AIBU to consider leaving our knitting group over its new policy?

[Solentseeker]

I’m in a women’s knitting group. It started as just a group of friends and extended from there. We meet twice weekly in an hall that has to be booked and paid for and go on trips etc so it has become more formal over time and has a treasurer, secretary, social secretary etc. I and two other friends were founder members but we take a back seat in the organisation now. We attract lots of younger members (30-somethings!) which is great. I (early 60s) love socialising with people, hearing their views etc.

The new chairman (woman) has recently decided that we should announce that we are ‘trans friendly’ and try to attract trans women and non-binary people. Apart from the fact that I don’t know what non-binary people are other than people who don’t sign up to gender stereotypes (most of the women currently in the group don’t go in for nails / make up / fake tan etc anyway so what’s the difference?) I don’t want men in the group, trans identifying or otherwise. I’ve been sexually assaulted a few times in my lifetime, as has another of the founder members. We’ve also always appreciated having a space away from the male gaze and voice, where women can have their voice centre stage for once. I know a number of the current members are also extremely concerned about this new push and would feel pushed out too if any men join.

I have no desire to ‘out’ myself as a ‘TERF’ by complaining or pushing back as it would in their eyes make me a ‘bad’ person and I always try to do good by everyone. I just disagree wholeheartedly with the idea that men should be treated as women because they say so. It seems so seething misogynistic. I’m deeply sad about the whole situation and think I’m going to have to leave the club, because the current chairman seems to stand for things that I don’t. I appreciate women’s rights and they don’t seem to give a fig. What do politics have to do with knitting? Do I just leave? Do I wait and see whether any men try to join before leaving? I can’t be arsed to fight back even though I would have a LOT of (currently silent) supporters.

OP you are getting a hard time here from people who woefully do not understand the law . Come over to the feminism forum and ask there if you like .

But for the benefit of those giving opinions which don’t reflect the law.

An association with rules eg a subscription of more than 25 members has to follow the Equality Act.

If you are currently a single sex association you take advantage of the single sex exemption. Transwomen are men and can’t join a single sex association for women . They can join a mixed association open to all men and women .

Your new Chair would not be complying with the law wanting an association of more than 25 people for women and transwomen and not others .

The committee could be sued for unlawful discrimination by any man who wanted to join what would now be a mixed group. Any woman suffering a detriment, perhaps someone who has suffered SA or DV could also sue for indirect discrimination. Other women could too, but given it’s knitting and not somewhere where you might undress or be in a vulnerable position or state this might be harder to show though I take your point about men affecting the dynamics.

Tell the Chair and committee they would be putting themselves at great risk for being sued . That should quash any notion.

🥱
Don't you have your own board for frothing?

How is this to be 'announced'? Billboard? Full page newspaper ad?

When it was announced, what did the group say?
Why not just suggest you hold off on the advertising campaign, and go on as you are. If any trans women had wanted to join, I'm sure they'd have given it a go by now seeing as they only exist to take over 'your' spaces 🤷‍♀️
Or maybe they are all at home frantically trying to learn to knit just so they can crash your party.

Next time you're together, if it is brought up, have an actual discussion. Probably a good place to start

Neither do I.

So we're being told that a few women wanting a couple of hours' peace and quiet to knit without having to give their attention to men (trans-identified or otherwise) is hateful and prejudiced and socially dangerous. For goodness' sake!

Men have the whole world to spread themselves in and plenty of attention from women already. They won't die if they can't join a women's knitting group. If they had any gumption, they would start one themselves, and either invite women along if they want them, or not if they don't. There's nothing stopping them.

It does seem unreasonable to be this upset over transgenders being allowed in the knitting group. It is a knitting group, it would be more reasonable if it were something like sports or a mother group or something like that, but knitting is just knitting. Most transgenders just want to coexist peacefully, they aren't going to bite or anything. There is a lot of propaganda that paints these people as malicious. I can tell you, they are just people who really really want to be the other gender. And they are like a teeny tiny percentage of the population. There is no need to worry about transgender people any more than normal people.
If you are scared of being in a club with a man, maybe you can try talking to a therapist about it and see what they say. Maybe it might actually be good to challenge those fears if they could get in the way of living your everyday life. Or maybe not. I would suggest talking to a therapist about it.

It's an odd position to insist that someone who doesn't want men in a women's group is sexist, but also assume that it is inevitable that a man in the presence of a woman doing squats will be unable to refrain from 'leering'. 🤷🏻

This. I have known men who knit, why should they be excluded from the group just because they are men? There are complaints galore if women are excluded from groups, why should it only go one way?

YABU, but if you aren't happy about it then you are free to leave.

Why do you have to give your attention to men? What are you all, simpering ninnies who will just have to be cowed by the one or two men who just might turn up, who are of course going to dominate the proceedings and you won't be able to do a thing about it?
Oh, come ON!

