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.

They should just rebrand as the men’s institute if they’re that bothered about the opposite sex and their various fetishes. Women’s groups are for women - it really is that simple!

I am fully in support of the WI and girl guides being female only spaces. Will scouting now become male only?

That’s up to scouts uk.

Scouts could return to single sex if they want, but it wouldn't have anything to do with the Guides or Supreme Court decision.

I’m not saying they should or will, just pondering out loud.

In addition to all the expert film special effects work (they also made it look like people got shot and hit by cars), they also used a woman to dub the singing scene and deliberately filled the bar with women in the scenes before the reveal, then men in the scenes after. And when I saw it, I admit I didn't think "that's a man" (just wouldn't have occurred to me as a possibility) but I did think Dil had an androgynous voice, huge hands and a mannish shape. When the reveal came, I thought, "It all makes sense now." Now when I watch it, I see the Adam's apple too. Fantastic and talented actor, brilliant film, but definitely not proof that you can never tell someone's sex.

When I saw Chicago on stage, they had a man playing Mary Sunshine as they sometimes do... the actor does a dramatic reveal near the end. Real life, live singing, admittedly stage lights and so on. Perhaps it was bad casting, but I didn't realise you weren't supposed to realise it was a man and neither did anyone I was with. We thought they were going for a panto dame touch, or perhaps making a point about the falseness of performance. Which I guess they were, because - it was a man!

And even if Dil and Sunshine fooled us all forever...so what? So they wore excellent disguises. They still weren't women. The very fact someone is arguing that you might think they were women is proof that they aren't!

When it is properly implemented hopefully no more men will be locked up with vulnerable women in prison, or in secure psychiatric wards with very ill women, or in women's refuges, or in rape crisis centres and rape counselling groups purporting to be just for female victims, or female staff changing rooms in NHS hospitals. That is just a few examples off the top of my head.

Fun, related film trivia fact: Some Like It Hot was originally to be shot in colour but ended up being shot in black and white because, while Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon aren't exactly hugely convincing as women as it is, it looked so laughably bad and obvious in colour that it wouldn't have been workable, even to the rather low level required for a comic farce. Marilyn Monroe had originally signed for the film to be in colour but when she saw the test shoots of them as women in colour, she agreed to black and white.

Well, nobody’s perfect 😊

(It’s a favourite film)

Interesting first hand accounts of the damage done in WI and GG of these policies.

https://thecritic.co.uk/a-good-week-for-girls-and-women/

this is not some victimless scenario. People stopped going. Perverts assuredly had a field day.

There is nothing stopping trans people from setting up their own organisations.

But they don't want to do that, they want access to women and girls and forcing those people to use 'preferred pronouns'.

Wouldn't have thought so. They changed to mixed sex, openly, to prop up falling numbers, as I understand it. They've never tried to retain their single sex status. Girls join as girls, not as 'trans boys', so these recent developments are irrelevant to them.

Yes of course , that makes more sense.

I am not arguing that they are women. I[m arguing that "you can always tell" is bollocks. You can tell people who don[t pass, like you can tell someone with a bad wig or a bad facelift. You don[t notice the good ones. People who blather on about philtrum width etc. are talking out of their arses.

you can talk about exceptions that prove the rule as much as you like however 99.99% of the time you can always tell

We are being bombarded with trans people on platforms like X etc. They don't pass. Women with beards, up to their eyeballs on testosterone may initially look male until you see their height, their hips, their hands. I wonder what all that testosterone does long term?

Men identifying as women do not pass at all. Who is that man who was on Big Brother years ago and made a big deal of rubbing moisturiser into his implants in front of everyone like no woman has ever done. Their behaviour gives them away aswell as their excess makeup.

Of course men (however they dress or describe themselves) should leave.

Immediately if they were thoughtful towards real women. They'll probably need to be kicked out screaming and wailing though. The drama.

I swear by the 100 paces test!

You can tell close to 100% of the time; it's something humans are actually extremely good at doing, especially women (and I'm not giving highly filtered and curated social media content any headspace on this, we all know what that can do to reality). There are a lot of cues, ones you don't even know you're picking up. Even with people who supposedly pass because they've had years of cross sex hormones, tons of surgical procedures, years of training in how to walk and move and use a false voice (it is really a lot of work and a lot of time, you know), it's vanishingly unlikely that nobody they've ever interacted with could tell. It's actually almost impossible.

But ok, let's say your made up person who is completely indistinguishable at all times from the opposite sex exists and they completely fool everyone they ever meet. So what? They're still not actually that sex and sex based rights and protections are still a thing. We don't abolish any other rights or safeguards because we are aware they can't be 100% enforced all the time with a perfect success rate. Why is it only women's rights and protections where people imply, or outright state, that there's no point to them if they can't be enforced with total perfection all the time?

And to add... why, when women were being denied votes, education, property holding rights, loans and credit cards, did nobody worry about how we would be able to tell who the women were? Why did it only become an incredibly fraught and impossible process once men wanted in on women's spaces and women said no?

Agree. And even in people that superficially pass there are other tells in real life. Movement and gestures tend to stand out because it’s a female acting the way she perceives men to behave and vice versa rather than someone behaving naturally. something feels off even if you cannot immediately identify what is ‘off’.

I do hope that women will stop trying to get into men's groups and clubs.
There are men (perhaps recently widowed or divorced) who just want the company of other men at least in the short or medium term.
The mens shed groups are a brilliant idea.
DB is in one of these groups and his DW would not be pleased if it was a mixed group.

Yes, I agree that men also have a right to single sex spaces. A relative of mine attends a support group for men with PTSD. It's a specific need and a specific dynamic and if it began admitting women, he would stop going.

It’s a bit of an uncanny valley effect

sartorial choices can also be a dead giveaway