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?

My advice to them is use your (non paying) members who have established expertise in areas you do not (police, prisons, education, rape crisis centres, public & acute healthcare) to talk to the media while referencing WRN.

Failure to do that has been a very public weakness of WRN.

With the exception of Cathy Larkman, I don't recall seeing any other media-friendly experts on-screen representing WRN.

Sincere apologies if there have been appearances by other media-savvy, expert WRN spokeswomen who I have missed.

You made excellent points here. I’m keen to reclaim our local groups and rebrand them to fit our goals better. But I have zero interest in becoming a charity, as it would bar us from pushing to repeal the GRA bill—which, if successful, would resolve many of our issues.

This is absolutely spot on. There could be some interesting discussions on charitable status or renaming local groups. However the silencing of anyone who even mentions the letters means that a lot of members are oblivious to what’s going on especially if they don’t have X or aren’t part of other non / ex- member chat groups. How do we make these women aware of how WRN operate and give them the opportunity to decide if that’s how they want their group to operate or improve it? They seem intent to destroy themselves from within but can WRN be saved and reformed, or are they over?

I've tried searching X (Twitter) for any discussion or mentions of the Bucks' letter to WRN, but I can't find anything at all! How has this whole thing managed to stay completely off X?

You need a sympathetic journalist to read this thread and cover the story.

Copying and pasting this as the images posted earlier are a bit blurry. Images attached are fingers-crossed higher resolution.

From : The members of North & South Buckinghamshire WRN

11 February 2026

Dear Directors,
Cc: All Coordinators and Members

On 28 Jan 2026, after we called for an independent governance review, you suspended the Bucks group coordinators from the network without giving any details of the reasons. We have written to you on three occasions raising serious governance concerns, asking for details of allegations made against members of our group and attempting to reconcile and deal with the situation positively. You did not respond to any of our letters. The only communication from you occurred on February 10th when you contacted just two individual members; and only focused on alleged leaks. Whether and how a letter has been shared is a distraction from the key focus: our serious governance concerns and the lack of due process and transparency in WRN.

We consider your treatment of our members to be unacceptable, specifically the:

• targeting of an active member who raised concerns about the treatment of others and gave suggestions for improvements in strategy;
• failure to follow the WRN grievance process, together with written evidence that one of the Directors was biased before being appointed to lead the grievance panel;
• pressure on a coordinator to act punitively outside of the WRN procedures – the member had already left her roles in the core sport team, the web team, the newsletter editorial team and as local coordinator, yet further pressure was given to expel her from the local group;
• demand that a Director resign because she refused to expel this member;
• removal of that Director from both WRN Ltd and the WRN network without due process;
• false allegations and misrepresentation of our actions to WRN members in a series of Zooms without our knowledge and with no right to reply, including defamatory accusations of breaching personal and financial information;
• no information as to why we were suspended without process;
• active suppression of our letter dated February 2nd addressed to all members and no response to a request for an all member WRN Zoom for full transparency;
• cutting adrift two entire geographical WRN groups, North Bucks and South Bucks by removing all coordinators from lines of communication;
• no acknowledgement or reply to any of our letters;
• failure to understand that this lack of transparency damages the integrity of WRN, as members speculate as to why a pattern is emerging of individual women and of large groups of women have left WRN en masse (such as in Wessex, Surrey, Camden, parts of Wales and Scotland).

The Buckinghamshire WRN groups have been highly involved in the network’s actions from the very beginning of WRN and in the Shoppers which predate WRN.

We have:

• Led the piece of work gathering and reporting on rapes in UK hospitals
• Undertaken FOI exercises on hospital and university sexual assaults
• Co-delivered the Education campaign on single sex toilets in schools, including researching and challenging provision in Bucks schools
• Drawn all the artwork for the above campaign
• Set up a system for sending letters automatically to political representatives, a process no other group has been able to replicate
• Led WRN’s work to tackle male violence, supported women to become trustees of rape crisis centres
• Jointly created and run the WRN website
• Worked on the Education campaign to address dodgy PSHE providers in schools
• Led the work to challenge self-identification in sex categories in parkrun
• Led the campaign which successfully got girls moved out of Wetherby Young Offender Institution
• Designed WRN leaflets, logos and other materials, in English and Welsh
• Travelled to Paris during the Olympics and held up banners in front of famous landmarks and videoed key messages outside the Olympic Stadium to raise awareness about women’s sports
• Developed the WRN politics database, maintained it and covered the costs of this personally
• Led the WRN Academics group
• Visited the local Wickes store when their management called opposition to single sex spaces bigotry, and showed a PowerPoint of AGP men to its customers to garner support
• Attended WRN Global Women’s Day, political lobbying, Afghanistan vigils, planning and strategy events
• Written WRN newsletters
• Travelled to St Albans to run street stalls during the local elections, because there weren’t any in our area
• Brought WRN Canada and WRN Australia into existence
• Developed the WRN Male Allies group
• Travelled to Canterbury to campaign for Rosie Duffield, and to Saffron Walden to campaign for Kemi Badenoch
• Dealt with all membership enquiries for the first two years of WRN
• Led the work to develop proper security after a TRA infiltrated a WRN Zoom, wrote the new security policies and been on the Zoom ‘bouncer’ team
• Womanned the WRN stalls at the LGB Alliance conference and Battle of Ideas
• Researched and wrote the WRN crib sheets on various areas of policy
• Lobbied and met with our local MPs, councillors and PCC on women’s rights issues
• Interviewed Zoom speakers including Maya Forstater, Naomi Cunningham, Miriam Cates, Jo Phoenix, Rachel Cashman, Isabelle Thieuleux, Rosie Duffield and Helen Joyce
• Conducted background research for other Zoom speakers to inform the interviewer
• Led the WRN justice group
• Written blogs and newsletter articles
• Written and edited WRN reports
• Developed the strategy for WRN politics work
• Set up the WRN Research group and undertaken significant work for this team
• Successfully campaigned for single sex toilets and changing rooms in Bucks schools and leisure centres
• Conceived and delivered a campaign highlighting Wicke’s trans inclusive policies
• Managed and produced video for WRN YouTube Channel
• Stopped the mass coverage of Progress flags along Great Missenden High St by challenging the Parish Council
• Posted on the WRN Thames Valley X account

We are appalled that having contributed to the network’s outcomes, success and profile to this extent, you are treating our members as if they are disposable.

WRN began from a group of grassroots women’s networks. However, WRN Ltd was set up in 2021 with a structure that gives full control to one individual who can unilaterally remove all other directors. This was not communicated at the time, and many members are unaware of this. Such a structure cannot claim to represent grassroots women without both written processes and full transparency that they are being followed. Otherwise the interests of WRN Ltd and a grassroots Women’s Rights Network will not align.

When such valuable members raised concerns, the correct response would be to listen, follow due process and transparently resolve issues. As a result of your actions and lack of response to our legitimate concerns, we have lost confidence and trust in the leadership.

Should there be a change in your position, and a willingness to address issues and implement fair and democratic governance, we will be open to your approach. If other WRN groups also believe WRN can improve its management, we will be open to working for change together.

Yours faithfully
The Members of North & South Buckinghamshire WRN

You need a hashtag for people to use when they post then other people can find the posts.

Because twitter is one of the least used plaforms, and not only that cant be accessed by those who aren't on it.

The only advantage of twitter is that lazy journalist who hate to have to do any research will happily exploit what they say is a big bust up on twitter, usually about 5 people in reality, to contrive an article.

As a PP said, I would have thought alerting a journalist the best option, but suspect this will just be jumped on by left, green, journalists to say it is true. ie GC women are sour faces nasty old women. Look how brillian WRN. Dont forget for lazy journalist they love groups like WRN because they can just quote the official line, and not have to delve into different aspects of an issue.

But perhaps before doing anything what would be achieved by a larger group of onlooker knowing about it.

I doubt many people care about whether WRN is a business or a charity any more than they care about whether Sex Matters is.

If its to provide a forum where women who have been or still are members of WRN, and some may feel better able to contribute if it isn't in the public domain, then you could just set up an old fashioned mailing list type forum. I think there's a limit to the number can be in a whatsapp group.

Are you all aware that WRN act as the secretariat for the Women’s Rights APPG in our parliament led by Rosie Duffield?