I have been in groups where women outnumber the men before, and trust me, we haven't felt the need to give them our attention because they are men. We have simply included them as a member of the group, like we would any other. It hasn't changed the dynamic because we haven't let it. We talk about the same stuff we always have. Nobody's mansplained to us, because we have made it clear we know what we are doing.
None of them have ever asked to walk any of us home. They've joined us walking to the pub, though.

This has nothing to do with the OP, though. The chair isn't suggesting opening the group to men as well as women, she suggesting opening it up to a tiny percentage of men and excluding the others.

Edit to add: which would seem to be illegal under the Equality Act and would open the group up to legal challenge - which would be a huge time and money sink.

What have politics got to do with knitting? You’ve clearly not been on Ravelry. I wish I was so lucky.

Why on earth can you not accept that some women find asserting themselves very difficult because they have been socialised to feel selfish if they do? If you have escaped that, then you're fortunate, not superior.

You are also not helping them by trying to make them feel like shit for struggling to do what comes easily to you, and for begrudging them a respite from their struggles.

I'd leave. Too political by far, and heading for disagreements.

If it isn't specifically a woman's knitting group, then there is no reason why men can't come along and therefore no reason to even mention trans.

Sounds like a lot of virtue signalling rubbish to me.

Actually the Equality Act 2010 permits any association (a group of 25 or more with rules for membership and a selection process) to confine itself only to people who hold one (or more) protected characteristics (other than colour).

So, a women-only group is legal for any purpose. A women-only knitting group is perfectly lawful.

Only if you ignore the hundreds of legal decisions proving that isn’t true.

You'll have trouble finding even one legal decision saying it isn't true, because it is true. It's written directly in the law: Equality Act 2010 Schedule 16 Section 1, paragraph 1:

An association does not contravene section 101(1) by restricting membership to persons who share a protected characteristic.

The world would be a much better place if people were kinder and more tolerant with each other. This is completely batshit. If you welcomed a trans woman to the group, you might actually find they become a friend.

My views are generally gender critical. But this is not a hill to die on. It’s only knitting.

Who'd have thought, in a knitting group of all places.

So sorry something you love is being ruined for no reason OP.

First of all, please completely ignore the "It's only something you care about immensely that you have put lots of attention into that I don't consider personally important" goaders. Their comments mean nothing.

And secondly, you should completely ignore the "But we must centre de menz at all times what about de menz tears?!" commenters as they're also utterly and totally irrelevant. Both these sorts are just lazily trying to get a rise out of you, or are too thick to be bothered with at all.

So, to your dilemma - yes you should just leave tbh. This person is one of the virtue signalling, unkind and disrespectful sort of women. That they've even brought this up means they are most likely trying to ferret out whether you believe in reality and decency or are a manpandering twat like they are. If you speak up they will definitely target you.

It's a shame they're choosing chosen to spoil something that matters such a lot to you, women's hobbies do matter and I am sorry they will not allow you peaceful respite from men.

You don't need to have been sexually assaulted to want peace from men - women are just allowed to want to not be around men.

Any man who would want to smash that decent, fair, absolutely commonplace and totally uncontroversial boundary is already the aggressor and any woman who wants to destroy that boundary or pretends not to understand why you might want it is not safe to be around.

She's already told you who she is. So yep, ditching her and the group is your safest option imo. So sorry.

YANBU. Personally, I'd just leave. This change would taint the group for me – if I was close to any particular members, I might invite them to a smaller, more informal knitting circle at my home or elsewhere. But I wouldn't want to be part of a 'women's' knitting group that men could join.

What's batshit about wanting a social group to be women-only? In women-only circles, you can discuss things that you might not want to in front of a man (who could be getting off on it). It's more comfortable and relaxed.

Anyway, if they're going to open it to some men then it should be open to ALL men. Not just to the ones who want to force women to pretend that they're also women.

If its a womens knitting group then why does it have to be trans friendly?
Has the chairwomen got a trans friend?
Im fed up with all this stuff time and again these men dressed as women want to encroach on everything.
I would say, as a founder member that I dont like the idea and hope everyone agrees and if the dont I would start another knitting group and make sure everyone knows it is for women only.

It’s a women’s group whose focus happens to be knitting, not a knitting group who just happen to be women.

I'd definitely leave then!
So if someone (not the chair) made this proposal , someone else should clarify that it is then a mixed sex group. The chair is virtue signalling, and forcing her opinions on the rest of the group.

Comparatively, in the WI of all places..

🤔 funny thing for the new chair to come out with. Suggest a vote for the current group members? Presumably the chair can't unilaterally make membership decisions.

Put it to an anonymous vote.

Yes, this is an issue. Unless I've misread your OP, @Solentseeker, the chair says the group now welcomes trans women. This needs clarifying in light of the Supreme Court's re-statement of the fact that sex means sex.

Trans women are male, thus they are men. The group is either single sex or mixed sex. She cannot include some men but exclude others: attempting to do so would open the group to claims of sex discrimination against non-trans men.

I think you should point this out.