Women’s institute announcement

[Itsthecatsfault]

Published earlier today.

One would indeed imagine…

I think it all depends on whether any men are told they can’t join the WI because of their sex.

They can't allow trans identified men to join but not allow other men to join as they can't use the single sex exemptions in the EA if they allow some men as members

Have the Masons announced a policy yet?

That wouldn't be allowable under discrimination laws. You can only discriminate if it's proportionate, so it's proportionate to discriminate against men when "needed" but if you are going to let in some men it is no longer needed so you can't discriminate.

You could have a group for anyone with a feminine gender because that isn't a protected characteristic but sex is. It really is that black and white you can't include transwomen while excluding all other men.

Indeed. And they couldn't call it the Women's Institute if it included men.

Launching a challenge might be useful: I can't imagine the WI would actually want to take it to court.

I think it would be. They aren't excluding someone based upon sex, they are including people with a protected characteristic.

A group could be open only to women with pregnancy as a protected characteristic for example, and that wouldn't be discrimination against women as a sex class.

What experiences do all women and men who claim they are women share?

Are they experiences that other men don’t share?

It’s not that simple though is it. Either they are women only or they aren’t. If they decide they only admit women, but that includes transwomen aka men, they are discriminating against all other biological men who aren’t trans but who might like to join the WI, and then what about transmen?
Some of their members might not mind or care about transwomen being admitted but some do and will stop going because of it. So then biological women have been thrown out of their own organisation- one that is supposed to be about “inspiring women”. There are plenty of mixed sex organisations around, why do women have to lose women only ones?

Women who are pregnant could meet as they share two protected characteristics (female sex and pregnancy). Indeed, you could do away with the sex based protection as only women can get pregnant, ergo everyone in the group “people who are pregnant” would be women.

If men could be pregnant, you could presumably create a women-only group of pregnant people as again, that group would share two characteristics (being women and being pregnant) so long as that you could justify that it was proportionate and needed for women. Otherwise you’d have to include the men.

Women and men who claim they are women do not share any protected characteristics. They are a diverse group consisting of

1. all female people
2. some male people who are protected under the characteristic of gender reassignment

To have a coherent group, there has to be a shared characteristic. There isn’t.

It’s not comparable - you are just talking about one PC.

It would be more comparable to say a club is for all men, but only women over the age of 30. That would be discrimination because the membership terms for men and women are different.

Everyone in the group has to share the same characteristics- all in the pregnancy group share the PC of pregnancy.

A group of women and men with the PC of GR dont share the same PC.

So a group for trans could exist - they share the PC of GR, or a group of female trans people could - they share the PC of sex and GR.

The pregnancy group include pregnant trans people, but not all trans people.

No they could’t because that’s still discrimination against men, and also gay men could say they’re discriminated against because their protected characteristic of sexual orientation is not included but gender reassignment is.
Pregnant women only = all women and all pregnant
Lesbians only = all women and all same sex attracted
Women and transwomen = not all women and not all trans, so it’s not allowed

You are seriously misunderstanding the discrimination laws. If it is a protected characteristic you can only exclude with good reason so you can not have a group of women and transwomen because both sex (women) and gender reassignment (trans) are protected characteristics. You can only exclude so take sex first to have a women's group you have to exclude all men, if you then apply the gender reassignment characteristic you then get a group for transmen or female non Binary only. What you absolutely can not do is take one protected characteristic then add another completely unrelated one.

I think the confusion is that people are assuming that women and TW share something that every other man doesn’t.

Having the PC of GR doesn't make men less men, it just means they have another PC in addition to their PC of sex.

The SC ruling was clear that where single sex spaces are legally required / defined that this is on the basis of biological sex. It didn't make the word 'woman' a protected title outside of the law and I don't think there's anything to stop people using the word as a descriptor (in a non-legal setting) so long as they are clear that it isn't a single sex space or group. Much like now.... someone can read a 'woman's' magazine, shop in the 'women's' clothing section, dance or act in a 'woman's' role, some 'lesbian' events are clearly transinclusive / for anyone FLINTA but importantly we can now say 'biological women only' if and when we need to!

I imagine we will see organisations/ events who want to be inclusive of TW start to define as 'women+' or some new acronym, which is fine, people can join or not as they wish. I can't imagine there are many non-trans men desperate to join the WI to test the law and claim discrimination if they aren't welcome!

