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?

This is important. Their website says men can’t join.

and yet, also says ‘anyone living as a woman’ can join. You can’t have it both ways!

(Nb. I knew I’ve read this trans policy before. Unless I missed it, it’s well hidden, couldn’t find it anywhere, and ended up simply googling WI and Trans).

Also, as previous poster has said ‘woman’ is used everywhere!

Attached, trans policy and examples of articles using ‘woman’.

From the Scottish WI policy document: We are proud to be a trans inclusive organisation. No member or member of staff should be treated less favourably because they’re trans. The SWI provides women with educational opportunities and the platform to campaign on issues that matter to them and their communities while always celebrating what it means to be a woman. Therefore, including transgender women furthers our objectives and enriches our membership to ensure we are a place for all women to celebrate who they are and influence positive change in their communities.
This needs to be challenged, too.

I'm not sure if the picture I am attaching will show straight away, but there is reference here https://www.thewi.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/719730/NFWI-Equality,-Diversity-and-Inclusion-Policy.pdf in the section on non binary to the WI applying a "women only exemption".

Presumably this is a reference to the single sex exemption in Sched 3 to the Equality Act.

And yet now, if I am understanding correctly, they don't think that the single sex exemption applies (because the FWS means that they would have to exclude transwomen to rely on this) and are attempting to rely on positive action under s158 despite probably not having collected evidence and undertaken the relevant proportionality assessment at the time 🤔

and this letter from the WI makes it quite clear that the policy is based on their belief that TWAW and has been in place for decades and was formally established in 2010. I find the positive action argument incredibly dubious.

https://wdwi.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/nfwi-response-29-sep-2023.pdf

See also this quote from Melissa Green, CEO of the NFWI: "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."

I don't think it makes any difference that positive action isn't the justification given on the website or in policies for admitting men. The EA doesn't say you have to advertise or headline the invocation of positive action for it to be used in court to exculpate otherwise unlawful actions.

I wonder if any evidence of their 'positive action' strategies/meeting minutes/plans would turn up in a FOI request?

Absolute bullshitters.

Doesn't matter. They could think of it for the very first time on the morning they have to turn up in court file a response, and shout that's not the real reason for admitting TIMs from the roof of St Paul's Cathedral. If it passes in law, it will do.

I agree, but you can't just suddenly decide retrospectively when you receive a discrimination claim that you have been basing your policy on positive action all along which is what looks like has happened here. There has to have been a lawful consideration of the relevant disadvantage with evidence and analysis and careful consideration of proportionate means of addressing that disadvantage.

There's statutory guidance on positive action for employers here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/positive-action-in-the-workplace-guidance-for-employers/positive-action-in-the-workplace#implementing-positive-action-lawfully-checklist-for-employers
It's not directly relevant to service providers but is useful to see the kind of consideration that should be given when deciding to go down the positive action route.

There has to have been a lawful consideration of the relevant disadvantage with evidence and analysis and careful consideration of proportionate means of addressing that disadvantage.

If you want to be sure ahead of a challenge that you came to that decision correctly then yes. If you've already made the decision ad hoc, and get challenged and you get lucky and can after-the-fact justify it using the same reasoning, it will still work out ok.

Nobody is in any doubt this is a last-minute justification for reasons you and others have mentioned: if you took the trouble to consider positive action you'd publish it in your "TIMs can be members too". I mean, why wouldn't you - it makes you look smart.

But just because it's pulled out of the hat at the last minute doesn't mean it can't work.

But doesn’t the evidence say it’s NOT positive action? Can you really argue that’s what it was even though you quite clearly had different reasons?

IANAL, but I agree with a PP that I'm really not sure that positive action applies here. It might have applied had the supreme court ruling gone the other way, and TW were in law women.

I think in a single sex org positive action could only be used to increase participation from subsets of that sex, IE WI could use positive action to recruit more black women, or young women, not to recruit a subset of men.

As other PPs said, although it seems straightforward get some proper legal advice, and yes, everything in writing!

When it comes down to it "we want to be inclusive to TIMs because they have awfully hard time of it" (a bit like the meek, in Life of Brian) isn't very different to "positive action to remedy social disadvantages". But yes, you can reason the justification afterwards, if it will stand up. Which, to be fair, I don't think it will.

On thinking about it, I think that the Mr Clever Lawyer was actually angling that your DHs claim was being made under false pretenses, what with his questions about your husbands interests.

I agree with the others. Lawyer up.

(I don't think your DH claim is false, I just think the phone call is well dodge and agree they are scoping you).

