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.

Yes. Besides which, women being permitted to join a mens space even if as a result of strident request is worlds away from men claiming to be women and stating their right to be in a women's space.

Read that back though? Essentially what’s being said is stop worrying about women’s rights and care more about the people. That’s excluded women from the group that is people?!

this is why language matters. When we say women we need to mean biological women or they will be erased from consideration with such statements where they are not included in the word people. Because stop worrying about women’s rights and start worrying about people essentially means worry about men. Because if you are not worrying about the vulnerable women who are homeless and poor or sick or abused who is it you are worrying about?

it actually is highlighting exactly WHY women need single sex groups like the WI because the default is always male

He is a she. The point is you only spot non-passing trans people. It can be hard to tell someone's birth sex, particularly for people who have gone to considerable lengths to blur it. I certainly encounter people where I am not sure and I doubt I am alone in that. Maybe if I got close and got a good hard stare, but passing in the street, no, I can't always tell. Amd how would I know if some randomer I clocked as male actually was?

Its not hard to tell someones sex, its just not
Especially IRL
Nobody points and screams "MAN" at TW so they assume we think they are women, we do not

Honestly, I don't buy this. Not for men anyway. Where are the high profile transwomen that actually 'pass'?

The only ones I can think of are those who were blocked at puberty, like Jazz, but even then, there are indicators.

Men who go through puberty will always be readily identifiable as men.

He is a she.

How do you know?

As for the rest of it, the point is actually everything you're ignoring. If you regularly encounter people who you genuinely struggle to sex even with close up interaction, well, that's unfortunate for you. 1.2 billion years of evolution has left most of us pretty good at it; you being an outlier doesn't mean anything. (You sure you're a she? Women are better at it than men.) Humans still exist in only two immutable sexes, humans can generally still sex each other with close to 100% accuracy and even if a rare person exists who can fool every single person they ever meet, women still have sex based rights. 90s films and wigs don't change any of this.

Absolutely this 💯

Exactly.

You are right.

The women forcing their way into Men's Sheds have entirely different motives for doing so than men who have been allowed to join WI. I have no idea why these women are succeeding. I would have thought it would be pretty easy for the Men's Sheds to turn them away.

The biggest difference between Men's Sheds and the WI is that men have to pretend to be women to be accepted in the WI, women can join Men's Sheds as women.

The similarity between the two organisations is that men and women who want to enjoy single sex association have been denied that opportunity by certain branches of these - supposedly - single sex organisations.

This is true. They always give themselves away.

Blair White is another TW who superficially fools some people (especially men), but his mannerisms are more what men think women do than what women actually do. The permanent pout, constant self-grooming, hair stroking, making sure his lady-props are still in place. Real women don't do that.

I’m quite sad about the men’s shed thing. We had a version at work 20 years ago and lots of the men had issues even talking to women, they had mental health issues and some were very shy. Men deserve SS spaces too.

I'm genuinely not sure how this is happening in the UK as the sheds here make their position clear. Would appear to be people locally not properly implementing the policy.
I'd imagine the motives of the women (wives, you said, I think..?) is to encourage and support their husband's to attend, rather than to divert services to themselves intended for others.
However, this isn't within the principles of the sheds and they should have been refused.
I think the reference to 'forcing themselves in' is unlikely to be reflective of reality. It's difficult to see how a woman could force men to allow her to remain in a space men told her she must leave, so clearly the sheds chose to allow it. Which is again very different from women given no choice to 'allow' a man claiming to be a woman in spaces designed for us.

I agree with you, other than why should it be the wife's business of it's a mixed sex group. That sounds controlling.

I think it is more concerned than controlling. Have seen it too many times that inappropriate relationships have developed perhaps I am too old and cynical.

Do you mean that heterosexual husbands might go to a Men's Shed and discover that they are gay?

I agree

I don't think it would be unreasonable to conclude that this woman "forced her way in". She admits she did and boasts of her success.

The feature doesn't tell us how the men felt about it.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg5qd9l3094o.amp

No - it is the other social groups and clubs where women want to join.

I think all male men's sheds sounds like a brilliant initiative for all kinds of reasons and it's a real shame a woman would try to disrupt by forcing her way in.

There are many WI Facebook threads about this subject. Mostly populated by the 'sisterhood' who are aghast and devastated by this ruling.

God help the few brave souls who have dared to say that the ruling is right.

There has been the odd mention of 'terfs' and 'bullies' and the 'witch that is JKR'

They are very vocal and upset and threatening all sorts (backing the Good Law Project to fight the Supreme Court is the funny one), including not renewing the membership. I do think there will be a drop in membership

But they are all adamant that TWAW

I do think it’s a shame and I wonder what she hoped to achieve. I mean surely the blokes would resent her presence and the atmosphere would be horrible, blokes might not end up going so don’t get the support they need and the shed closes.

. I do think there will be a drop in membership

Hmm. I wonder.

Be interesting to see how that goes.

My distaste at the WI's magazine article about a bloke pretending to be a woman in one of the WI's branches was one of the reasons I resigned. It was the first time I realised the WI entertained such nonsense.

I didn't want to hang around until some bloke turned up at our branch in his fetish gear.

Some people will resign because of this, but I think former members will return now the madness is over and all the publicity about it is likely to attract new members.

Unfortunately, the tears and hand-wringing over the decision and the insistence that these men are women will put some women off.

If I’m walking down the street and I become aware of someone walking behind me I’m usually pretty accurate at detecting if that person is male or female. It’s amazing isn’t it? That our brain can distinguish between the sexes even if we can’t actually see the other person, whether they’re wearing a very good wig or not.

The times I’ve clocked those unicorn transwomen who “pass” (without actually passing) I haven’t acknowledged that I know they’re not female because I don’t know how they’re going to react, so they can carry on thinking no one can tell when the reality is actually very different. Most people are too kind to point it out.

I can wear jeans, jumper and Chelsea boots today, probably a puffa jacket and knitted hat.
My DH will wear a similar outfit.
I’ve absolutely no doubt at all that people walking past us will automatically know who is the male and who is the female. I don’t have to wear a ton of makeup or try to look like something I’m not, I wake up female every single day of my life, it’s there in my DNA.

The poor sad elderly trans people could always join the U3A. It’s a mixed sex group that has lots of activities and events.

I’m in the demographic that would traditionally have been attracted to the WI and, after reading on here a few years ago about their stance, I decided not to join. I did attend a local independent hobby class for 20 years and that was women-only, a really lovely place where we could discuss anything and everything, and without a man telling us we were holding the hammer wrong.