I wonder what the WI are going to announce on Woman's Hour in the next few minutes?

[nauticant]

Apparently it will be a matter of the greatest seriousness and sorrow.

Thank you and congratulations to Mr Another2Cats and @Another2Cats for standing up and bringing this about.
Brilliant.

I'd wager that the press release was written by the bod at the top who is married to a TiM. An apologia to all his "wife's" mates in the TiM community I reckon.

Anyway, since I'm not a member (yet!) and I don't know how this works, is there a democratic membership vote as to who heads the WI? Is it a permanent post?

Just thinking out loud here.

Why will anyone’s children become suicidal when they can just go and join scouts?

It's up to you if you want to pull your girls out of girl guides due to your own prejudices. But swearing and bad mouthing people here has no impact and will not change anything.

If you want a mixed sex group for your daughters there are some available. Try Woodcraft Folk, or similar.

Sexism, racism, all the other isms. Won't somebody think of the people who just find equality law inconvenient?

This would be excellent. Especially as the SC have now clarified that it is legally perfectly permissible, and always has been, to set up an organisation exclusively for people who satisfy the protected characteristic of biological females. I'd join the Institute of Women.

Men in sheds could rebrand as The Institute of Men.

Full disclosure, I have been out all morning so have not yet RTFT.

Is the WI proposing to pay for non-members (or 'non-formal-members' as they quaintly word it) room hire, speakers hire, insurance cover, communications, admin support etc etc etc out of members' subscriptions?

How will that work?

Does anyone else sense a certain kind of performativeness every time we get one of those fire and brimstone, you-are-sheer-evil sort of posts? I don't doubt these people really, really do want dicks in women's spaces, but I can't help but feel that the OTT, can-never-overstate-your-evil tone is a cover for something. My abusive father used to do it too.

Is it because they know they're just factually wrong and men simply are not women, so they need excessive moralising to cover it? Is it because they're angry that they got duped into something so absurd but they invested so much of their sense of self into it that they can't recant or admit they were mistaken, and so they have to overdo the performance of how incredibly good they are, and therefore how incredibly evil we are?

They obviously haven't got the Kool Aid out of their system: they still think men can be women ...

But at least they've recognised that the WI is a women-only organisation.

Cope and seethe.

This comment should NOT be deleted. Let’s not promote this fake “oppression” narrative being spewed.

But why are you withdrawing your girls from the WI? As grown adults don’t they have agency to make their own decisions?

or have you plopped on the wrong thread?

Yes - I understand that. And post FWS I very much hope the law is fixed for services and I think any government would be very wary of amending it.

Obviously such a group could at present be set up just as, for example, a railway enthusiast group could - open to all but you presume people will self-select and people with no interest in railways would not join.

So at present an association could be open to all, and call itself the 'Women's Film Club (say)' and hope that men who wished to present as men would not join.

But if enough people want to pressure for a change in the law such that such a group could legitimately exclude men who did not wish to say they were women, and allow in men who did say they were women, I do wonder what will happen.

apologies, double post

Wanna bet the "Sisterhood" dies a death within 12 months because actual women don't show up and the men identifying as women get bored at just meeting together.

The misogyny is dripping from that post. How fucking dare we be happy about the preservation of single sex spaces for women are girls baby are we not centring the men and boys in everything and always.

"There will be suicides from an already marginalised group of people over decisions like these."

Don't be ridiculous. If a man kills himself because a bunch of women won't let him attend their meetings then he has very serious mental health issues, which wouldn't be cured by everyone around him pretending he's a woman.

The WI weren't being forced to change their policies. The WI had choices.

The WI had to decide whether to

a) follow the law and legislation that exists, and has done for a long time, that their organisation was already supposed to be following but weren't, and correct their policies to reflect the law.

or

b) stick with their moral beliefs, get rid of the single sex exemption they were using, and inform the charity commission they were changing what the organisation stood for and were now a mixed sex group. And if they lost their charitable status then that's a price they would be willing to pay to stick with their morals.

The WI could have continued allowing women and men into their organisation but they would have had to change some things to make that happen.

The WI instead chose to keep their current charitable reason for existing. And the WI chose to continue using the single sex exemption.

The WI ultimately chose the option that will continue to benefit them the most in the long term, which was to tell the men they were no longer allowed to be a member of the WI.

Morals be damned.

I’m pulling my girls out after this announcement
They must be old enough to decide for themselves if they're members of the WI.

Looking at this announcement and the comments on this thread, it would seem hatred and bigotry are alive and well in 2025
No, but we're happy that the WI has given a tiny bit of power back to the women they stole it from

There will be suicides from an already marginalised group of people over decisions like these
No there won't.

"It is with the utmost regret and sadness that we must announce that, from April 2026, we can no longer offer formal membership to transgender women. "

Anyone else cynical enough to read more into that?

The upmost regret and sadness? They are CF.

• While we can no longer offer transgender women formal memberships from 1 April 2026 (the start of our new subscription year), we remain committed to continuing our support for transgender women through other activities outside of formal membership.
• We are encouraging members with concerns or questions about the new policy to contact us directly at [email protected] so that we can provide support.
• We will be working with our transgender members and our wider membership between now and April 1 2026, to support them and to clarify the details of our new membership policy.

This is towards the bottom of their nonsense.
Honestly it still stinks of something nasty.

Seriously:

• We remain clear that our strong belief is that transgender women are women. They have been part of the WI family for 40 years, and they will remain part of that family.

They are insane.

I think you meant to put this in the girl guide thread not the women's institute one.

Also

There will be suicides from an already marginalised group of people over decisions like these.

What absolute crap

If the two types of group coexist, captured institutions and violent activists will conspire to make women-only associations untenable, eg Southwark Council refusing to rent to lesbian groups, threats issued to venues thinking of hosting a women-only event, etc.

If they were not women-friendly...

So at present an association could be open to all, and call itself the 'Women's Film Club (say)' and hope that men who wished to present as men would not join.

Surely by joining a Women's film club, any man would be 'living as a woman' - at least at the point in time they join/attend. It's a circular/nonsensical definition already. Unless you do actually restrict it to presentation (clothes, hair) but not sure that's what you mean.