A call to all wims to challenge registered charities who claim to be women’s services who include “transwomen”

[Hedgehogforshort]

Inspired by a post about Nottinghams Women’s Centre being trans inclusive, I think it is time we did something. Like pull the ruddy rug on them.

I don’t think it will need the extensive work of the NHS data thread.

There are hundreds of alleged women’s only services who are registered charities. They mostly have a governing document describing themselves as for women only but do not mention “transwomen” in their objects, but do in unlawful policy documents.

All charities have a beneficiary group, which they cannot stray from.

Also if they change their objectives to be “inclusive’”IMHO” the funds they hold on behalf of the original beneficiaries, must be handed back or ring fenced, which is why some of the major charities have conceded, ergo the WI and GG.

My idea is that we target our own localities and make a complaint to the charity commission, about the charity we are a potential beneficiary of.

what do you all think? Happy to coordinate this though i may need @knottyauty

meanwhile i am off to look at a few national bodies

@Hedgehogforshort A follow-up comment by ChatGPT.

"Notes on why this letter works (quietly, but effectively)

• It does not argue ideology — it anchors everything in:
• charitable objects
• trustee duties
• Supreme Court authority
• It forces trustees into a limited set of responses, all of which are informative:
• denial (useful),
• admission of inclusion (useful),
• promise of review (very useful).
• It creates a paper trail that is directly usable in a Charity Commission complaint if needed.

If you’d like, next time we can:

• adapt this into a second-stage escalation letter, or
• draft a model Charity Commission complaint that references a non-responsive or unsatisfactory reply.

This is exactly the right tone for what you’re doing."

I ❤ChatGPT. It's extremely good when you give it good data/ input.

Oo thanks plenty to get my teeth into

i already know quite a few of them, but will check them all out again. I will be tweaking the draft letter as certain phrases are not normal parlance, such as ultra virus which is a legal term strictly related to public authorities, but will post an adapted version shortly.

thanks again.

Heh! I would never have thought of that, but yes, you're spot-on with that. Just have to have an eye for these things, I guess. Amazing work you wims are doing here.

am writing to you as a member of the public with an interest in charity law and regulatory compliance, to seek clarification regarding your charity’s stated beneficiaries, in your governing document.

Your activities as stated are for the benefit of {women and/or girls/children}.

As you will be aware, following the UK Supreme Court judgment in For Women Scotland Ltd v Scottish Ministers (2024), it is now established in law that, for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010, “sex” means biological sex.
In light of this, I am seeking clarification as to how your charity reconciles its current published policies and/or service-eligibility statements — which appear to include biological males who identify as female.

As trustees, you will be aware of your duties under charity law to ensure that the charity operates strictly within its stated objects, and that charitable funds and services are applied only for the purposes for which the charity is established.

Where a charity’s activities extend beyond, or are inconsistent with, its objects, {activities, services, research, policy statements} that are in conflict with your stated objectives, and as a result will expose your charity to regulatory breaches.

I would therefore be grateful if you could confirm one or more of the following:

1. That your charity’s services and benefits are in fact restricted to biological women and/or girls, in accordance with your objects and the current legal definition of sex; or
2. That your governing document has been formally amended to redefine the beneficiary class, and that such amendment has been properly determined by way of appropriate attention to your constitution. or
3. That your published policies or guidance are being reviewed and brought into alignment with your charitable objects and the current legal position.

I raise this matter in the interests of clarity, good governance, and regulatory compliance, and would appreciate your response setting out the charity’s position. Yours sincerely,

@Hedgehogforshort You left out the — with its legally binding charitable objects.

Is that clearer? I get that 'reconcile' doesn't necessarily requires two things. But perhaps best to lose the dash; that's an AI thing, isn't it?

God yeah, this is a great way to protect women and girls, tying up charities with admin like this while they’re often struggling to survive. Trans inclusion can mean being able to access wider sources of funding, including statutory contracts, which ultimately benefits everyone in need of services.

Well then it's very simple, isn't it - focus on protecting women and girls and stop spending time, effort and resources defending the rights of men above all else.

Ok, thanks. I’ll have a look at some charities. I’m not sure about SARSAS. I think they provide services to everyone, which is great, but I’ll need to check if they have some single sex provision. Surely no one wants mixed sex groups.

Ask yourself what changed. Why are women's services so hated that they can no longer be tolerated?

I like this very inclusive statement:
"Support For All Women
We work with women born a girl and living as a woman aged 18 and above across all communities and backgrounds, including:
Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic groups
Refugees, asylum seekers, and migrant workers
Women with disabilities, mental health needs, or substance use challenges"
www.purplehouse.co.uk/domestic-violence-support-service/

Perhaps could be offered as good practice in making a charity's position clear to potential service users?

So you’re saying you hate and want to shut down women’s services?

Literally makes no sense in relation to what I said.

Sometimes it is not possible to attract sufficient funding or access to only work with women and girls on a trans exclusionary basis. That may change in time, but writing letters to charities or the charity commission is not what’s going to change it.