They (mostly Heather) have been building their presence in parliament and I doubt that the officers of the APPG are aware of how grassroots women are being treated by WRN Ltd.

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmallparty/260112/womens-rights.htm

When is a grassroots network not a network? When it’s an autocratic oligarchy.

Try the words wrn and letter. I found Jean Hatchet mentioning it.

(Edit: In reply to IwantToRetire but this got detached as a reply)

I might be mistaken but I think the people they are interested in communicating with are other members of WRN. Those who are still in WRN say that they have been stymied by their messages on WRN channels being instantly deleted. From what has been said in this thread it seems possible that they too might be out on their ears soon too, for posting the letters from WRN North & South Bucks members.

Almost all WRN members are going to be on X.

I assume they are also going to be on other Social Media platforms, perhaps in non-WRN groups where there are other WRN members? However, those groups might get annoyed if different factions within WRN start arguing and being disruptive.

There are serious downsides to it being picked up by the sort of publication that would be salivating over this. By a "sympathetic journalist" I didn't mean sympathetic to one side rather than the other. Perhaps a better word would be "responsible"? That's not quite right either. "Sensitive" maybe? An article by a thoughtful blogger/Substacker who is popular with GC readers might be an effective way of reaching other WRN members.

Bucks women have been virtually begging WRN leadership to behave decently and responsibly. Meanwhile WRN productivity seems to be unaffected and, at least for the moment, it seems to be business as usual.

The leadership is not going to be able to keep the lid on this forever though. Word will spread anyway without the help of hashtags or articles but I can understand why those most recently affected are impatient to see some movement. Also why Scottish ex-members are still annoyed and concerned about odd financial arrangements north of the border. Then there are the other financial issues raised in this thread.

If this thread is the only place on the internet where all the varied grievances are being aired then it makes sense that the leadership would just sit tight and wait for the fuss to die down. They will be banking on this being a flash in the pan like the previous mass expulsions and instances of women voluntarily leaving en masse.

What is different this time though is there have been so many questions arising from:

• the lack of transparency about how donations are being used and who is being paid how much for doing what
• the covert creation of WRN Ltd. by HB the apparently super-woman management consultant, just seven months after the "two ordinary women" Heather and Jo, "inexperienced in organising and activism", published "A Word from your Admins" saying,

"These groups are yours, run by you, not by us or anyone else and you know best what is happening in your local area and can organise accordingly."

"Heather and I are two ordinary women who had seen what the Scottish women were doing and wanted to be a part of it. We are certainly not experienced in organising and activism, we are admins and part of the groups like everyone else."

(Jo seems to have disappeared off the scene some time between August 2021 and April 2022.)

That is the vision that Heather and Jo sold to the women in the pre-existing Shoppers and Witches Groups and the new groups that Shirley/SisterFlo set up. Little wonder that many of them are somewhat disenchanted with how things have turned out. Particularly if they found themselves caught up in one of the periodic purges that resulted in women being expelled from groups that they themselves had set up.

The number of disaffected, angry women weighed down by a tottering pile of grievances might have reached a critical mass? When it does eventually come crashing down on Heather's head she will have only herself to blame. She has brought this on herself through a combination of hijack, hubris and heavy-handed mis-management.

Could you share a link? I’m having difficulty locating any references to it on X.

Yet more important information about WRN that has been omitted from that "About WRN" web page!

🙄

Anyone reading this thread who has concerns about WRN and whose MP is on the Women's Rights APPG could drop their MP a line asking them to look into their concerns.

Most of the MPs will probably be on X. Or porn-splattered Bluesky where they all seem to think that they are so much better than the scum on X.

This is where a hashtag would come in handy. There is a lot more to this than is covered in the Letters from WRN North & South Bucks.

Search results for WRN Letter on X yield two posts but that is not really the point. WRN members would need to know to search for WRN Letter in the first place.

A bit of hashtag hijacking would be a good method of getting the message out to other WRN members, ie. decide on a hashtag for this whole issue then post on X with that hashtag plus a current WRN campaign hashtag being used by official WRN accounts.

Tagging in other people is also an option, eg. specific WRN members, APPG MPs.

This is less risky than replying to official WRN posts as they will probably report you for spam and try to get your account suspended.

