Women’s Rights Network imploding

[NameChangedWren]

WTF is going on? There are letters circulating with members alleging bullying, and anyone who asks a question is suspended and comments deleted. The leader calling everyone to urgent meetings with bizarre messaging: ‘there is no letter, and if there is it’s full of lies, and you can’t see the letter just trust us, and ooh look, something shiny!’ Should I cut my losses, cancel my standing order and just follow Let Women Speak?

Unusualdog does seem to be extraordinarily invested in dissing Tinsel and her support for Trans Widows.

Over at least two threads.

So far no reply to requests for information about what Unusualdog has been doing for the thousands of Trans Widows they are apparently aware of.

Nice attempt at waving away the concerns in this thread as "a lot of hearsay" doesn't really hold up when some of the allegations are backed by hard evidence. For example, the claim that payments/donations were made into a directors personal account isn't hearsay at all – multiple people have receipts showing transfers directly to a personal account details rather than any official group account. That's not rumour; that's documented.

"light touch" that magically becomes heavy-handed when anyone asks questions – have come from several first-hand accounts, not just vague gossip. If these specific points (especially the personal account one) are somehow inaccurate or exaggerated, please clarify exactly which bits are hearsay and provide the counter-evidence. Blanket dismissals without specifics just make it look like an attempt to shut down discussion rather than address very serious legitimate worries about how group money is being handled.
Happy to be corrected with facts, but receipts don't lie.

Of course the WRN do more work than I do! Thats not in dispute

Other than the issue you mention with one member, my concerns with the WRN have always been due to the lack of democracy in an ostensibly “grass roots” organisation. I don’t have any real issue with how they treat trans widows, and they were kind enough to invite me to speak, twice.

Unusualdog seems to have something against me personally. I don’t think Trans Widows Voices is really comparable with WRN.

In an ideal world I’d have done more with TWV. A private support site and Freedom Programme type course were the long term goals but I’ve just never had the resources (mainly time), to take it to the next level. Also dealing with something related to your own trauma is hugely mentally draining.

I think what TWV has achieved though is the medium term aims of amplifying the voices of trans widows, making trans widows part of the discourse around the GRA (the Twitter account has been particularly helpful on that), and making trans widows a consideration in discussion of the spousal exit clause aka spousal veto. Its worth remembering that I’ve built this up from approximately zero consideration and awareness of trans widows in 2017.

I’m pretty proud of all that, and if some people consider it a “tiny” contribution, fair enough we’ll have to differ.

Whether or not your coordinators think it’s hearsay, the treatment of the Bucks group mentioned here is absolutely what has happened. My account is first hand. Women have been treated as disposable labour, not valuable assets, not people with rights, ironically enough. And given my personal experience of how those facts have been completely censored from most members, I’m not sure how they know it’s all just ‘hearsay’. Members have a right to know that their labour is only valued as long as they never ask questions or look to follow procedure when it doesn’t suit those ‘higher up’.

BTW I didn’t want to merail this thread. Maybe unusualdog should start a specific thread to critique TWV if they’re sufficiently interested. Goodness knows there’s enough critical material of it on the internet to draw from.

I think what you've achieved is remarkable, particularly given as you say dealing with something related to your own trauma is hugely mentally draining.

I've always been impressed with how you've managed to support so many transwidows AND amplify their voices AND raise awareness that there are other people (women and children) affected by transition of men, when it must be even more difficult to hear these stories for you. It's hard enough for me and I have no TIMs in my life at all.

And create a website and help in the production of a film. Against the might of a well funded misogynistic T lobby. And I'm sure I only know some of it.

But really, in a tale as old as misogyny itself, you should be expected I suppose to do the work of several hundreds of women. With those secret super powers of yours. 😕

Agree Unusualdog seems to have a bit of a personal issue.

I’d be interested to know how your local coordinators can be so certain that the experiences described in this thread are just hearsay. Which specific parts do they consider hearsay? Have you considered that they might just be trying to minimise the negative bad press? Did you just believe them and not consider the huge number of comments that would indicate otherwise?

It is great that your local group is active and run well and doesn’t have these problems, but surely you have sympathy and empathy for the women who have genuinely been treated very badly in the other groups and by WRN in general? Why are you trying to dismiss it as ‘hearsay’?

