Derby Women's Festival - WRN - 10 May 2025

[IwantToRetire]

Join us from 9am - 5pm in Derby on Saturday 10th May 2025 at an event to celebrate grassroots organisation and women’s movements arising from the uniquely female experience.
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Derbyshire and Staffordshire landscapes portray the legacy of textile mills and potteries that played an important historical role in the Industrial Revolution. It was a time when working class women moved from domesticity, farms and cottage industry to mills and factories. This shift in women’s role in society led to them forming grassroots organisations, campaigning in politics and demanding the right to vote.
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In more recent times, women have once again formed movements, led extraordinary campaigns and created organisations arising from their unique experience as a female, with the purpose of opening up opportunities for all women and defending women’s rights. The stories of these remarkable women are inspirational. Our Women’s Festival is an occasion to celebrate these women. It is also a chance to share strategies for success.

Full details https://www.womensrights.network/derbyshire-womens-festival

(This came up on my facebook feed so thought I would share here!)

And suddenly it's tomorrow!

I'm going. I met a fellow terfy mumsnetter IRL years back at a WPUK meeting and it was great to put a face to a username and to find an in person local contact.

Anyone else?

I'm near Derby but I thought WRN were trans inclusive so i wasn't bothering with them

@SuperNameChanged same thought they were Transed up. I would have loved to have visited this part of the country as never really been. I hope it goes well @IwantToRetire and @BarbieBrightSide ! Maybe I will be there next year - goddesses willing !! ❤️

WRN are absolutely not trans inclusive!

Rent a trans Fred Wallace got a handmaiden to give him a log in to one of their zoom meetings and publicised it, maybe that's the confusion?

WRN are part of the fightback

Please note I am nothing to do with this, just posted as at the time there was discussion about how those on FWR might be able to meet up locally.

And I am sure WRN would be really upset to think anyone thought they were trans inclusive.

Their byline is "Respect My Sex" more at https://www.womensrights.network/about-wrn

Just to add a note of negativity. They have a web site but it never has info about what might be happening, and they seem to focus on using X. (One of the least used social media platforms )

As well as having a strange policy that if you happen to have an email address from a company then dont like or ... ?? you cant sign up to their news letter.

Maybe one day someone can write up about the idocyncrate way women organise!!

WRN website is hard to use. It had to be built for security, not user friendliness, because TRAs try to attack anything which is for women and not men who identify as women.

The emails address thing I've not heard of but I assume is the same thing, they are constantly battling TRAs trying to infiltrate. As I said upthread, Fred Wallace was given a log in to one of of their zoom meetings by a handmaiden and that was with all the security measures. TRAs try to take anything that's for women.

errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr?

You dont think other women's groups dont have the same issue? eg Sex Matters among many others.

I am sure someone, maybe voluntarily, aimed for maximum security, but that cant be the explanation.

But was more responding to PP who had thought they were trans inclusive and was digging out the info for them.

Yes others do have the same issues but WRN is basically grassroots, with voluntary co ordinators of each local group. It's a different kind of outfit to Sex Matters, it's more about local groups of women taking action in their area eg protesting outside a women's prison that allows men, or handing out leaflets in the high street, in person stuff.

WRN is most definitely not trans inclusive!

I'm really looking forward to the event tomorrow. I'll feedback on Sunday

Edited for typo

WRN definitely very Terfy. I am involved in lots of excellent, grassroots pushback against anti-women policies in local hospitals, leisure centres, police, schools etc. They also hold vigils and leafleting about the plight of the women in Afghanistan. Have met some wonderful WRN women online and IRL with a range of backgrounds and political views.

Yes after I posted that, I was going to say as they manage to be so busy on X they could do what another all volunteer but campaigning group does.

Add an rss feed of their tweets to display on their home page, which whoever set up their web site could surely do for them.

This way even for those not on X (and most aren't) will get some idea of activities.

For anyone on facebook they are on there if you want to keep up to date with what is happening.

eg https://www.womensrights.network/product-page/equality-freedom-of-speech-and-the-law

Unfortunately I was ill overnight and can't attend this for fear of being contagious rather than it being food poisoning.

So sadly no feedback from me later. I'm gutted as this is fairly local to me

A fabulous day of powerful women with a strong message. A wonderful day of female empowerment and inspiration.

I applied to join the WRN and had to prove my terfy credentials and have a face to face zoom call. Must crack on and arrange that call and join up proper.

You can't compare WRN with Sex Matters at all. SM is a registered charity and so is open in a way that WRN can't possibly be. WRN is, sadly, still cloak& dagger, lots of jumping through hoops to be admitted etc. It's volunteer-led, no actual staff like SM.

But definitely, resolutely, sex-realist.

And the website is a lumbering nightmare.

You can't compare WRN with Sex Matters at all

The comparison was about web sites being targets.

You dont seriously think TRAs are thinking, oh we want bother with Sex Matters they are a charity!

And I think an rss feed of posts on X would help provide the context of the wider network.

@IwantToRetire I think of WRN and Sex Matters as having different tasks/challenges. SM is broadcasting (as far as it is able) to widest audience research that it is involved in and it does some very large scale activity. It's very 'open ' in its publications. It's a set of experts who are operating at a level where they are known names and in the public. I watch and admire but from afar.

WRN probably looks like it's not as impressive if you are on the outside looking in. They do have very great spokeswomen who we can hear on radio programmes etc. Very good at this. They arrange local/regional vigils and such through local groups - these are the visible to outside world bits. You are vetted before joining, which is a bit cloak and dagger but really is necessary. So not 'open' to those who don't take that step. Grassroots, political and incredibly powerful at keeping members informed. Very democratic feel. I am much better informed for being a member and the WRN are the ones who will make me brave enough to TERF more publicly (and as a business owner that will be a big step for me).

WRN women are literally ordinary women, sometimes a group of 2 or 3, handing out leaflets in the high street, some disabled, some with their kids in a buggy with them. They don't advertise their events because of how vulnerable they could be to violent TRAs. You'd think women could safely hand out a flyer in a UK high street wouldn't you?

My local group only do 3 hours at a time, each woman swapping after an hour, because possiblity of verbal abuse, harassment, spitting etc. It doesn't always happen but it can. And local authorities won't support the women if something happens - I know WRN women who've been abused in the street by the local councillors.

I have great admiration for the women who are 'known' but also great admiration for those who take part in grassroots stuff while also having to work in a captured organisation, or do the school run with parents who've transed their child. I hope Derby women had a great day.

WRN are amazing at grass roots organising and are often the ones doing the fight back at the crucial local level. To win we need LOCAL groups to attack gender stuff locally and to register what is going on and provide support networks.

We are now moving on to the next stage where we can use the Supreme Court ruling to fight back and save women's spaces in councils, schools, hospitals, shops, sports etc. We can't do that without women's groups in every town UK wide reporting and complaining about what is happening doing public events, but even more importantly calling out local issues monitoring local press, politicians etc.

Obviously to work effectively it needs security and lots more members.