Thousands Call For Girlguiding to Reverse Trans Ban

 

It was announced yesterday that Girlguiding would be excluding transgender children from all of its groups, Rainbows, Brownies, Guides, and Rangers. This ban, which seems to have been spurred on in the face of threats of legal action being taken against them if they continued their inclusion policy, rolls back on previously established pledges that welcomed transgender girls and nonbinary children into the organisation.

As soon as news broke current and former members of the organisation spoke out to express their anger and disappointment with Girlguiding's decision, with some accusing them of going against their pledges of equality. Some even called the decision a 'betrayal'. My wife, who had been involved with Girlguiding since her childhood, attended her final meeting as a volunteer last night as she could no longer take part in an organisation that has chosen to harm a group of vulnerable children.

Girlguiding volunteer Jenny Thompson created an online petition that calls for the organisation to reverse it's decision, and has already received several thousand signatures in less than 24 hours.

Petition Link

Thompson says that during her time with Girlguiding she learned the values of friendship, acceptance, and support, principals that were key commitments of the organisation. However, their decision to exclude certain women and girls is described as 'a step backwards', one that 'suggests some individuals are not worthy of inclusion'.

I urge those who also feel that the Girlguiding decision to be wrong and wish to see it reversed please click the link above and sign the petition, adding your voice to the growing pushback against this cruel, discriminatory decision. 

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Women's Institute to Exclude Trans Women Following Legal Threats

 

The Women's Institute has announced today, 3rd December 2025, that it has made the choice to exclude transgender women from membership, effectively banning them from inclusion.

Trans inclusion in the Women's Institute has been a policy for the previous 40 years, with no demonstratable issues caused by this; yet the organisation has chosen to use the UK Supreme Court ruling regarding the definition of sex in the Equality Act 2010 to mean 'observed sex at birth' as an excuse to roll back this policy. The WI is only the latest group to make such a choice, with Girlguiding banning trans children from being included just yesterday.

As with others who have made the choice to exclude trans people, and as there is no law compelling them to do so this is a choice, the WI have claimed that this choice was made with 'utmost regret and sadness'. These empty words are likely to ring hollow with British trans people, who have heard them over and over and over again as people jump at the chance to bar us from public life, or force us into segregated spaces.

Melissa Green, the chief executive of the National Federation of Women's Institutes released a statement about the decision claiming that they 'had no choice' but to do so. Whilst this is an outright lie, they appear to be referring not to the law compelling them to engage in bigotry, but the threat of legal action from rabidly transphobic members of the public.

Earlier this year the billionaire children's author J.K. Rowling established a legal fund to aid with court cases and legal action against trans people and organisations that were trans inclusive. Rowling herself also paid more than £70,000 towards the Supreme Court case that has emboldened transphobes and resulted in these rollbacks of trans inclusion. Whilst there is no law compelling the WI to ban trans people the simple threat of legal action, backed by Rowling's money was likely enough to force their hand. And is likely the reason other groups, such as Girlguiding, have done similar. The UK is now a place where the threat of court action is all it takes for people to abandon vulnerable minority groups.

Green said 'Incredibly sadly, we will have to restrict our membership on the basis of biological sex from April next year. But the message we really want to get across is that it remains our firm belief that transgender women are women, and that doesn’t change.'

As with other places that have excluded trans people the WI have not detailed how they will enforce this. It may be possible that they will require members to produce some kind of proof that they're women, either a birth certificate (which can be changed), medical records, genetic screenings, or possibly even genital exams. They have also not indicated what their policy or practice will be when a butch cis woman in the organisation is accused of being trans, which is highly likely to happen as previous examples have made clear.

Green continued her empty platitudes and false words of support by saying 'My hope is that the message that the transgender community gets from this is not one of betrayal, but is one of our desire to continue to maintain those friendships and that support. This has been a very difficult year for everybody, particularly for the transgender community, but I hope that when that anger subsides the transgender community will know that we stand with them.'

Unfortunately for Green, this decision is a betrayal of the trans community, and their trans members in particular. The WI do not stand by trans people, because if they did they would not be throwing trans people aside as they're doing now. It's hard to stand beside someone when you make them leave. I can only speak for myself, but when my anger subsides I will not think they stood beside us, I will forever see them as yet another group who said trans lives don't actually matter.

The WI have said that they intend to 'bring forward programmes to continue to extend fellowship, sisterhood, and support to transgender women' and that they intend to introduce a national network of sisterhood groups that will include trans women. Though the main organisation will apparently be a cisterhood only. 

As said earlier, the Women's Institute is only the latest in a long list of groups, organisations, and businesses to exclude trans people, and I highly doubt they will be the last. Transphobes are using the threat of legal action and the backing of rich people to get what they want. There are parts of our government looking to push segregation of trans people that would effectively make public life impossible into law. This is the same government who stripped trans children of healthcare, yet allow that same healthcare to cis children; the same government who created anti-trans education policies that are essentially a new Section 28. 