Totally agree. I’m a coordinator, I have directly seen the accounts of the Bucks coordinators and their attempts to engage the leadership. I’ve also heard them attacked and vilified without any of the substantive points being addressed. That’s not hearsay, it’s a witness account. @ParmaVioletTea i suggest you ask your lovely friendly coordinators to show you the letter to all members and see how that goes down.

@Clementinebloom For example, the claim that payments/donations were made into a directors personal account isn't hearsay at all – multiple people have receipts showing transfers directly to a personal account details rather than any official group account.

Well, presumably you were the ones that paid money into someone's personal account.

@MrsCharringtonSmith Did you just believe them and not consider the huge number of comments that would indicate otherwise?

'Huge' doing some heavy lifting there.

I don't think more than a handful of members in my group read FWR. This thread only got a mention recently in our chat, and the conversation was basically 'meh'. It all seems very serious and upsetting to those of you involved, I'm sure, but the way it is being handled by you in this thread is not really winning much support afaics

@HasItImplodedYet all very serious to those involved, but ‘meh’ for your group, very sisterly of you. Guess when it’s your group in the firing line, there won’t be anyone left to stand up for you.

Maybe but it was still a bit of a patronising comment to Tinsel Angel.

It's 'meh' because some of you seem to be enjoying the drama a little too much.
I fully expect to be in the firing line one day. I am not a team player and am surprised I've lasted this long. If and when I get the boot, I will wish everyone who can play in a team the very best of luck and will continue to use other avenues to get the men out of our stuff.

I'm really glad you've got a great group @ParmaVioletTea . My words about what happened to me is not hearsay, it's what happened, I'm not lying and the woman who posted the screenshot a few pages ago on this thread of the letter from WRN Scotland is the letter I received when I was kicked out.

I enjoyed being part of WRN and talking to like minded women. I didn't understand the full reasons for why I was purged; being added to an unofficial national chat appeared to be the reason and it felt quite hurtful at the time. I hadn't breached any WRN rules and I wasn't party to what was happening.

I was invited to talk to the leaders but I removed myself and left the "unofficial" national chat after being purged from the WRN chats as it had descended into lots of more vocal, angry women throwing insults about WRN Scotland leadership. Which of course I guess was understandable but I just wanted to campaign for women's rights and meet up and do good. It lost its purpose, which was in part to how things were handled by leadership and also the reactions of others.

I enjoyed being in WRN too, before the ways of working changed, and a woman I have a high opinion of was treated appallingly. I don’t feel gleeful over how it’s gone since I left, I could say told you so, but actually I just feel sad for those women in Bucks, who are experiencing what we did a few years ago.

It would be good to have an update from WRN North & South Bucks to know how things are going.

@ICanSee 05/02/2026 16:53
Last year, 62 women were thrown out of WRN Scotland, without any due process, and the same is happening in Bucks and Calder.

Is that WRN Calderdale & Bradford? Calder in Scotland?

I’m just confused - is it fraud? Are people saying money has been stolen?

Challenge accepted.
It's under reports — along with all the other reports WRN has published
https://www.womensrights.network/wrn-reports

Also on X and Facebook:

https://x.com/WomensRightsNet/status/2026218477980168423
https://www.facebook.com/WomensRightsNetwork/

I went looking for it too after IwantToRetire issued her challenge. I did find it, after a few dead ends . . .

Easy peasy! Use the Search Function! . . . After a lot of peering at the top and bottom of the home page, eventually realised there is no Search Function! 😵‍💫

So next I scrolled carefully down the Home Page . . .

Lots of interesting stuff . . . the first featured item is the WRN Red Flag Campaign (never heard of it) which it says took place in Summer 2025 (not a good start when looking for something relevant to Feb 2026).

Lots more interesting stuff . . . Afghanistan Campaign . . . report from Jan 2024 . . . Merch . . . footer . . . nothing about the new report . . .

(To be fair, as this Report is very new maybe WRN is planning to put a link to the new report on the Home Page, bumping down or off one of the other featured items? This does not seem to be common practice though because more recent reports are not on the Home Page, or maybe they are, it is hard to tell to be honest.)

Now leaving the body of the Home Page and heading back up to the Main Menu . . .

Women's Words . . . Aha! That will be it! . . . Now I get to choose between . . .

> All Posts
> Politics
> Healthcare
> Safeguarding
> Prisons
> Sport
> Event Reviews
> DQSH
> More
> Culture
> Translations
> Parkrun
> Education
> Police
> Afghanistan

Probably Politics because it's to do with local councils . . .