The Charity Commission are unlikely to care about this, and individual charities will have already planned their line and will just give you that. A waste of your time and theirs.

If you actually care about women’s services being GC then lobbying the government for funding and actually suggesting solutions is a much better way to go. Victims Minister at HO and MoJ, VAWG advisor Jess Asato, victims commissioners - and actually propose some fucking solutions for trans women and men too, because then you look less like a bunch of hateful agenda bashers.

And if you’re going to use ChatGPT (nothing wrong with it as a starting point) edit the letter so it’s not so obvious.

Well yes, it will, because the law requires that single sex means single sex.

And centering men over the needs of women to gain funding - which is activist driven on an anti-woman agenda - excludes many of the most vulnerable and marginalised women. When you have a mixed sex group in women's charity led work, you have already excluded the least privileged and the most high need women in order to usher in the men for their desired experience.

No one wishes to see men without needed supports, but single sex now has to mean single sex again. And fully accessible and inclusive of women. It's very sad that women have to take recourse to law for this, but this is the age of misogyny and sexism that we live with, and the is the outcome of two weak governments who did not have the interest or capacity to stop political capture of women's services by men and their supporters for men.

If it's going to be like the WI where some branches go down because some activists who got into women's services in order to force men into being the centred kind of 'woman' that served their political agenda intend to burn everything down on their way out rather than let women have anything of their own, then so be it. Some of these politically captured places won't be retrievable.

While we're talking about making it clear to women's charities that the law insists on single sex being single sex, it is a good point; we're also going to have to start pressing the Local Authorities that all funding bids must be compliant, and the judgment of last week will help with that. Denying the provision of single sex services to women alongside men-centred ones - which are certainly not 'inclusive', 'inclusive' means all, not just men with gender identities - is legally now very risky indeed. Jolyon's proven it, he's got it down on paper with the High Court name on it.

No, it is not the job of women to sort out provision for men, including men with gender identities.

Women are not here to be everybody's mummies.

Women are entitled to equality under the law.

Edited to add: when men were winning on this and women-exclusionary policy was all the rage, where exactly were the men running around trying to sort out provision for the excluded women not to look hateful?

Who is centring men over women? That’s your assumption based on - well, what exactly? I’m assuming you’re not familiar with provision in every women’s charity in the country?

You seem to be saying you’re happy for women’s services that provide a multitude of services - group, 1-1, helpline, advocacy etc - to ‘go down’ if they don’t conform entirely to what you want to see. I don’t think that’s very feminist at all, I think it’s ideological Puritanism. It’s an imperfect system and it needs change but this is not the way to achieve it, and honestly I question what it is some of you actually want to achieve.

If you want to influence on this you need to understand the position of those funding and providing services, otherwise you make it easy for them to ignore you. Some people would rather be seen to crusade than actually win any battles, and that’s ok I guess.

Hell yeah! Let's cost a peecious.woman's centre most of their budget by demanding they only allow in the women we approve of! Let's endanger the staff and any woman tall, short-haired or just wearing jeans!

..or you could take that time, energy & money and spend it on Imara, an amazing Nottingham-based charity which helps child rape survivors (even trans ones! Like they're fully human or.something!) Every donation is life-saving, in the most literal sense - they give survivors of every gender back their future. It is badly in need of funds.

Though I suppose terrorising a Woman's Centre because there's a chance someone trans might attend is more pressing 🤔 Hey you'll make it a target for the far right - and make sure every woman not cookie-cutter girly gets abuse thrown at her. Wow.

And people say terfs achieve nothing. You bring p!enty of misery, abuse and outright harm. And bolster the far right of course. Well done you.

Anyway i am not biting any more

Apologies for spelling.

That was 'precious woman's centre'. Maybe my rogue spellchecker is trans? It's the only explanation.

Peace darlings

xc

@Hedgehogforshort fantastic idea, are you going to do this on your own or coordinate a group. The NHS auditors have done a grand job and this seems similar

You're assuming that I don't. The position of those funding and providing services is that they have to be compliant with the law. And that women's services can no longer exclude groups of women who are often the most hard to reach and crucial to the charities aims and programmes, in order to politically benefit the desires of men.

Women have tried all the nice nice stuff for a decade now. It's at an end, the law has spoken, all we need to do is point out the law. And if necessary, start the cases that make the case law. This being a women's rights forum it's not surprising that women are focused on this, is it?

And they're going to have to do this to keep up with the barrage of influence from activists working for men, who have pressured and harassed charities and everyone else into first believing that to not centre men at the cost of women was (falsely) legally dangerous for them, and currently are trying to confuse the hell out of all about the SCJ and the guidance, or in the case of a number following last week's judgment to just plain lie about the law in the desperate hope of ... what?

Avoiding women's services providing single sex accessible services to women. Because although it shuts many women out of the service, it's lovely for male egos.

No one requires the men's services be shut or removed; just honestly labelled with equal single sex provision made alongside. That's not an unreasonable request in any way.