This is the guidance the NFWI didn’t want you to see ….

[Marmaladelover]

I have been looking for this for ages it’s mentioned in another set of recent general guidance on subgroups and visitors- a subject now close to NFWI hearts due to wanting us all to believe that TWAW ( organisational belief apparently) and the formation of sisterhood.

it’s not searchable on their website as far as I can tell.

i guess they didn’t want us to see it in case anyone was preparing a complaint or legal case against them

Helpfully , Hampshire Fed have posted it on their website for all to see

Personally I saved the PDF in case it disappears again . Always good to have receipts.

https://www.hampshirewi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Sisterhood-Groups-Guidelines-Final.pdf

I haven’t RTFT so may be repeating, but to the extent that a charity’s funds pay for anything ‘non-charitable’, income tax is payable by the charity. So if these things aren’t self-funding, ie expenses exceed income, it’s the WI members who are paying not only those excess expenses but also tax on top. (It’s because charities’ income is only tax-exempt if it’s applied ‘for charitable purposes’).

I doubt that’s what most WI members signed up for, and once they know it hits their pockets through extra fees, more might wake up to the injustice of this charade.

Forstater vs CGD 2021 ruled that gender critical beliefs are protected in law on the basis that basically all beliefs short of outright Nazism ought to be protected in law, provided they are are genuinely held, weighty, and affect how a person views the world. Like being a flat earther, for example.

Smith V Northumberland Police did not rule anything at all about whether or not a belief in gender identity or that "TWAW" constitutes a protected belief, since that wasn't the subject of the case.

Thank you Zoonosis, this is exactly the kind of example I have used to illustrate that the word 'inclusivity' is being misinterpreted to force women to accept men in designated women-only spaces.

The word itself derives as does enclosed from the idea of separating something by making a boundary around it which separates it from everything else.

Inclusivity contains exclusion - anything that does not share the stated characteristics of a set can, indeed must, be excluded.
Otherwise every group would have to potentially include the entire human race in order to be 'inclusive'.

A Pigeon Fanciers' club does not have to admit a falconer with their beloved falcon, because the falcon does not share the stated characteristic of pigeonhood - not to mention not being very pigeon-friendly😬

So 'inclusivity' for the Pigeon Fancier's Club means accepting all Pigeon Fanciers, in accordance with the EA2010.
Excluding non-pigeon-fanciers is not a sin against inclusivity because as you say
There's no world in which groups, clubs or associations need to be accommodating to people who oppose their very existence.

Ditto accommodating men who oppose the existence of women as a distinct biological category and social group in women's groups, clubs or associations.
Like the WI, for instance.
'Inclusivity' implies exclusion of those who are not women, and the SC has defined what 'women' means, and it is not men of any kind.

You're right that the WI don't have to accommodate trans women in their groups. Where you're wrong is confusing "don't have to" with "not allowed to." If they want to create a group for women as defined in the EA plus trans women, then they can do so perfectly legally as the recent EHRC guidance confirms. Anyone arguing Sisterhood groups aren't allowed or that for some reason they are legally obliged to accommodate the views of people who don't support the aims of their group is simply wrong about what the law says.

What I find interesting about the guidance is the requirement to affiliate to an existing WI. If TW are no longer allowed to be WI members and the TWAW members have left in protest, or indeed, the entire WI has shut down as a response to FWS, it strikes me that finding a WI for the proposed Sisterhood group to affiliate to might not be that simple.

From a legal perspective, the stated purpose of the group which focuses on the experiencing of ‘living as a woman’ appears to clash with the fully open membership requirement. Hopefully the WI can explain why it’s not indirect discrimination to have a group that on its face is open to all women and all men but in practice is only open to women and men who believe they are women.

Nobody needs to be provocative.

It just needs a load of men to turn up and smile and nod along that TWAW, and demonstrate that ’The Sisterhood’ is a load of nonsense and has no place in the WI.

The WI can’t discriminate against men who don’t identify as women turning up to these sub groups.

Which rather begs the question why they didn’t just keep allowing men who claim to have a gender identity full membership?

Given that there are a number of young Earth creationist palaeontologists, I think you’ll find that geology is a broad church.

Men who join a group purporting to be for women only, are automatically not supporting the aims of the group. Especially a charitable group that fund raises on specific aims and then spends their money supporting the total opposite of that group.

Hence the issue. If they want to be a mixed sex goup then they need to change their charitable aims. It isn't hard to understand.

the implication of your post is that the purpose of the group is to make sad men in frocks feel like real laydees. that's what the WI should come to?

you really know it's all about women being reduced to emotional support humans don't you? you won't be able to admit it to yourself of course

I think the deeper issue is why the WI, which has declared specific charitable objectives, going to all this bother - and potentially expense - to facilitate people other than women, who are the subject of their declared charitable objectives?

