far as I can see.

The charities should therefore course correct and get back to helping the women they were set up to help. They could possibly lend their expertise to one of the plethora of trans organisations. It'd be nice to see one of them actually do something to directly help TiM rather than continue to try to shoehorn them into services that are set up to aid women.

I don't see this thread trying to get women's organisations shut down. By reminding them that they need to comply with their charitable objectives they will be able to avoid the risk of being sued and wasting their funds that are sorely needed elsewhere helping women.

Surely it's not beyond tras to build something for their own communities? Are some posters really suggesting all they can do is glom onto others good work or destroy what they can't take over?

From what I have gathered, your plan is to complain to the Charity Commission to try to get the funding of offending women's charities withdrawn (which might mean their shutting down if they are not willing or able to adjust), and to take legal action against the Commission itself if they don't enforce this, which could be viewed as indirect legal action against the charities.

If legal action results in the service shutting down, then that is the natural consequence.