This looks relevant and recent, it could be this . . . A captured council: Manchester . . . nope . . . that's November 2024 . . . try again . . .

Maybe it's under Safeguarding . . . first item and I've hit gold! The betrayal of abused women . . . the subtitle after clicking through is . . . We’ve had a recent issue here in Wales . . . so a case study as an intro to the report? . . . Excellent, detailed article . . . but no . . . no report.

Nothing else in Safeguarding or the other Women's Voices topics seems likely, so heading back to the Main Menu.

Next menu item is Topics . . . drop-down menu . . . second on the list . . . WRN Reports! . . . Bingo!

After that experience, I have to say that IWantToRetire makes a couple of very good points.

Firstly, if you knew that the new report was hiding in there somewhere the most obvious thing that most people would do is use the Search Function to look for it rather than waste time manually searching. But there isn't a Search Function.

Secondly, if you have been told that this new report exists on the WRN website, it is not at all obvious where to find it. Most people would have given up. Not my opinion, there is loads of research on how much time people are prepared to stagger around websites looking for content. Only those who are very motivated and determined would find it.

Finally, if you visit the website not knowing already that this new report exists it would be a matter of very good luck if you happened to stumble across it. Quite possibly you would spot the 2024 report on the Home Page and think that that was the last report published.

"Is it just about those who are part of WRN just sharing information with each other, but not thinking it is of any importance to share with anyone else."

I don't think so because there is evidence of the report being publicised on Social Media.

I think you hit the nail on the head earlier on in your post:

"If you were a shop and had a new product in would you hide it in a back room with not even a notice in the shop that this new product was available."

"What's New" signposting is essential for two reasons:

1. To help guide new visitors to the most recent and therefore possibly the most relevant content.
2. To retain returning visitors by helping them to avoid having to waste time trawling through content they have already seen.

As you have pointed out, this is Website Navigation 101 for sites that are regularly updated with new products to advertise.

I suppose the link between this issue and the other issues raised in this thread would be:

• does the WRN leadership ask members for feedback on how easy it is to navigate and find content on the WRN website?

You might even think there is a link between losing whole groups of active women from the network, and the resources not being very effective.

I'm a WRN "member" of a fabulous local group.

I've cancelled my monthly payment as a result of this thread.

I've shared concerns on our local group WA group (that doesn't have HB as a member!)

I'm not the only one in our group whose concerned.

Exaclty and if I hadn't challenged someone to find it no one visiting the site, including you, would have known it was there.

Everyone knows whether for an in person meeting, a web site or whatever "signposting" is the prime concern.

So you just proved my point, you shouldn't have had to go and find it.

The home page of a web site, assuming you want your information and work to be shared and used, should function as an index to the content of the site.

Just as you would give directions to someone visiting you for the first time, and not know your area.

What is the motive for volunteers giving up their time to produce a report that no one will ever know ever existed?

But as in previous post you had to search for it. And you could only search for it because someone told you about it.

How could you search for it if you didn't know it existed!

And serious, this idea that so many on FWR have than posting on X is a way to reach out to other women is just not accepting the reality that X is one of the least used SM platforms, and apart from a few who against all feminist principles, a social media platform that other feminist activists have left.

On one level I dont care because it seems from this thread that WRN is more abour a shared experience for members - and possibly based on the experiences women have recounted here, that those members then provide a platform for a few to evevate themselves.

So my response to it could be that I foolish thought it was a campaign group and would therefore prioritise been not just accessible in terms of disability discrimination, but also in terms of someone visting from the first time and having no idea what the organisation actually does, have ways of finding out.

So if it isn't a campaign group and that was my assumption, but in fact more a shared experience and support for members, then of course it doesn't matter how accessible the web site is, it members really on the core group distributing information as and when it feels they should know.

(I do in fact know groups who function like this and do some good work, but effectively the sharing of doing the work is the actual purpose of the group - sort of political bonding - and the output a secondary by product.)

There are local co-ordinators, but they're very light touch, and they also do a heap of work. They reassured me that this thread contains a lot of hearsay.

That doesn't prove anything.

You being willing to just take the word of others and not find out for yourself proves nothing.

After all there is no evidence the co-oridinators you are trustingly quoting and also just passing on hearsay!