Just because they are not-not-allowed-to exercise ingenuity to get around the EA2010 and their declared charitable objectives doesn't mean they should.

The whole thing is bizarre - an organisation which is very definitely, historically and legally according to its objectives, centred on women, tying itself in knots to somehow include men.

I think it runs deeper than coming up with some ingenious way to invent WI-affiliated groups that can legally include men: the deeper issue is why on earth the WI would do such a thing.

It's not like men, however they identify, are deprived of social groups, be they men-only, transwomen-only, or mixed. So why these WI 'Sisterhood' groups at all?

it'll be a couple of nutters at national

but man alive they need to be brought under control - genderwang kills everything it touches

The whole thing is bizarre - an organisation which is very definitely, historically and legally according to its objectives, centred on women, tying itself in knots to somehow include men.

Indeed - set up by women for women to support women providing for their families during WWI - when the men were away at war and women had to step up to producing food in their absence. Also massively instrumental in getting village halls built.

Oh, and Gertrude Pearson (Lady Denman) and her mother Annie Cass (Viscountess Cowdray) were vocal supporters of women’s suffrage - not sure how they’d feel about the WI bending over backwards to accommodate men.

Except that it's the Women's Institute, not the Anyone Who Thinks Men Can Become Women Institute.

Will the TIMs even want to go if there isn't any validation

If you look at the comments on. Reddit or that one group had to postpone their very first meeting due to lack of interest and another is having to be funded by a single , committed deluded ex Wi member rather than by people buying tickets to attend I get the feeling is no , TRA are not interested. Wondering if @Zoonosis is going to buy a ticket and talk about make up, the menopause , menstruation, breastfeeding all evening ( cause that’s what real women talk about all the time apparently)

"Anyone keen to be part of the group and willing to support this ethos is welcome to attend, and you are able to ask people to leave if they are unable to be supportive.”

Shame lesbian groups can't operate under the same ethos, and get to ask men to leave their same sex attracted group, without being denounced as 'transphobic' bigots.
It just goes to show how much time some men have on their hands, if they get to sit around and invent this laughingly stupid workaround of the laws of the land. 🤮

Are you suggesting these groups are not simply inclusive of male-bodied "women", but that this is the actual aim of the group? That the only attraction these groups need to have for actual women is the opportunity to support male ones?

That seems extremely unbalanced of the WI, to devote such time and resources to the needs of so few, all male, people.

Do they have similar dedicated second structures for other groups as well, or just the male women?

One might almost think this is less about need and demand, and more about a symbolic gesture to demonstrate obsiquience.

Like kings building churches as evidence of their piousness.

Like kings building churches as evidence of their piousness.
Oh! Be fair that did stop a long time ago in UK. The main point is that It did fade away.
Perhaps all expansion of the WI to include non Women might go the same way soon.

@Zoonosis I give you Nigel Farage as a long term member of the European Parliament with the stated intention of getting the UK to leave, even more strangely he claimed all his pension entitlements and emoluments although he thought the organisation should not exist.....

It breaks the law. The WI believe 'that transgender women are women'. The law says otherwise. Transgender women are men, this was made clear in the SC judgement last year. The WI is a registered charity for women but they are including one group of men (and de facto all men, since Sisterhood groups must be open to all because of the SC judgement - btw it was always illegal for the WI to include transwomen in their all-women groups).
What is the point of setting up a group for trans identified men when the WI is for women? And they lay themselves open to prosecution on other grounds, since their inclusive Sisterhood group that must include everyone excludes women who cannot for a variety of reasons join a mixed sex group, so it is exclusive of some protected characteristics.
It's about as innocent as Trump.

Of course he did. He's a grafter.

Helen Joyce talks a bit about this and the indoctrination of women in the latest Sex Matters podcast. Theres a cycle where women tend to study subjects at university which are “gendered” and they are inculcated with the be kind stuff, then leave and tend to go out into the workplace and perpetuate these ideas - charities being a big area affected. HJ was worried that it would take a long time to stop/undo

I think they should be honest and rename themselves. Your suggestion has a certain ring to it - catchy! 🤣

'Whilst the group is open to all, the groups will have a clear ethos (reflecting the NFWI ethos) and organisational belief: that transgender women are women. Anyone keen to be part of the group and willing to support this ethos is welcome to attend, and you are able to ask people to leave if they are unable to be supportive.'

Be interesting to see how this goes down in court.