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Moomoola · 07/06/2023 08:27

Signed. Thanks for this.

DontGetEvenGetEverything · 07/06/2023 10:34

@Bosky
Resisting TERF’s and Transforming Their Organizations
https://queeratxlaura.wordpress.com/2020/05/27/resisting-terfs-and-transforming-their-organizations/

(Archived on Archive Today and web archive org if that link goes dead)

I've been feeling uncomfortable reading the Matt Walsh thread, TraumatisedGooner's suggestion that GC feminists must surely have more in common with trans rights activists than extremely conservative Catholics.
But then I thought about the women's groups and communities I was a part of 20 years ago. Sepratist organisations. Lesbian festivals with access to public funding. Support groups set up for women who have survived male violence.

Conservative Catholics left these groups alone. They may have preached against them from their own pulpits. But they didn't make repeated claims in civil courts, or take leadership roles and change an organisation's remit despite member-wide votes for women only to continue to mean female only.
I think I'm rambling a bit. But there is alot of trust lost for me with TRAs, where a perhaps precarious, mutual regard - live and let live - I feel towards social conservatives.

PorcelinaV · 07/06/2023 17:40

DontGetEvenGetEverything · 07/06/2023 10:34

@Bosky
Resisting TERF’s and Transforming Their Organizations
https://queeratxlaura.wordpress.com/2020/05/27/resisting-terfs-and-transforming-their-organizations/

(Archived on Archive Today and web archive org if that link goes dead)

I've been feeling uncomfortable reading the Matt Walsh thread, TraumatisedGooner's suggestion that GC feminists must surely have more in common with trans rights activists than extremely conservative Catholics.
But then I thought about the women's groups and communities I was a part of 20 years ago. Sepratist organisations. Lesbian festivals with access to public funding. Support groups set up for women who have survived male violence.

Conservative Catholics left these groups alone. They may have preached against them from their own pulpits. But they didn't make repeated claims in civil courts, or take leadership roles and change an organisation's remit despite member-wide votes for women only to continue to mean female only.
I think I'm rambling a bit. But there is alot of trust lost for me with TRAs, where a perhaps precarious, mutual regard - live and let live - I feel towards social conservatives.

Well I would hope the Catholics wouldn't resort to domestic terrorism.

The far-left can be so unhinged: "Let's get people fired and use violence over dogma that makes no sense and we can't defend!"

Ramblingnamechanger · 07/06/2023 17:57

Well it is VERY clear that women do not want the change to the WI. There are references to a TRA who joined while making threats against women/terfs. While some are prepared to let the ones already there stay , there were many who want to expel all men. Pretty conclusive I think. When are the comittee going to see how angry women are?

Spanielsarepainless · 07/06/2023 18:10

WittynotPretty · 05/06/2023 10:36

Please let me in! Seeking refuge with the sane and wise witchesof MB as I’ve just been burned by my local WI committee for daring to question the inclusion of male members🍆

I was forced to leave WI four years ago over this issue. I would probably rejoin if the matter was resolved so women=biological women.

TrainedByCats · 07/06/2023 19:49

I’m so so fed up of this, we’ll have to start again then they’ll target the new organisations. How can we talk about womens issues like breastfeeding and sexual assault when there’s males sitting there potentially getting off on the discussion

Spaceforbiologicalfemalesonly · 07/06/2023 20:14

I’ve been quietly discussing this with members from my WI and I think it’s likely if we were to find ourselves in a situation we didn’t feel safe in that everyone would likely leave and it would fold.

with Covid and lots of issues we struggled to keep a committee even though we have a good membership. Our WI was formed before 1920. It brings together a diverse group of women born as women and supports our village and its members. It would leave a big hole in many members social lives if it folded.

Im actually concerned about how we oppose persons not born female joining in the WI when you see stuff in the press about Caroline Farrow, and I don’t feel confident to be speak publicly.

the thing that bugs me is I don’t mind what people want to be if they need to be something else to have some happiness and calm but I’d prefer they respect that I joined a women, biologically born womens, group, and they set up a group of their own.

IcakethereforeIam · 20/08/2023 18:12

I'm not sure if this is the most recent thread but anyway....bump!

An excellent article in the Critic about this. And, right at the end, mention of an organisation that, using the EA exemption, has stayed women (ofck) only.

https://thecritic.co.uk/the-clue-is-in-the-name/

The clue is in the name | Ursula Wide | The Critic Magazine

The Women's Institute should be exactly that…

https://thecritic.co.uk/the-clue-is-in-the-name

RealityFan · 20/08/2023 18:18

Well said, Ursula.

