The Women's Institute faces revolt ...

[ArabeIIaScott]

I know this was mentioned recently on here, and the letter shared, but I can't find the thread.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11982451/Womens-Institute-faces-revolt-policy-allowing-transgender-members-join.html

some men like Dad, absolutely hate the very concept of women

I don't think they hate the concept of women exactly. They do, however, certainly feel it's in their gift rather than that of boring old fashioned female-type people to define the concept, and they do get very angry with boring old fashioned female-type people who do not respect their authority to make that definition.

I think this is the real question.

Is what the WI does, at this point in history, something that is just as legitimate to have men involved in?

It's the same as a Men's Motoring Club deciding if maybe it is time to let women in. It's not a simple question by any means.

But the very same reasons for letting TW in would apply to any men interested in the things the WI does.

Sure. The CEO of the WI said it.

Melissa Green, its chief executive, said on Monday night: “We are very proud of this policy, and how inclusive and supportive WI members are.
“This is not a new policy. We know transgender women have been welcomed to WIs for many years, some sources say as far back as the 1970s, and our national policy reflects what was happening already.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/04/18/william-hague-womens-institute-wi-transgender/

“Some sources” what sources exactly? I bet she couldn’t point to a single committee meeting minute where a vote was taken by national WI back in the 70s to formally admit men. It’s just the sort of bullshit people say when they haven’t a clue and are trying to retrospectively rewrite history to fit the current narrative

I agree with the current policy of the WI which has been in place for decades. Likewise, I think trans men should be allowed in the Freemasons (they are). So no, I don't disagree with "women," I just disagree with gender critical people, and the majority of people here are gender critical.

It's one of these situation where men with gender have always been welcomed as women. So welcomed in fact that nothing had to be said or written down.

Its strange then, that the WI decided to make a big thing of a man with gender in the WI very recently. And why william Hague (!) decided to tell women that men with gender should be included.

I'm getting mixed messages.

'some sources' He's just retrofitting, like the people I know IRL who spout things about 'all the trans people I know'/'all my trans friends' and 'transwomen have always used women's toilets' etc when in actual fact until about three years ago they'd never even said the word transgender.

I bet I know what sex those sources are.

@DadJoke

majority of people here are gender critical.

FTFY

So no, I don't disagree with "women,"

"Women" 🙄

Do you or do you not believe that female-bodied people, the group historically known as "women", a marginalised group who have recently had their actual name and with it their legal identity removed from them, should have the right to be recognised as a group that is distinct from male-bodied people, and to have a name that applies to them and only to them?

Do you recognise that regardless of how you personally may decide to define "woman", the group to whom that name originally applied are still a valid, existing group, and they will continue to exist regardless of your personal definition of the word "woman"?

Do you, in short, accept this concept, this group of people, is valid? And if so, why do you feel your definition for the word woman, a new construction that many many "women" do not agree with, identity as or accept, should take precedence over the one we all understood and worked with before?

It’s quite possible that in the past, there perhaps were occasional, fully medically transitioned transsexuals who joined WI.

Similarly in the past medically transitioned men were told by their doctors to use women’s spaces.

Few women objected (though there were some who did, or left without saying why) and in general, those transsexuals worked hard not to be objectionable.

The problem is that transactivism has ramped up, the relationship has changed (far more men, far less medical intervention, far more men taking advantage) and women are now objecting. The old, more comfortable relationship is being held up as “it’s always been done like this” but it is a false equivalence.

Those transsexuals intentionally or unintentionally have been used as a wedge to get other men in.

It puts women on the back foot and is a horrible tactic. We’re not imagining it.

It’s what we have to fight though now, pointing out that no, it wasn’t always like this and isn’t us who set out to change the status quo.

Suppose, as an intellectual exercise, that we actually take the argument of gender identity ideology seriously:

There is no need to even have the concept of biological sex, but there is an urgent need to keep the categories 'women' and 'men' (and to add other categories to them) while emptying them of all material content. And then to refill them with various gender stereotypes.

Why would a culture do that? Why would we ask for people's abstract feelings about clothing or makeup or beer or football fandom or liking woodwork vs. knitting, about if they prefer to slap people in sex or be slapped, about if they prefer pink to blue or vice versa and so on?

What social structures would we build on this new way of classifying people? Can you think how this would be used that would not be deeply, deeply sexist?

The whole edifice of gender identity becomes meaningless if it is not, in fact, nailed to the underlying concept of biological sex and the sexist stereotypes about behaviour, roles, and rules which cultures have tied to it. Because to 'identify as a woman,' say, makes no sense if 'woman' has no meaning except 'someone who identifies as a woman'.

It will be no different from classifying people on the basis of their hobbies or favourite songs or star signs etc, unless it is used to maintain retrogressive sex hierarchies and to return us to the 1950s Western gender norms for almost everyone.

And often I suspect that it is intended to maintain those sex hierarchies. After all, as people can't change sex then transition must be about gender stereotype changes, so the continued existence of those stereotypes is absolutely necessary. But their continued (and strengthened) existence means that the subjugation of women is more likely to continue, given that one tool for that are those very stereotypes, rules and norms.

Come on Dad,,pull the other one.

Until the last ‘decade’ there were vanishingly few ‘ transwomen’ in the UK. I personally knew one of the very first people to transition, and he ( as he was then) definined him/ herself as a ‘pioneer’. That’s was in the late 1980’s, in Central London

When I joined the WI in the 2000’s , I think very few of the members in our village organisation (middle class, guardian reading, not especially deep rural) had heard of transgender women, except for April Ashley and possibly Jan Morris . I know this because we once had a talk on cross dressing in the theatre, and the ‘drag queen’ phenomenon was discussed without it occurring to anyone that Lily Savage , for example, thought they were a woman.

