To think it is not at all sad that the Women's Institute is now only for actual women?

[SingleSexSpacesInSchools]

“Incredibly sadly, we will have to restrict our membership on the basis of biological sex from April next year,” Green said. “But the message we really want to get across is that it remains our firm belief that transgender women are women, and that doesn’t change.”

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/dec/03/womens-institute-no-longer-accept-trans-women-members-april

Tellingly - they still think women can have a penis.

Apologies @JHound i seem to have misread your post

The Women's Institute is for women not for the elderly.
Are you mixing it up with something else?

Why do we have to care though? I really really don’t care. Womens spaces (and men’s) should be for the specified sex only. If that upsets a minority I really don’t care.

Bored of women having to be nice and prioritise everyone else. We tried that and it didn’t work.

You, as usual, because you're defending it as a valid point and also suggesting that charities for women and children should only be seen through a lens of what they do for trans people. Or have you been tantrumming all afternoon in defence of something you don't agree with?

Eugh typos. Should say “it does NOT matter what the board / membership day or would want” etc.

Which would mean that threads like this one, of interest to most MNers, would not be noticed.

Some of us avoid the FWR boards like the plague, and have those topics hidden.

Why don't elderly trans people set up their own organisation?

I suspect that the reality will be that those branches of the WI with longstanding trans women members will quietly ignore this.

Well it would have to be trans women only which they probably don’t want.

And if they wanted to form an organisation with non trans women who are happy to join them - the law says “no”.

It can be unisex

Well then they'll need to prepare for lawsuits

Also the whole stereotype of it generally being women who are organised and set these things . The trans might preclude it

I think the Members who never supported the inclusive policy would not allow it to be ignored.

But of course really this will only impact those whose trans identity is known.

Unisex isn’t an organisation for non trans and trans women only. So currently the law not only protects single sex spaces, it bans anybody who wants a trans inclusive space ONLY from having one. I hope one day the law evolves to allow a third option for those organisations that want one.

So glad to see the tide is turning against the trans ideology that has seeped into all areas of public life.

Bunch of men want to set up a group that includes women? No one is stopping them. Mixed sex is allowed

and the more weird transactivist responses on threads like this just helps more people see the light.

Of course they can, just mixed sex.

I think it’s a very good thing, those that are sad can go create the anyone institute or similar.

single sex places are important, as others have said wi, men’s sheds or sports clubs amongst others.

Yep, all ready over here for any hat passing round needed!

So what if the law had allowed organisations to choose whether to be single-sex or trans-inclusive? It sounds sensible in theory right?

But what would actually happen? Each separate organisation would have to grapple with this separately. None of them would dare choose to be single-sex given the choice.

And what if they asked their members to decide? Imagine being in a room and some people say, oh yes let's include trans women. And you're someone who privately would much prefer a female-only space. Would you dare speak up? I wouldn't. You'd likely be ostracised and considered mean and a bigot.

In practice, it would basically mean that no-one would dare to have a single-sex organisation or service. Which is where we were at before the Supreme Court ruling.

I said quietly.

They'll still need to prepare for lawsuits.

I wonder if it is helpful to remember this. Akua was very clear, that you cannot be 'trans inclusive' if that means allowing a small group of people of the opposite sex to access a group or service, unless all members of the opposite sex are allow to access that group.

Akua Reindorf on associations with protected characterists.

Transcript from about 35 mins.

But everybody has to have ALL the protected characteristics in question. And then What you can’t have is a group for people with two separate [protected characteristics] …where some people have one protected characteristic and others have a different one. Because then let's say you have a group for lesbians or women and men who identify as women, trans women, it's not a… it doesn't satisfy the condition of being a single sex association. A single protected characteristic association for women because not everybody is a woman. It doesn't satisfy the condition for being um a single characteristic association for people who have the protected characteristic of gender reassignment because not everybody has that protected characteristic .

So you can't have that kind of an association. So you can't have a so-called trans-inclusive association. I mean as Maya says, you can always have two associations that join up and do things together. There are ways around it. But fundamentally, what we have started to call sumptions law is wrong both for services and for associations. um

Of course, if it was possible to have a self ID service or association, For Women Scotland simply would not have won the case. Because this is what the Scottish government wanted to do. They wanted to have transidentified males in a quota for women.

I doubt it. I bet there are members of the WI who have had to tolerate men as members and will now be able to get rid of them.