Women, time for a revolution. As men, we'll take our cue from you. I already say my GC piece in public whenever the opportunity arises, but I'm also happy to just make the tea.

In the final analysis, don't get mad, get even. But certainly get mad first.

ifIwerenotanandroid · 20/08/2023 18:27

JacquelinePot · 18/04/2023 07:44

One man makes it a mixed sex space which completely changes the dynamic.

Imo you're looking at it the wrong way round. If a WI group had 20 members, and one man joined, yes, it's only one man, but he's impacting 20 women.

Show quote history

It also impacts any woman whose WI group is 100% female but is concerned that the situation could change at any time. And any woman who no longer wants to join the WI because it's no longer a female-only organisation. And any woman who is unable to join because of that, through her own feelings/ preferences or through the demands of other people around her.

ZeldaFighter · 20/08/2023 19:13

DontGetEvenGetEverything · 07/06/2023 10:34

@Bosky
Resisting TERF’s and Transforming Their Organizations
https://queeratxlaura.wordpress.com/2020/05/27/resisting-terfs-and-transforming-their-organizations/

(Archived on Archive Today and web archive org if that link goes dead)

I've been feeling uncomfortable reading the Matt Walsh thread, TraumatisedGooner's suggestion that GC feminists must surely have more in common with trans rights activists than extremely conservative Catholics.
But then I thought about the women's groups and communities I was a part of 20 years ago. Sepratist organisations. Lesbian festivals with access to public funding. Support groups set up for women who have survived male violence.

Conservative Catholics left these groups alone. They may have preached against them from their own pulpits. But they didn't make repeated claims in civil courts, or take leadership roles and change an organisation's remit despite member-wide votes for women only to continue to mean female only.
I think I'm rambling a bit. But there is alot of trust lost for me with TRAs, where a perhaps precarious, mutual regard - live and let live - I feel towards social conservatives.

My God, I started reading that link a d I couldn't finish. I have never voted for anything other than Labour or Lib Dem in my life. I have worked in public service to help my local communities. I am feminist, anti-racist and anti-disablist.

But because I think people can change gender but not sex and that society needs to think about how to accommodate this, I am not human. I am a Nazi. I don't deserve to be able to earn a living or even live in peace and everything I value for women should be destroyed until it centres men who identify as women.

I am hurt and shocked. The level of hatred is off the scale. Despite reading this board for over a year.

Rightsraptor · 20/08/2023 19:37

Good article. The writer tells us that the Inner Wheel have invoked the single sex exception available under the EQA 2010. I've not heard of this being challenged and I'm wondering if that's because they have the (male) Rotary club behind them.

I seem to remember the head of the WI federation recently saying, as does the article tbh, that 'woman is a mix of biology and lived experience' or some such. But there was no attempt to explain how a male individual of around 60 years of age could fit that bill. A male who'd been a husband and father until he'd decided a few months ago that he'd really been a woman all along.

I belong to a similar organisation but if a man joins us, I'm leaving

Riapia · 20/08/2023 19:47

We really need a TW to mansplain it to us.

RealityFan · 20/08/2023 19:59

ZeldaFighter · 20/08/2023 19:13

My God, I started reading that link a d I couldn't finish. I have never voted for anything other than Labour or Lib Dem in my life. I have worked in public service to help my local communities. I am feminist, anti-racist and anti-disablist.

But because I think people can change gender but not sex and that society needs to think about how to accommodate this, I am not human. I am a Nazi. I don't deserve to be able to earn a living or even live in peace and everything I value for women should be destroyed until it centres men who identify as women.

I am hurt and shocked. The level of hatred is off the scale. Despite reading this board for over a year.

Show quote history

I've read that unhinged piece before. And when I was most down regarding this cultural shift, even up to 12 months ago, it really instilled a feeling of defeat in me.

But now I read it for what it really is, a puff piece, pure vanity, untethered from reality.

It's purely an expression of toxicity masquerading as guerilla action statement. In reality, it's just bloviating chest thumping invective.

Now I ignore it, so positive do I feel that 2023 is the pivot point to a brighter future.

I'd really ask others either not to read it, or if you do, with a glass of something cold, or tucking into some nice cake.

ZeldaFighter · 21/08/2023 14:35

RealityFan · 20/08/2023 19:59

I've read that unhinged piece before. And when I was most down regarding this cultural shift, even up to 12 months ago, it really instilled a feeling of defeat in me.

But now I read it for what it really is, a puff piece, pure vanity, untethered from reality.

