The new WI equality, diversity and inclusion policy - it’s worse and includes the thought police

[Marmaladelover]

This is the new EDI policy all WIs have to sign and agree .

The last one was bad enough , the new one discriminates against anyone who doesn’t think Transwomen are women. Please note the sentence
We expect all those who engage in the WI movement to uphold the same values.

I am furious! So what to do about it ?

Main bits I disagree with copied below

Our inclusion of transgender women in activities outside of membership is based on our belief that being a woman is about biology and lived experience

One of the objectives

• Highlight and celebrate the diverse membership of the WI, and ensure that our wider movement offers support and fellowship to all women, including transgender women and others.

Aside from WI membership, we offer other ways to engage with the WI movement, locally, regionally and nationally, including being a WI Supporter and belonging to one
of our Sisterhood groups. We expect all those who engage in the WI movement to uphold the same values.

11. Transgender inclusion
The WI is an inclusive, supportive, and progressive organisation that offers different ways to engage in our movement for members and non-members. The WI provides
educational opportunities and the platform to campaign on important issues, whilst celebrating the WI’s long history of trans inclusion, and embracing the sisterhood and
solidarity of our movement.
Transgender women are welcomed to a range of local and national activities that are open to non-members, as well as our national Supporter scheme. Based on the WI’s
history of trans inclusion, we believe that including transgender women in these activities enriches our organisation to ensure we are a place for both biological women and transgender women to celebrate who they are and influence positive change in their communities.

Thanks @Another2Cats . I really appreciate your perspective and dissection of this (shit) policy.

Am pissed off about this:
Upholding the core values and ideals of the WI which are fellowship, truth,
tolerance, and justice.

"Truth"! Are you kidding me, WI?!

Also 'tolerance' and 'inclusion' are words which used to be universally good, until they started to signify forced adherence to damaging beliefs, such as 'you can't question TWAW #nodebate'

Well, you couldn't make it up!

Article title in the latest WI magazine:
"Membership - make your WI everything you want it to be"

ok then - how about man-free!

@Another2Cats

have you looked at the glossary though ?

it is shortened “religion and beliefs “ to only “religious beliefs” thereby removing any notion of GC protection.

This may be a mistake or intentional, I am not sure …..

I assumed it was the one's who can't decide if they women or not, NB's (WETFTM's).

This is all so awful 😕

And I can see it being spun - "Look, all the horrible GCs are leaving the WI, that shows that the WI is in the right!"

Well, yes - it's all in the meaning of the term "broad", isn't it? I said it was reasonable to expect people of the same religion or political party to have "broadly" the same values, and you asked me if I'd heard of the term "broad church"?

So it depends how broad you think "broad" is. Is there still a unique set of values that includes both the right and left of the Tory Party and simultaneously excludes everyone in the Labour Party? Quite a tough one to answer, but I'd be surprised if anyone in the Tory Party supports the overthrow of capitalism, whereas you'll find a few in the Labour Party who do.

Thanks @Another2Cats This is very clear and really helpful in making sense of what is being asked on members.

The ones at the top aren't, but the ordinary members are brilliant and so are their cook books. My experience as a woman is that the recipes work and taste amazing. They're also kind in the proper sense so would be ridiculously easy to convince that they ought to look after men who think they're women. I, to quote Saint Naomi, am not kind.

They're also kind in the proper sense so would be ridiculously easy to convince that they ought to look after men who think they're women.

I totally agree @Easytoconfuse. This kindness is being exploited by the senior committee IMO.

Ok, I've emailed them. I've made it deliberately very neutral, enquiring whether the requirement for existing members to sign is to demonstrate that they understand and accept the SC's clarification last year and the changes the NFWI have made in terms of eligibility criteria.

Honestly, if that's the thrust of it I will sign. I can ignore the nauseating hand-wringing and bending over backwards to insist WI would LOVE to include the poor men, but the big meanies at the SC have said 'no'. It's all bollocks.

Interesting - this is the reply:

We are receiving a high volume of enquiries at the moment which is impacting response times. If your message needs a response, there may be a delay as we work our way through previous messages. Thank you for your patience.

