Zoe Williams in The Guardian on Girl Guides removing Trans Girls

[Arran2024]

Did she do any research for this article? If so, she should have discovered that it's not as easy as the Guides just "changing their name". It is all about their charitable aims. Anyway, typical pro trans girl inclusion article from ZW.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/27/girlguiding-trans-members-supreme-court?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

BOYS! Boys are removed, not girls.

And they should never have been there in the first place.

She's a very lazy writer. By which I mean, she does churn out a lot of articles for the Guardian but never bothers to do any research for any of them. She just writes stuff off the top of her head. It doesn't seem to bother her when she turns out to be factually wrong. She ought to be a complete embarrassment to the Guardian, but they seem to be beyond embarrassment.

Yeah exactly

Similar to how sometimes I dislike left wing misogynists more than right wing ones. At least with the far right it's logically consistent. And they're relatively easy to avoid socially. Left wing misogynists are everywhere, infiltrating and spoiling every organisation that I once held dear. And they're massive fucking smug hypocrites.

Not only Audrey Ludwig has strongly criticised Williams' article on X. This is from another respected lawyer, Barbara Rich.

https://x.com/BarbaraRich_law/status/2037557271228723206?s=20

This came up on my X feed - she actually said this about women's football a few years ago ! https://x.com/BasilTheGreat/status/2037925838117630216?s=20

I never liked Zoe Williams, but I did used to be a big reader of the Guardian, and with the benefit of hindsight, I'm actually glad they embarrassed themselves on trans, and let me down as a reader, to the extent that they did. I was much younger back when all this started, and it was the first time I'd ever seen that "my side" could be as blinkered and ham-fisted with their propaganda as all the other, right-leaning outlets I was so proud of myself for being able to see through.

It made me question everything, and nowadays, I'm grateful for that. I feel politically homeless now, on so many issues, but I value the person I am now. I actually think for myself. It's invaluable. But watching The Guardian become a craven parody of its former self was such a big part of that journey. I almost feel I owe Viner, LOJ and the gang a box of chocolates 😂

I'm a Guiding volunteer. I am delighted about this ruling however, due to all the hand wringing and appeasing language from Girlguiding, I certainly don't feel I'm openly able to celebrate this. The fact that they don't have numbers to say how many boys/men this will effect means that it's such a small percentage. Again why are we, as women, wasting our time on this issue when the mental health of our girls is at an all time low? Also the waiting list in our area is huge so it's not putting parents/guardians off! Would be interesting to see how many defect to Scouts. No way I want to run a Cubs session!

Imagine using your expensive Oxford education to spout pseudo-journalistic bollocks without carrying out any research or looking beyond your own limited, overprivileged experience. Nice work if you can get it, I suppose.

Except that I am not religious. Neither I nor any other woman has to have any particular faith or belief system in order to have my privacy respected. I am a woman and I’m entitled to female only spaces where I can attend to private and intimate matters, including dressing and undressing.

And FWIW men are also entitled to the same consideration and privacy.

She's an attention seeking bore.

It would be almost impossible or certainly very complex to change the charitable purpose of GirlGuiding because it was established under Royal Charter ‘for the purpose of promoting the instruction of girls of all classes in the principles of discipline loyalty and good citizenship’. It’s not just a case of filling in a form for the charity commission.

It's such a bad faith piece. It is a single-sex space that has nothing to do with how "gender-neutral" the activities are. The two can and indeed should co-exist. You have to accept her ridiculous beliefs for the whole thing to even vaguely make sense.

@Arran2024 Maybe, but not inevitably, I went to a girls' (state, Catholic) school for the majority of my secondary education and it has had very much the opposite effect on me.

I do read and often still enjoy the Guardian but last year I googled as many of the regular writers as I could to see where they were educated and was really shocked to see that only a tiny minority didn't go to Oxbridge. Not in line with their branding at all and I resent some of these people preaching to me honestly when I feel like I am far more in touch with the actual world than they are.

The best thing about Zoe W is the rebuttal articles that inevitably come after hers 😁

<pops over to Sonia Sodha’s Twitter>

It is very foolhardy to try to change the objects of a charitable trust, whether under Royal Charter or not. The settlors of a trust who put the money in at the outset define the class of beneficiaries. The trustees cannot change the class without being in breach of the trust.

To be in breach leads you to be open to being personally sued as a trustee and liable for any loss to a beneficiary including all funds wasted on a group outside the class of beneficiaries.

Anyone who is a trust administrator not even a trust lawyer could tell them that. It is Trust 101.

If they FAFO on this, a very large bill could land on their mat on the cost of spending any of the charity’s resources on outside their class of beneficiaries.

They are walking a fine line and if they have the temerity to set up any groups, policies etc for those outside the class there is the very real danger costing their trustees a wodge of cash. If I was being difficult I would ask the Guides to set out the time taken in meetings, emails etc on this handwringing, legal fees, and calculate the bill and forward it to the trustees.

The only defence is their acting in bona fide which is not possible since the SC has clarified the position.

ZW is talking out of her arse and sadly is typical of most modern day half baked journalism.

Had a quick look at the Trustees. Backgrounds in risk management, accountancy, business management. Solid and sensible. I doubt they would jeopardise the situation based on the tantrums of a tiny handful of 'activists'.

I used to really like ZW’s writing. Now she is a complete embarrassment. I have wondered if she has a ‘trans child’ as she seems so blinkered.

But they did - none of the decisions about letting in TW and 'trans boys' would have been made without board approval though I expect it was skated over in the CEO report to board rather than a full discussion

I do think though that once the Board fully understood the SC ruling and implications it is they and not the staff who applied the brake and reverse

(also if I remember rightly finance and law were some of the early sectors to be captured thanks to several stonewall trustees who operated at a high level in those areas)

"Oh no, I just remembered I'm female. Now I'm sad again."

I grew up fiercely happy about being girl, and not because I liked pink dresses and Barbie and wore makeup (nothing wrong with those things, I just wasn't into them). I had Scalectrix and Lego, a chemistry set and a junior microscope, and I never needed to forget I was female in order to enjoy those things.

Almost makes me want to have twitter again. Almost.

Williams is awful. I gave up reading the Guardian years ago and want to throw something at the TV every time she is on Sky's what the papers say.

I bet they let them on on previous legal advice from some Stonewall captured law firm, who assured them it was fine. The Suoreme Court judgement changed that and their hand has been forced- they have made it very clear they don't want to do it. Also, the Good Law Project offered to indemnify the trustees against personal claims if they allowed trans girls in - they don't seem to have accepted that.

There are two issues with GG continuing to accept boys: legal fees paid by GG to defend the practice in court, and monies to be repaid by the trustees from their own pockets as individuals to repay GG for misuse of charity funds (spent outwith the charity’s aims). From what I remember it was only the first that GLP offered to help with. Did I remember that wrong?

There's a disturbing article in the Observer today:

https://archive.is/r6cFE

It begins "The parents of a six year old trans girl who tried to cut off her penis with plastic scissors after being told she couldn't join Rainbows..." and gets worse from there.

There's a thread about that on AIBU. I find it heartening when I see threads like that on AIBU - tons of sensible comments from posters who wouldn't venture to FWR.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5509879-six-year-old-trans-girl-tries-to-cut-off-her-penis-after-guide-ban