It's purely an expression of toxicity masquerading as guerilla action statement. In reality, it's just bloviating chest thumping invective.

Now I ignore it, so positive do I feel that 2023 is the pivot point to a brighter future.

I'd really ask others either not to read it, or if you do, with a glass of something cold, or tucking into some nice cake.

Show quote history

Thanks @RealityFan , that does sound like the best way to handle it!

I still think it's scary in it's level of bile and venom 😞 I've never read of such hatred from Nelson Mandela, Mrs Pankhurst or Malcolm X.

AIstolemylunch · 21/08/2023 14:45

See this is what I now think we should let happen. Let all these ridiculous men join the WI, join the women's sports teams, until they are entirely made up of transwomen. Meanwhile women can start their own new organisations and teams, with reference to their single sex legal protections, which have recently been tested, are much wider known now and we now know stand - the real WI etc. And leave these silly men to it.

AIstolemylunch · 21/08/2023 14:46

I'm only half-joking ...

RealityFan · 21/08/2023 14:53

ZeldaFighter · 21/08/2023 14:35

Thanks @RealityFan , that does sound like the best way to handle it!

I still think it's scary in it's level of bile and venom 😞 I've never read of such hatred from Nelson Mandela, Mrs Pankhurst or Malcolm X.

Show quote history

It's true, it's absolutely hair raising in its intensity.

But that's all it is. A bundle of misogynistic rage from a bundle of misogynist.

Sure there is some cross fertilisation of anger from the pure TRAs to TrantiFa to anarchists to revolutionary Leninists to the dark side of Green catastrophists. And a whole mix of other wannabe troublemakers.

But I don't believe there is any unanimity here, other than guys liking to put masks on, swear like troopers in public, and give someone, anyone, a kicking.

This call to be outed, to have your cozy world crash around you is you've demonstrated so called transphobic traits online etc, yes, it is happening, but seemingly only in the most female centric and female driven instances... JKR speaking up and being threatened across the board, Sall Grover and the Central London lesbian speed dating organiser.

Most silencing is happening at academic and arts institution levels...the recent OU cases and Kath Stock, Jo Cherry and Glinner.

Maybe there's some energy from the nihilism that this call to action is contributing, but very little.

No...we have a number of angry males, who cannot get women to acquiesce (they couldn't when they were sweaty incels years ago, and they're trying now as sweaty TRAs), who have disproportionately gained traction in this marketplace of unprincipledness.

I would see this call to action as just ramping up volume and visibility, and nothing else.

And look at 2023...they're losing, and critically, they know they're losing. Expect the language to churn and froth in the next couple of years as they realise the gig is up, and their best days, the decade before 2023, was the high point they can never again reach.

DisillusionedTech · 21/08/2023 15:27

This call to be outed, to have your cozy world crash around you is you've demonstrated so called transphobic traits online etc, yes, it is happening, but seemingly only in the most female centric and female driven instances... JKR speaking up and being threatened across the board, Sall Grover and the Central London lesbian speed dating organiser.

Most silencing is happening at academic and arts institution levels...the recent OU cases and Kath Stock, Jo Cherry and Glinner.

This silencing has been happening in the tech world for quite a while now, so effectively as women themselves are so marginalised in this world and in many cases outnumbered by the transwomen that we have all been silenced and in some cases left the industry.

RealityFan · 21/08/2023 15:42

I'm very sorry to hear that.

IwantToRetire · 21/08/2023 16:12

Most silencing is happening at academic and arts institution levels...the recent OU cases and Kath Stock, Jo Cherry and Glinner.

I am not sure how anyone who is a regular reader of FWR can say that. And whilst I am not saying those in academia aren't being targetted, bh and large they have a way of letting others know.

But there are so many threads on here from isolated mothers with no support, or office workers (remember Ginny?), workers in the NHS, who are being totally crushed and silenced by the continuing advance of TRAs, who the entrenched MRAs are only too happy to use to silence and expel women.

Boiledeggandtoast · 18/01/2024 09:37

The Women's Institute Declaration are carrying out an anonymous survey for WI members, link here if anyone is interested:

https://twitter.com/WomensIns_Dec/status/1747504786675474864

(There was an initial problem with DMing them but they seem to have sorted this out now. If not, just tell them in reply and they will contact you direct (this worked for me).

https://twitter.com/WomensIns_Dec/status/1747504786675474864

DragonflyLady · 18/01/2024 10:08

I would be interested but am not on Twitter.

Chewbecca · 18/01/2024 10:13

Ditto Dragonflylady. Neither are the vast majority of my WI.