Remember Petra Wenham? The first transwoman to be on the WI mag cover?

[Clymene]

Wenham transitioned at 68 and promptly joined the WI where they were terribly welcoming. The magazine cover features Wenham coyly peeping from behind a tree and gushing about the sisterhood in the press coverage

https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/21276923.suffolk-retiree-becomes-first-trans-woman-appear-cover-wi-magazine/

Well, you'll never guess what's happened now? Wenham has now been appointed to the National Federation of Women's institutes membership committee.

https://twitter.com/womensins_dec/status/1664887571820806146?s=61&t=gd6tu0Iz6JpyKXGLWMLGjg

I'm sure you'll all join me in being shocked.

We can have nothing for ourselves

Amazing how satirical pieces from the recent past come to life. 🤡

How is this cognitive dissonance on a societal scale even possible?

How is this cognitive dissonance on a societal scale even possible?

Especially considering how ridiculously unfunny the Onion is now.

My aunt has been a lifelong member of the WI but their entire group left in one go when they were told they absolutely HAD to admit a male who liked to wear dresses on occassion (ie a genuine crossdresser) into the group.

He changed the dynamic entirely and a few of the members could no longer attend as a male was present, so pretty quickly they chose to close the group down.

They now run their own social group that does not let males of any kind join. It's ridiculous. It's a bunch of ladies meeting up once a week to have a time alone from males and here this bloke was, literally muscling his way in and they're told they can't stop him.

They did, but they had to leave the organisation to do so.

One single solitary man destroyed something that had been a social lifeline for more than 50 years.

Now that's progress, huh?

Just posted on my local WI board about this. Expecting pitchforks and burning at the stake from the #be kind brigade. 🔥🔥🤷‍♀️
So sad that women are being shut down by other women; are the TWAW apologists truly captured or jjust plain scared of the backlash if they disagree?

All I wanted was to hang out with a group of women without the baggage of partners, kids etc. Didn’t, and don’t, care if we agreed on anything I or not - always up for a constructive debate!

FFS, this makes me so mad. Is there any institution left not captured by lobotomised progressives?

I recall reading about Petra at the time of the photo shoot - articles in Guardian and Daily Mail. Cross dressed since childhood, had a wardrobe of women’s clothes much bigger that their wife’s and was jealous of their wife’s membership of the WI (the group she was in closed down and Petra joined another). Obviously enjoyed all the attention from being on the front over.

The responses to my local post were either supportive or asking for more info - then ‘the committee’ wagged its collective finger and told me off. Apparently, this is something I should raise at National level only. Except NatFed have already refused to engage with previous attempts to do so.

It'll be like the witch testing.

If you sink into silence, you're deemed fit to listen to.

If you make a noise/fuss/dissent, you're deemed beyond the pale.

Well done. Most, of course, will say nothing.

I've emailed a complaint to head office.
I'm certainly up for a Terf group.

I also also would advise women to decamp to the WRN. Lots of local groups are springing up and membership is growing. My group has had a big influx of new members.

Whilst its aims are primarily women's rights once a local group is established there's no reason why social events, book clubs etc. can't be part of it. Ours has had a few evenings out, picnics and other social stuff.

That's just so bloody wrong.

@OvaHere I’ve applied for membership and will leave the WI in a shot. On the other hand, I might stay just to mount a rearguard action! 😂🥷🥷
I suspect many of my fellow members would also decamp if they knew they had a viable, sociable alternative that was truly kind and not just paying lip service to the concept, ie not trampling over women in the process.

@CherryogDog can I sign up please?I’ve reached the end of my tether with the WI bloke bollocks 😎

The NWR doesn't appear any better
https://nwr.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/NWR-Code-of-Conduct-2022.pdf
https://nwr.org.uk/nwr-pride-picnic-2023/

Its the story too of many lesbians groups and specific women's health/chronic illness support groups. They have been forced to disband publicly and go under ground to avoid hostile takeover and invasion from entitled men. There's nothing progressive or 'kind' about it. It's targeted destruction.

I saw a twitter thread a few weeks back where a group had disbanded to end being harassed by men insisting on attending and instead begun to meet as friends at one of their houses. The men turned up on the drive, demanded admission, and called the police to have their 'rights' enforced when the women said no. Thankfully the police told them they had no right at all to enter a private home uninvited.

Women are being driven underground. The 'womens services' and groups left are increasingly male centred and largely about women willing to revolve around men and the service and head patting of men.

Fuck that. Women don't go to clubs and groups to nurse male egos.

It is going to take women re building women's services and groups from ground zero again, and this time setting out from the start to use the Equality Act exceptions.

Which will work until Labour get into power and remove the exceptions.

No harm in doing both for a while. Obviously the WRN doesn't have the structure in place that the WI has so I imagine some women although unhappy will stay.

For women who really just want the company of other women to meet up and chat with it's a decent alternative. Plus they run a lot of good webinars with guest speakers.

That is so sad. Many of those women will have spent their lives running around after other people, playing second fiddle to men, and they are still expected to be support humans now when they are the ones who need support and companionship.

I wonder how long the rest of the committee have been part of the WI. Have the women on the committee been members for years/decades before working their way up, or a matter of nanoseconds like Petra.

the cynic in me suspects that the women would have had to work harder and for longer before getting to that level.

This. It demonstrates the total lack of respect that some men hold for women, and how little value they place on anything women do that is not serving them.

I saw that thread too. The absolutely staggering (male!) entitlement of thinking they had the right to be in someone’s actual home, uninvited! And the determination to deny women the right to boundaries. It’s psychologically akin to rape culture.

It’s so hard, what’s happening to women’s groups. There are now male attendees in pregnancy, breastfeeding, menopause groups - even endometriosis support too, I’m sure I’ve read.

I was told by another MNer of a female-specific health condition support group she was in which was invaded by males. Who promptly started posting pictures of themselves, legs akimbo etc. And totally dominated the group and (obviously) changed the dynamic beyond recognition.

I think they managed to get rid of the unwelcome, inappropriate intruders but had to completely close the group to prevent the same happening again, which obviously meant that no new women looking for support in that area would now be able to access it either, as they would have been able to in the past, so a truly valuable resource was lost.

And this phenomenon is repeated how many times? So much precious space, so many vital resources for women lost or rendered useless.

But “what harm does it do you? What business is it of yours?” as the activists and their allies like to say on twitter. 🙄

I've also just signed the petition to stop men self I.D.ing as women in Park Run.
I emailed them a while back but they didn't bother replying.
I also used to support Stand Up Against Racism. Until I got an email asking to join a rally in support of drag Queen story time.
Sorry for going off on a tangent, I'm just so angry with it all.

It's traditional on these threads to include this link:

Came to post that. It's nice to remember when the onion used to be really funny.

All desperately sad and desperately unsurprising.

The entitlement…

I’m sure the newest committee member will, as well as telling me how to ‘woman’ better, let me know how best to appease the outraged man toddlering on my drive.