The idea that male born people would join the WI was…..laughable. Men were welcome at some of the talks ( we had one about flight simulation which husbands yearned to hear) and at social events like the quiz night. But the WI was by women, for women, and it enabled women to gain in confidence , addressing a meeting, running a society, participating in wider events and debates.

But women can’t ever have anything of their own, without some bloke trying to take it from them, can they, Hague?

Few women objected (though there were some who did, or left without saying why) and in general, those transsexuals worked hard not to be objectionable.

Did they work hard not to be objectionable? Are the new tw any different from the old ts?

Or did they rely on the fact that, as individuals, we couldnt do much to stop them?

I think this has been a shock to lots of men, theyve convinced themselves that they are welcomed or pass. Now the internet has given women a collective voice, they get to hear what we have always thought of them.

‘Being trans’ isn’t a protected characteristic. Sorry to be pedantic. Gender reassignment is protected. (Not that I want to encourage all the young people identifying as Trans to actually undergo any reassignment actions, far from it).

I don’t think you’re going to get an answer to these questions from @DadJoke but it would be interesting to read it.

‘Being trans’ isn’t a protected characteristic. Sorry to be pedantic. Gender reassignment is protected. (Not that I want to encourage all the young people identifying as Trans to actually undergo any reassignment actions, far from it).

@Chewbecca not according to the human rights training I just did at my university. Gender ‘reassignment’ now means gender identifying because ‘that’s what it’s commonly understood as’. This power to redefine words including as the opposite of their original meaning is reminiscent of a particular author… who was that? 🧐

@Chewbeccanot according to the human rights training I just did at my university. Gender ‘reassignment’ now means gender identifying because ‘that’s what it’s commonly understood as’. This power to redefine words including as the opposite of their original meaning is reminiscent of a particular author… who was that? 🧐
@DrBlackbird you could try complaining (with links to the actual legislation) to whoever commissioned the training. We had online EDI training at work with similar errors, I gave them feedback and they corrected it.
I think there's a lot of outsourcing of training and not very much quality assurance going on. Its not just in this field, we had GDPR training that was full of typos and mistakes too.

Wow, thanks for that insight, I am surprised! Maybe I shouldn’t be!

I’ve posted on WI Twitter saying that TWAM. I got my post deleted and banned.
no members of the WI who are not in this site will have the remotest idea of what is happening and the repercussions.
They are generally retired women looking for interesting conversation and events suitable for women who are slowing down but not on the scrap heap.
The women I have met if, galvanised , could be a force to be reckoned with. They have often been consultants, Drs, computer engineers from the early days etc.
no wonder they are captured first.

@FlirtsWithRhinos I disagree with the gender critical assumptions and framing of your questions. Once again you are conflating your gender critical views with that of all women. The vast majority of women I know actively support trans rights.

Are those women the non cunty sort?

Yeah because most women have no idea what is going on. Or they are "being kind"
Or they think a trans woman is a real woman dressed as a man.

According to a recent survey dadjoke 86% of the population think that single sex spaces are important, I would imagine that’s the same on this site

Given the amount of time dad joke spends on here looking for women to whinge at, my guess is the number of real women dad knows can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Otherwise he'd be out socialising with said women rather than lurking on a board for feminist women.

Of course you disagree with the framing of my questions. You cannot answer therm because you cannot twist them to align with your ideology, so all you are left with is bypasssng them. It is transparent to anyone reading.

The reason you are pinned is that I am not arguing with you about who is or is not a woman. All I am doing is laying out undeniable facts and asking you a simple question about how your ideology works in the face of them.

Fact: "Woman" did, until very recently, mean female bodied people.
Fact; People with female bodies were marginalised in law, culture and public life for hundreds of years.
Fact: The cultural and social structures and mores we have today were based in on those historic models and still act to margnalise and disempower female-bodied people versus male
Fact: To counteract this female-bodied people organised, built and lobbied for single sex protections, spaces and opportunities, sometimes for safety, sometimes for empowerment, sometimes simply to relax.
Fact: Both the oppression of female people and the provisions created to escape that were done under the name Woman, because at the point these things were created, Woman meant female bodied person.
Fact: Some people, by no means all people, and as various surveys show, probably a minoroty of people, want to redefine Woman to mean a different group of people. The exact definitions vary but I'm not going to argue about that here because the point is not whether they are "right" or not, it is that they are different to what Woman meant before and therefore capture a different group of people.
Fact: The same Some People who believe the name "Woman" should be given to a different group of people also argue that this means the provisions made inder the old name should also belong to the new group, despite being put in place by and for the original group based on the needs and challlnges of that group.

So given these facts, I will ask you again:

Do you recognise that regardless of how you personally may decide to define "woman", the group to whom that name originally applied are still a valid, existing group, and they will continue to exist regardless of your personal definition of the word "woman"?

Do you, in short, accept this concept, this group of people, is valid? And if so, why do you feel your definition for the word woman, a new construction that many many "women" do not agree with, identity as or accept, should take precedence over the one we all understood and worked with before?

Basically @DadJoke , given the undeniable facts that (1) your new group of Women is a different group to the old group, and (2) the old group - female bodied people - do still exist, why is it so important to change the use of the word Woman from the old group to the new, taking it away from the first group, instead of the far more logical, fair and empowering choice to recognise this new group by a brand new name, leaving Women to unproblematically mean the group it always did?

Do you not see that if ones case for claiming one is something requires one to change the definition of it to include one, one just fundamentally is not that thing?