An update to the WI Announcement thread. My DH just got a reply to his application to join them.

[Another2Cats]

This is not a thread about a thread, but recently there was a thread about the Womens Institute announcement that they would not be implementing the SC ruling anytime soon.

I was reading the thread at the time and, entirely jokingly, I suggested to my DH that he should apply to join the WI and see what they say.

So he did just that (he totally gets the GC point of view) and I posted about this at the time:

Another2Cats · 08/05/2025 19:45

I just got my DH to send an email to them:

Hello,

My name is Xxxx (very obviously masculine name). I just read your transgender policy and understand that you accept men.

I am a man and would like to join the local WI group in [xxxx city] (the nearest branch for me is in yyyy [suburb of xxxx city]).

Should I just turn up next Wednesday evening and sign up?

I'm really waiting with bated breath to see what sort of response there is.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5330297-womens-institute-announcement?reply=144143149
.

Well, it turns out that they sent a response this lunchtime.

This is their reply (although with contact details redacted):

Good morning,

Thank you for your enquiry. Our policy states that “WI membership is open to all women who live as women, including transgender women.” If you fit within this statement, you will be more than welcome to attend. I am afraid the WI is not open to men.

Kind regards,

[Redacted]

[Name Redacted]
Federation Secretary
[Two cities - well, a city and a town - redacted] Federation of WIs CIO
[Address redacted]
[Telephone number redacted]
Office hours: Tues, Weds, Thurs 9am – 1pm

Please note the new email address – [Redacted]
.

I don't know, is this something that DH should take up with the EHRC now that he has it in writing?

No. They may have policies saying they let in TW, but the registered charitable aim and the articles of association say it is for the education of women and girls.

No. Because the constitution already says that membership is open to any adult woman. So there is not a need for any constitutional change. They would just have to admit they had been mis-applying their membership criteria but are committed to complying with the law/reality now that the SC has pointed this up.

And the constitution also specifies membership as being for women.

Watching the thread. Keen to see what the WI eventually do. Also, will contribute to jam making and flower arranging supplies if needed. We can't directly link to fundraisers on the thread but I am sure someone will think of a way to point us in the right direction. Thank you and your DH.

"...but as he wouldn't actually want to join a WI branch"

As @RareGoalsVerge mentioned earlier (thank you btw), this all started out as my DH has an interest in a couple of activities that, locally, the WI are quite active in (on a weekly basis) but that hold absolutely no interest for me at all.

He has no other sort of hobbies outside of the home and, from my perspective, this would have been a good way to get him out of the house and socialising a bit more.

So, I suggested to him that this new ruling now gave him the opportunity to enjoy those activities. And so he decided that he would join, while acknowledging that the WI may change their stance at some point in the future so, if that happened, he would then have to leave.

A couple of other posters have raised this point earlier in the thread and this is what I said at the time:

Another2Cats · 22/05/2025 12:35

"Does your DH actually want to join the WI?"

Yes.

"Could this be a stumbling point?"

No, he has a genuine interest in a couple of activities that are regularly run (that I have no interest in at all) by a nearby WI group. He was aware that they did these activities but he was also aware that, as a man, he could not join.
.

Another2Cats · 22/05/2025 20:51

That's interesting. Why do you feel that?

Also, why do you feel that it is just being done to prove a point? I won't say what activity it is as it may identify the particular federation, but my DH would love to spend more time pursuing this activity (I have absolutely no interest in it at all - the WI are welcome to him as far as I am concerned!).

And also @AlexandraLeaving "And the constitution also specifies membership as being for women."

(sorry, don't know how to quote two different posts at once - can that even be done?)

They would likely argue that they are (or, at least, were) remaining within the Constitution. There is a separate "Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy" which explains what the word “women” means to the WI.

"4 Membership of the WI
WI membership is open to all women who live as women, including transgender women."

While the meaning of the term “live as women” is unclear, the rest of the sentence “including transgender women” makes it very clear indeed that “transgender women” are women for the purposes of membership.

I guess that it's not so much that they're not abiding by their Constitution, it's just that they have come up with a rather overly broad definition of what a woman is.

Although, as some pp's mentioned earlier in the thread, does "live as women" exclude those who are not womaning properly?

I’d read that as meaning that their policy (defining what a woman is) isn’t compatible with their constitution. Or at very least, they could see the light and comply with SC-mandated common sense by simply amending their policy to align with reality without the need for a membership vote to change the constitution. I’m glad he’s pursuing this.

This contradicts what you wrote on the first page:
This is not a thread about a thread, but recently there was a thread about the Womens Institute announcement that they would not be implementing the SC ruling anytime soon.
I was reading the thread at the time and, entirely jokingly, I suggested to my DH that he should apply to join the WI and see what they say.
So he did just that (he totally gets the GC point of view) and I posted about this at the time:
Another2Cats · 08/05/2025 19:45
I just got my DH to send an email to them:

That does not read as you outlined above at all. It was clearly a bad faith email in which your husband had no genuine intention of joining the WI, but just wanted to test what the WI would say after the SC clarification. Key giveaway word:

entirely jokingly

Now you claim it comes from a genuine, earnest place. Something doesn’t add up.

Do female WI members have to prove a genuine interest in joining?

And why can't someone become interested, after looking into an organisation they'd not previously considered and discovering the group does a particular activity?