Don't use #WRN - try searching for that hashtag on X and you will see that it picks up an awful lot of stuff unrelated to the WRN we are talking about here.

#WRNLTD would work. It doesn't turn up anything when I search for it.

Pair it with a current WRN campaign hashtag plus a link to this thread and the images of the North & South Bucks Letter of 11th Feb. It only needs to reach a few WRN members who bother to read and pass it on for word to start to spread on the grapevine.

Keep posts factual, questioning or surprised rather than angry and accusatory.

If you are concerned about being skewered by the pitchforks of the witch hunters, set up a new anonymous account on X. It is very easy to do.

Don't just change your Display Name.

Changing your User Name might only prevent exposure of the User Name (URL) of your original account for a short while. I am not going to explain why.

https://nitter.net/JeanHatchet/status/2016473234066092281#m

We were instructed by HQ to remove Lurkers from groups a while ago, as they didn’t think they were valuable if they weren’t actively working on projects - we refused. Women join in when they can, and some just come to pub/cafe meets, and that’s fine.

Bloody hell. That's appalling. If women won't work for free as drones they're excluded from discussing women's rights? Hardly sisterhood.

And yes, women get dumped with elderly parent care, child emergencies, overwhelming menopause symptoms, health crises all the time and can't give as much as they'd hoped to. Given the vetting is strong and involves actual meetings, I think this is utterly anti-feminist.

Sadly, this is making me really glad I never joined WRN. This dynamic is one I've experienced far too many times in my life to want to relive in what should be a positive space for women.

To keep things contained and direct, maybe a Signal/whatsapp group and invite WRN members from your own regions into a dedicated chat to discuss and inform them about these issues head-on. That way, we avoid public disruptions while getting the word out effectively.

There are pros and cons. The downside would be that current WRN members might (rightly) be wary of joining a private group where management moles might be lurking, leading to further amateur sleuthing to identify dissidents and more expulsions.

It is less risky at a personal level to have discussions in public using anonymous accounts, plus encouraging other members to read and join in.

Although a lot of common grievances have been expressed in this thread there does not IMHO seem to be much common purpose. Some themes:

• Move on and set up new groups
• Or join other organisations
• Try to repair WRN.
• "Take back" WRN.
• Achieve transparency about financial issues.
• Ensure members of North and South Bucks are treated with common decency and agreed procedures are followed.
• Tip Heather and/or Mary Howden upside down and see what falls out of their pockets, figuratively speaking!
• I have probably missed something.

I imagine women who want to work together on any of those issues would want to discuss things privately with like-minded women. That makes perfect sense.

They could try inviting other WRN members into private groups and chats but it is risky for all concerned.

Ironically, where the original danger lay in being doxed by trans activists now the threat of punishment comes from WRN management witch hunters. Which pretty much illustrates how dysfunctional things really are under the glossy surface.

Slight aside but relevant I think - the type of people who think they can expect people to volunteer and do work for free and then treat them like shit is astounding to me. It's very gentry class vs working class usually in my experience.

Most volunteering I've done has involved lots of gratitude for the work I've done. But not all. Then they wonder why fewer and fewer people are volunteering.

I had forgotten I had liked or followed (cant rmember what it is) the WRN facebook page.

So I thought I would have a check of recent posts.

Someone had added a comment to a recent post from WRN saying were they aware of this thread on FWR, and what was going on.

It hasn't been replied to.

But also, others who follow the facebook page (not necessarily members of WRN) haven't responded.

So looks like in terms of their public presence for them it is business as usual.

Or maybe they are thinking this will work in our favour as the troublemakers will either just give up or better still just leave WRN.

Ironically, where the original danger lay in being doxed by trans activists now the threat of punishment comes from WRN management witch hunters. Which pretty much illustrates how dysfunctional things really are under the glossy surface.

Also it seems if comments of the Unison and WPUK thread, and the non response on facebook, that many dont want to know. Happy to just it all at a superficial level.

That’s interesting as one of my friends in real life found a message on the WRN Scotland chat which was apparently about her being absent from active campaigning. It was deleted before I saw it. She’s very busy with other stuff but comes from serious feminist stock.
I also heard that one of the WRN Scotland co ordinators who pretended to be a friend, was sending messages saying I was “trying to take over”. What a ludicrous piece of nonsense.