Been looking at this a little more . By allowing TIM but not other males you are still discriminating against other men ( the correct comparator as discussed before ) and Ops husband . This amongst other things makes it positive discrimination rather than positive action. PD is illegal

So in another context if NFWI decided that not so many BAME women were members of the WI they could do roadshow to which BAME women are invited to showcase the WI (PA )
What they could not do is give them reduced or free membership
because that would discriminate against non BAME women. (PD)

A charity and it's trustees are obligated to manage the charity and it's money for the benefit.of it's members. All of the members.

I'd imagine that the charity commission should be asking charities who are engaging in legal defense of nonsense.

Not quite. The charity trustees (& actually its members too) are obliged to ensure that the charity furthers its charitable objects - for beneficiaries, not members, otherwise it would just be a private club.

It would be possible for a charity with a single sex purpose (education of women and girls) to have a mixed sex membership, provided that all of its resources were focused on the education of women and girls. I don’t think, as PP suggested, that providing free courses for TIMs would be reasonable use of resources as it would not be furthering the charity’s objects.

But this illustrates that this case is likely to engage both charity law and anti-discrimination law and the interaction between the two may be complex. As PP have said, it is not a case where the decision rests on establishing disputed facts but one relating to the interpretation of the law. I’m another voice strongly encouraging OP’s husband to lawyer up - and am happy to plant a few carrots to support that.

I agree with this, I wonder if he was hoping to get a smoking gun type comment from your DH that he can use to show this is ‘vexatious’ litigation - I.e. not genuine, so they can play the man and ignore the ball.

I’d be careful about speaking to him or other lawyers from the other side on the phone. If you get a lawyer, it’ll be improper for the other side’s lawyers to speak to you directly, they’ll have to go through your lawyer, which will give you a bit of a shield from any kind of fishing expeditions from the other side.

Malcolm Clark has a thread on the WI’s relaxed attitude towards paediphile supporters. x.com/twisterfilm/status/1938957334530666964?s=46

Thank you everyone for your replies. I'm sorry that I didn't respond earlier but we were out at a barbecue all day yesterday.

Having read all the replies there are a couple of common themes that kept cropping up so I'll address those in this post and then reply individually to other posts.

Yes, DH does believe that the telephone call from the solicitors was somewhat of a fishing expedition to understand who he was and whether they could just make this go away.

DH was very aware of that and only shared such information that he wanted to. For example, on one topic, the lawyer asked DH basically the same question phrased in three different ways. DH simply deflected those questions.

But it was also useful from his point of view to get a heads up as to what their possible defence is going to be.

The solicitors are going to send DH examples of what disadvantage TIM suffer and how the WI help overcome that. DH requested that information from them to help gauge the strength of their argument.
.

Secondly, as to having legal representation, I think I mentioned on this thread about four weeks ago that it was never the plan that DH would have his day in court (unless it was needed as a witness).

The hope all along was that this matter could be resolved without a hearing but we were very aware from the outset that if that was not the case then legal representation would be a necessity.

With the extra piece of work I mentioned above, DH agreed to an extension of six weeks in which to serve the defence (they had wanted seven weeks). There is quite a period of time now before anything further will happen.

Depending on what they send DH next week, I will update this thread then but after that there likely won't be anything further until the middle of August.

"Did your DH ask the lawyer not to use the "cis" term at all (this is an aside and you don't need to answer if you don't want)"

No, this was very much an information gathering exercise for DH (just as much as it was for them). He didn't want to appear confrontational in any way, but just very meek and mild so that he could get them to say as much as possible.

"...example of housing prioritising Haredi Jews was about 1 single group. It presumably wasn't housing for over 55s that then gave priority to Haredi Jews (regardless of age)"

No it was, as you say, just one protected group.

Everything turns on the facts of a case. In this situation, the court said that this group suffers a lot of disadvantages and one particular need they have that is different is for larger homes, since Haredi Jewish families often have 5 or 6 children.

This HA mainly has larger homes for rent specifically for this reason.

The Court said that because of the disadvantages and the particular need for larger houses that this came under S158 because providing larger houses was closely connected with overcoming those disadvantages and dealing with the particular needs.

Applying that to the situation of the WI, I do wonder what they could actually do that would be closely connected with overcoming any disadvantages faced by TIM

This is the case:

https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKSC/2020/40.html

"They will (obviously) flatter you and talk you up how great you are, to put you off from professional representation."

I asked DH about this and, no, it was not done in a tone to flatter him in any way at all.

Likely not, DH is a man.

He is a man, but the WI is supposed to be a women’s space, and a big, well-known and well-established women’s space, at that, meaning this will be well-publicised - and your action, though instigated by a man, is in essence about getting a women’s space to admit that they are nothing of the sort. I would at the very least approach the fund - the worst they can say is no.

It would be worth applying, should this progress. As it is a private fund, it can be flexible in what it supports (unlike a charity which needs to work within its constitution).

And yes I know the WI are ignoring that last bit!