The Equality Act covers associations as well.

The WI does have to comply with it.

This.

And flip it around:

When women wanted to have for example health support groups about an illness that affected only women, were they permitted to say no to the men who insisted they had to be permitted to enter (and take over) that group because they identified as women? No, the EA was used to force their entry and most of the groups were destroyed. (Because the existence of something about women as a biological entity was unacceptable.)

When women wanted to have lesbian only groups and say this is for women lesbians only, were they allowed? No. Many were destroyed, some went underground to hide from men using the EA to force entry.

One women's rape support group actually ended up moving a meeting to a woman's home to escape the men harassing and wrecking the group, and had the men on the drive way trying to make the police force their right of entry and to prevent the group being allowed to meet without them as it was 'discriminatory'. The EA was the weapon used.

These were all small social groups, not services. Some of them were friendship groups and small clubs.

Single sex groups have to have clear boundaries that they can enforce, and things were pushed to this point by the very same men who are now so upset at one being put down. A bit of generosity on their part and a bit of live and let live, and it might have worked, but they wouldn't have it, and they now don't like the consequences of their own actions. I'm sorry men are upset. I get that it's upsetting to see and hear people upset. But frankly women have to be able to protect themselves from this awful behaviour and it was not 'just a few bad actors' it was everywhere, all the time. The entitlement that's leading to all hell breaking loose at the idea of women having a legal right to say 'no' was exactly the entitlement that wrecked women's services, caused untold harm to women across many groups and organisations without conscience.

Women need this hard line. It's not mean. It's not unkind.

If the WI want to go mixed sex, whatever, fine. It's up to them whether mixed sex or single sex is more important and it's their decision. They just cannot pretend it's single sex when it isn't, and groups and services that choose to be single sex have to BE single sex. And when they do choose to be single sex, they cannot be bullied, brigaded, controlled and destroyed by men on the grounds of being 'discriminatory'.

Woman does have a particular meaning. If the EA covers your association or business, you can't get round its provisions by using made-up categories like Women+ or similar.

The starting point of the EA is that services and associations cannot ordinarily discriminate.

If there is a legitimate reason to discriminate because people with a shared protected characteristic have a specific shared need, this is allowed as an exception to the standard 'no discrimination' position.

You can discriminate on the basis of more than 1 protected characteristic at a time. You can have a group for gay men (PCs of sex and sexuality), or one for disabled mothers (PCs of disability, sex, parental status).

But everyone in the group has to share all the characteristics. You can't mix and match and have a group for disabled people and mothers that lets in disabled mothers, disabled men, and mothers without a dsisbility.

So you could have a group for women that includes transmen, because they all share the PC of female sex. You could have one only for transmen because they all share the PC of female sex and the PC of gender reassignment. But you can't have a group for women that includes transwomen, because they don't share a PC.

Disagree. It would be in the same vein as "All Women and Black Men" or "All Women and Jewish Men".

Some might think it reasonable to include black, Jewish, or disabled men as honorary women (but no other men) They'd have to do a lot of hard justification, though.

illinivich · Yesterday 18:49

Having said that, theres only supposed to be 20 tw playing football, but there have been 300 on the bbc crying about not being included. So maybe there are thousands on the WI.

I'm certain that the FA claimed that in order to minimise the effect on women and girls, by pretending that the figure is so small as to be insignificant.

I don't know much about the WI, but didn't the executive (? or equivalent?) vote to admit TIMs and ignore the main membership? It certainly wasn't any sort of democratic process. I wonder if the wider membership could launch a legal challenge on that basis, never mind the recent ruling.

The football claim is pants. If you get over to the excellent thread on here about Sharron Davies and Mara Yamauchi, Helleofabore found a TwiX thread from Hecheated which details (with photos) the remarkable number of TIMs playing in women's football. In Helle's words, Whoever gathered it found 11 in just 2 teams.
And they listed more. I would predict that that number of 20 was someone low balling to minimise the numbers.

Apologies for lack of a link, but I have seen it suggested that 20 is the number that submitted proof of testosterone levels.

Regardless, on this basis I am amazed that there was so much upset about the Maradona hand ball. After all it’s only one man.

But the point is that the SC judgement made it clear: they are not allowed to claim to be a single-sex organisation when they are mixed-sex. They can still admit men, but it would be more honest to change the name.