Not sure we are reading the thread the same way - I read it as:

• historically OP's DH would love to have joined in a specific activity at the WI where he has an interest, but hasn't been able to because it was for women only...
• when the OP realised that the WI was choosing not to let in men, but would let in men if they pretended to be women, she jokingly said to her DH - that he should apply and see what they said

that is hardly a bad faith email - he would like to join, has wanted to historically and now there is an opportunity. Presumably OP was 'joking' because she couldn't believe that the WI would be silly enough in the light of the recent judgement to ban all women unless they wear pearls and a twinset - because that would clearly be illegal...

seems pretty straightforward...

He's applied to join. That demonstrates a wish to join.

If someone identifies as having an interest in joining, who is WhatNextCatsAsDoctors to question it?

Subject: Re: WI Membership Policy
Dear [Name],

Thanks for the clarification — though I must say, it's quite something.
“WI membership is open to all women who live as women, including transgender women.”
Interesting. So “women who live as women” — is that some kind of performance metric? Are there costumes? A points system? Or is this just a polite way of saying, “Anyone who says the word ‘woman’ out loud qualifies”?

Also: if “trans women are women,” why the add-on? “Including transgender women” — as opposed to what, imaginary ones? Either they are women and need no special mention, or they aren’t and you’re bending the rules. Pick one. You can’t have both.

“If you fit within this statement, you will be more than welcome to attend.”
Ah yes — fit within a definition that has no definition. So to clarify: I’m excluded for being honest about being male, but a man who declares himself female — with no change of body, behaviour, or belief beyond the magic words — is welcomed. Got it. A policy by vibes.

“I’m afraid the WI is not open to men.”
Except, clearly, it is. You just don’t call them men once they say they’re not. So your exclusion is purely semantic: the right man with the right password (“I’m a woman”) sails through.
I do admire the commitment to contradiction. It takes a certain institutional confidence to say, in one breath, “We don’t admit men” — and in the next, “We admit male people who say they aren’t men because saying that instantly makes them female.” Orwell would be proud.

Thanks again. At least now I understand: it’s not a women’s institute. It’s a self-identification club with nostalgic branding.
Best,
[Name]

The "joking" was on my part (I really do find it funny, or ironic, that my DH is into this and the only local group that do this is the WI) and the genuine interest is on his part.

This has been ongoing for quite a while, just a bit of light hearted banter between us. I can't recall exactly what I said at the time but it was something like "Well, you won't need the wig and lippy anymore to join up".

Not much of a joke, I know, but I never was good at being funny.

The reference to my DH understanding the GC point of view was to make the point that he would never dream of seeking to try and impose himself into female spaces.

However, following the SC ruling and the WI announcement it became clear that the WI is no longer a female only space.

There's no need for you to prove or demonstrate your DH's desire to join, OP.

If the WI think a man can magically transmogrify into a woman just by some wishful thinking then they can sure as fuck accept a man having a sincere wish to join their organisation.

Out of curiosity, just looked at The Inner Wheel, the female equivalent of The Rotary Club. Thought this info was interesting (and relevant) so may be helpful to op.

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/equality/equality-act-2010/separate-and-single-sex-service-providers-guide-equality-act-sex-and

And this

innerwheel.co.uk/equality-diversity-policy/

I don't think this is fair though. There are no clubs for girls only now as all of Girl Guiding, Girls Brigade and Girls Friendly Society take boys who think they are girls. It's sexist, and teaches girls they have to give away their own spaces and ignore their safety and boundaries.

It is not unlikely that we'll see all the captured women and girls' organisations become openly mixed sex - and they will have to be, they cannot limit it to some men, it's all men or no men. That's very sad, that's a large chunk of women and girls' history wrecked by this wretched political movement, as so many things have been wrecked by them.

But this is now the point where new organisations can start that are entirely for women and girls, uncaptured, and will not be able to be shut down, deprived of spaces, attacked and harassed etc because of legal protections. All those things will happen: we're basically going to have to fight the 1900s achievements for women all over again, against balaclavas and mindless bawling of silly mantras and all the rest of it. But legally it will have to stand, and the women who set such things up will do it with the determination to see it through, and the women in those groups will be ones who do not think the first job of a woman is to be kind dick pander to men. The future women's movement is going to be a lot tougher and a lot more bloody minded, and will put up with a hell of a lot less shit than the previous one.

New organisations are already forming. I’m thinking of MoMa, a new breast feeding organisation. It was set up because the founders didn’t accept the trans policies of La Leche League.

https://momab.org.uk

Thank you and your husband for doing this, @Another2Cats.

My local WI has several transpeople who were born male and now wish to identify as women. The WI’s unwillingness to protect women’s spaces was the reason I left, and I was gutted.

This is great thank you OP for pursuing this.

Would at any point it be useful for more of our DHs to apply to join the WI?
Put the pressure on. Create a story. Maybe a class action?
A group of men exposing the insanity of the WI would be glorious.
Like Man Friday but the men doing it.

This is such a shame. As a teenager in the 1980s our daughter was a member of the Girls Friendly Society branch at our local parish church and gained so much from it, including taking part in a GFS working visit to a parish in the Caribbean. The presence of even one boy in that group would have changed the way it interacted, as would that of a male leader, however either identified. Sigh...

Thank you to you & your DH @Another2Cats - let’s hope the WI remember who they’re actually there to support and see sense soon!

It depends how deeply the TW are embedded in the organisation. They're not easily going to accept being sidelined. Plus they will have a fuckton of "progressive" female supporters who will rally round. And they will have their own story to tell the press - look at the evil Supreme Court forcing us not to be the lovely tolerant open WI that we want to be.

We could run a sweepstake; I reckon WI will go mixed-sex.