I’ve just received my copy of this month’s national magazine, which includes the annual review. I quote:

“ In December, following the Spring UK Supreme Court ruling, we made a change to our membership rules, meaning that of this year - April 2026 - we can no longer offer formal WI membership to transgender women. As an organisation that proudly welcomed transgender women into our membership for more than 40 years, this is not something we would do unless we felt we had no other legal choice.

But this change is only is respect to our membership policy, and next month (April) we will be launching a national network of local WI Sisterhood groups, which will offer monthly opportunities for all people, including transgender women, to come together to socialise and learn from each other.”

It then tells me I can read more about this on page 27, but there’s nothing on page 27 in my copy, and I haven’t found it anywhere else yet.

I’m confused about this 40 year proudly welcoming thing, as it was something I was completely unaware of until the Petra cover, and indeed was told very much about how the WI was for women only and we were able to do that through the exemption in the Equality Act. There may have been transgender women members but it didn’t seem to be something proudly publicised.

The funny thing is, the Sisterhood groups won't get off the ground. Because we all know there won't be enough validation for the TIMs. So they won't go.

Well spotted @tesseractor !

Page 27 has the heading I mentioned above "Membership - make your WI everything you want it to be" 😄and about some WIs being based in pubs

Maybe that's what they mean about socialising together.

As regards the "40 year proudly welcoming" thing, it's another organisation rewriting history.

Totally. The leadership have absolutely no idea what AGP is, or why men with it want to join the WI in the first place.

Exactly. I bet a few "Sisterhood" groups will start, with massive fanfare - "Yay! Look at all these morally superior sisterhood groups! Where men are welcome! Aren't we fab and inclusive!" and that will be very exciting, and get lots of coverage from The Independent website and Penis News.

And then, over the next few months, most of them will quielty fizzle out because TIMs won't like looking across the friendship circle at other TIMs.

Yes, @Another2Cats Thank you very much for analysing the whole statement.

Thus far the only flouncing is from WI members miffed that the WI is no longer a "validation" resource for blokes in frocks. Every which way the faux-inclusive folk at Head Office try to impose their weird beliefs, they'll only stitch themselves up.

Yes, if they're not trampling over women's boundaries to get in, then what's the point?

Where's the fun/validation/euphoria in that?

I have emailed the local WI rep, who is looking to set up a new WI near me. I’ve asked her if I can join if I can’t sign up to the policy regarding transwomen being included in events even though they aren’t “proper members”.
I also asked how the WI could accommodate women who the new policy might prevent from joining because of eg religious reasons and whether she made the policy clear to everyone who attended the recent recruitment meeting (alas I couldn’t attend to ask in person).

I have yet to receive a response.

A letter to the NFWI from a former lawyer telling them why their new DEI policy is unlawful and discriminatory:

https://alisongolding.substack.com/p/a-letter-to-the-national-federation

Thanks for the link, it was a very long letter but agree with the conclusion

"As set out above, the NFWI is unlawfully discriminating against gender critical members of the WI, in particular in its new Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy and in its Membership Form. In particular, the NFWI is in breach of section 101 of the Equality Act 2010 in that it is discriminating against gender critical members in the terms on which the NFWI is prepared to admit them to membership, by refusing membership to persons not willing or able to accept those unlawful terms, by depriving existing members of continued membership if they are not willing or able to accept those unlawful terms, and by varying the terms of membership to require acceptance of unlawful terms."

They can't wiggle all they like but they're running out of wiggle room, they need to give up because they'll never square the circle, no men in a women's organisation.

Probably too long to read out in a meeting but here is her own short version ( written by her)

1. NFWI's new (April 2026, Version 3) Diversity, Equality and Inclusion Policy discriminates against women who not follow gender ideology.

1. The attempt to make WI members sign up to that policy in the membership form, and to deny membership to women who don't sign up, is unlawful discrimination contrary to section 101 of the Equality Act 2010.

1. Because the NFWI is acting in contravention of the WI Constitution, in particular the requirement not to use the WI for sectarian purposes, no WI can lawfully pay any part of its members' subscriptions over to NFWI.

Absolutely right. How have women’s organisations slid down to this state of ignominy in which we have to graciously give up our single-sex rights and pay homage to male sex fetishists?