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.

It's great that pretend women are no longer included. Maybe they could join one of the numerous men's sheds popping up around the country.

They already had those. I’m asking how this ruling has actually measurably improved the lives of women in this country

Oh get a grip. There's plenty of spaces already for men, they don't need access to the few women only spaces that exist, and they're not barred from keeping in touch with friends they made.

We can all name male-female social dynamics freely with the law on our side. All of us. Hope that helps.

Along with the post Budget posts.

I know others have responded but I have to add my voice here. There is absolutely no point in there being a Women's Institute if it isn't in fact for women. Can you see how utterly bonkers it is to admit some men, if they dress a certain way or declare certain things?? Logically it is idiotic.

The WI could become a generic meetup group - there's nothing at all to stop them (apart from a potentially catastrophic loss of members). They are the Women's Institute. Either the word woman means something or it doesn't. In this case the supreme court says it does mean something very specific.

If you're still struggling to understand, imagine some people wanted to bring their alligators to a puppy club and their justification was that their alligators wear cute puppy costumes and are very docile.

no - one man in the organisation destroys the idea that it is for women.
That 80 year old should be taking Stonewall and the TRAs to task - until they started their homophobic misogynist campaign of hate against women, nobody would have batted an eyelid.

It's the Naomi Cunningham argument - if someone is advertised as peanut-free, the presence of a single peanut invalidates it.

I have some sympathy with a previous poster who stated that we should pick our battles, not go after trans-identifying boys joining Girl Guides etc - otherwise we risk looking like that Mitchell and Webb "are we the baddies?" meme.

The problem is, the boundaries of women's spaces were comprehensively eroded in a breathtakingly short period by self ID/Stonewall law. We were let down and gaslit by every major institution - the BBC, NHS, Police, with "her penis" etc - and even by those set up solely to serve women (Fawcett Society, Engender, Edinburgh Rape Crisis etc).

So while I do feel sympathy for individuals impacted by this, my feeling is, regretfully, if we give trans activists an inch by "being kind", they'll take a mile.

No they didn’t. And you’ve been answered.

And that’s improved your life how?

how does this help the women who can’t afford to feed their children because they lost their job and the cost of living has spiralled? How does it help women who are waiting years for NHS appointments? How does it help women who have just been made homeless? It doesn’t. Pretending it does anything is just make believe. And that’s coming from someone who’s gender critical.

The “answers” have all been very small benefits, if they can be classed as benefits at all.

but there ought to be an exemption for those transwomen who have been going for years without any issues. These are not activists - they are people just trying to live their own lives.
They may not be activists, hopefully this will give them the impetus to give up their delusion and give them the backbone to face reality and join the place where the majority of us, both women and men live.

@ApplePie16funnily enough I think a lot of cost of living, housing and NHS problems are made worse by sexism in society so it’s really really important that we understand sex - it’s biological factors and how it interacts with societal belief if we are to improve all those things

take NHS and heart attack survival rates - you need to know the sex of the victim and how heart attacks present differently between the sexes and that gets muddied if you obsfucate sex

or housing problems and the fact that it tends to to be women left with the kids and poorly paid work when the man shacks up with the younger model

sex matters

In your opinion. Small to you, significant to another. A benefit is a benefit.

I take your point about your personal experience of Park Run. I just think that's not a good enough reason to push ahead with a strategy that is likely to alienate lots of ordinary people (not just trans people and TRAs). There are plenty of women who are entirely happy to include transwomen as women at Park Run, and they get a vote too. I, personally, would never want a male midwife or gynae specialist, but there are loads of women who don't give a crap either way, and a campaign to prevent men from training in those specialisms would fail.

Most British people think that tolerance and inclusivity are important values, and I think we're in danger of getting on the wrong side of that.

I'm not sure, but he certainly used his trans identity to infiltrate something his wife enjoyed with other women and in so doing, changed the group dynamic for everyone, including the women who welcomed, or pretended, to welcome him.

that's transphobic, don't you know?

Why do you need women to say yes to men in changing rooms, WI, prisons to change any of this?

I find the fawning apologies like the one from the WI CEO very disturbing - they remind me of an abuse victim who is trying to appease the abuser to defuse any blow-back. The sensible response to this ruling would be 'Ok, it's not ideal but we have to obey the law' not 'we are soooooo sorry and we kiss the feet of all wonderful and beautiful transwomen.'

Please tell me you can be worried about more than one thing at a time?

But they’re not. You can think that all you like to try and justify the energy you put into this “cause” but they are made worse by the ruling classes. If only you put your energy into that, and actually making a difference.

awww then the elderly trans people can... oh i don't know - get off their arses and set one up?

but as usual it is men bleating that women won't do all the work so they can waltz in and take over.

Tough (fake) tits

How about you go ask women prisoners, or professional sports women, or rape victims looking for support groups, or little girls who didn't want to have to change infront of a boy at school? Go ask them that very stupid question.

I'm not anti-trans but clearly, spaces can exist which are for women only who were born women and this was always intended under the Equality Act and sex and race discrimination legislation prior to that, or else why bother with sex as a protected characteristic.

Being a transwoman is not a trump card over all other rights in society, there has to be a balance.

For a few years some campaigners, organisations and individuals have treated it as a trump card. They have actually done far more to harm the interests of transpeople in so doing and much of it was born out of misogyny and a backlash against feminism and women's rights.

That's not true.

No - recognising that woman is a real category based in biology, that by definition, excludes all men - has not changed many of the problems that women face. You're right in that respect.

But it's not true to say that nothing has changed. Changes have already happened, or will happen, because of the tireless campaigning of feminists.

Changes such as:
Women in prison no longer being at risk of rape from their fellow inmates who are male.

Women not being able to question being body searched by a man - a man with an erection maybe, or a man giving them a strange leer, or a man who terrifies them just because he is a man in a position of power over them. A man who is subject to less scrutiny because he calls himself a woman.

Likewise for women in women's only refuges, homeless shelters. Sexual harassment and assault from males is one less thing for these women to worry about.

A man, generally won't be admitted into the same open ward space, and if, heaven forbid for some unavoidable clinical reasons he is, and he takes advantage of that situation to rape another inpatient - the hospital won't gaslight his victim & mislead the police by denying that he exists.

If you are raped by a man, you wont have to talk about that experience in detail with a man dressed up as a woman, in order to access counselling and support.

You won't have to refer to your rapist, as a woman, though he raped you with his penis, in the court room, after he cynically appropriates a female identity in order to access yet more vulnerable women to abuse.

If you participate in a women's sporting event, and you are the best woman there - you don't have to watch whilst your trophy, medal prize or award is given to a man who is dressed as a woman, with whom you cannot compete due to your biology.

I'm sure I could think of more examples. You are correct - this is a chunk of a larger whole - but women cannot protect their sex based rights if the terms woman and sex are actually rendered meaningless, and they don't actually exist legally as a class. So this clarification is fundamental to women's sex based rights.