The UK is growing increasingly unsafe for trans people. Our friends and allies are continually turning their backs on us, pretending to stand with us whilst going along with our erasure. I truly hope that everyone who goes along with this feels sick to their stomachs. You disgust me, you're wearing down my faith in humanity, and you're helping to make the world a worse place. The Women's Institute, Inspiring Some Women.

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Girlguiding Chooses to Ban Transgender Children from Organisation Following Threats from Transphobes

 

Girlguiding has announced today (2nd December 2025) that it has chosen to ban transgender children from its various organisations. 

The announcement, posted on their website, claims that this choice comes following April's UK Supreme Court ruling that under the Equality Act 2010 the term 'woman' means 'biological sex', and that trans women should not be considered women. The group, which has been open to and inclusive to trans and nonbinary children for several years, had previously said that they would stand by that policy, but has now chosen to reverse this stance.

The statement makes no mention of the threats from 'concerned parents' that were featured in the press earlier this year following the UK Supreme Court ruling. This unidentified parent, who I personally doubt has any actual relationship to Girlguiding and is simply an angry bigot, spoke to The Times in November, saying that they had written to Girlguiding threatening legal action if they did not ban trans children. They claimed that simply allowing trans children to exist around cisgender children was 'harassment' that violated their dignity and 'creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, or offensive environment'. They also made heavy implications that allowing trans girls to attend Girlguiding meetings would be somehow unsafe for cisgender girls by the inclusion of trans children. Despite not mentioning this bad press, and threats of legal action the timing of the decision from Girlguiding feels awfully convenient and are surely unconnected, especially with billionaire bigot J.K. Rowling financing legal cases against trans people and trans inclusion.

Despite the mention of the Supreme Court ruling in their statement as the main reason for them making this choice it should be noted that there is no law or legislation saying that Girlguiding, or any organisation, must ban trans people following the decision. Despite this, Girlguiding is one of dozens of organisations and businesses who have jumped at the chance to ban trans people in some form. Others, whilst not outwardly banning trans people have instead chosen to enact a form of segregation, such as transgender people being forced into a separate space; a separate space that they reassure us will be equal.

'Guide with Pride' was perhaps a bit of a huge fucking lie.

Girlguiding say that this decision, which no one forced them to make, comes with a heavy heart. They also say that despite deciding that only some children are worthy of inclusion in their group they're 'committed to treating everyone with dignity and respect, particularly those from marginalised groups'. It would appear that their statement is missing the caveat of 'but only for cisgender people'.

The decision that Girlguiding has made is one of exclusion. It's one that singles out certain types of children as 'others', others that aren't allowed. These are children who don't have a space that they can fall back on. Trans girls do not want to be included in boys groups because they're not boys. They're girls, girls who are just as entitled as any other to be included in girls spaces.

Girlguiding has said that more information will be coming in the next week, and I can only imagine that this will include just how they are going to enforce this ruling. Will it become mandatory for any new member of their groups to undergo physical examination in order to confirm they're 'real girls'? Will any such checks be carried out by medical staff, or will it simply be the people running these meetings asking girls to strip for them? If they have no 'prove you're cis' policy in place and simply accept self identification what will they do if they learn a girl in one of their groups is trans, will she be expelled? What happens when some psychotic bigot parent doesn't like the look of a child and believes they're 'secretly trans' and accuses them of such? Are Girlguiding ready to engage in trans witch hunts as we've seen in other spaces that have tried to implement such bans?

Bigots celebrating trans exclusion outside the Supreme Court.

All of this isn't even taking into account that the excuse they're giving for their choice to be bigoted, the Supreme Court ruling, hasn't even bothered to explain what it means by 'born female'. How is being female determined? Is it by chromosomes? This would be fairly ridiculous as almost no one knows their chromosomes, and there are many women with intersex conditions that do not have the typically expected XX chromosome pairing that are still considered women. Is it the need to have a certain reproductive system? If so, what about women born with vaginal agenesis, missing ovaries, missing wombs, or other non-typical genitalia who are still considered women? The Supreme Court have decided that women means female, yet female is not one thing, it is a cluster categorisation, and by simple definition this means that it cannot be an exclusionary group. It's no wonder every reputable scientific and medical body has condemned this choice.

And now Girlguiding's choice should also be condemned. There is no evidence based reason to ban trans people, let alone trans children. Trans people are not committing assaults or violence at any more of a statistical rat than cis people. Trans people aren't dominating sports or setting records. Trans people are more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators, yet they have been made into a monolithic figure of fear, the group upon which all the ills of the world can be placed. Girlguding has made the decision to play along with this. They've decided that some children are a threat, that they must be shunned and excluded. Fuck Girlguiding.

On a personal note, my wife is a volunteer at a Girlguiding group. She was a member as a child, then a young leader, and has found great joy in her time with them, having recently re-joined them. But following this decision she is leaving them. She is attending a meeting tonight, their Christmas party, and it's going to be her last. She is refusing to work with a group that has chosen hate, exclusion, and bigotry over the values of inclusion, dignity, and respect. I doubt that she will be the only person to walk away from the organisation because of this. Girlguiding have made a stupid choice, one that will leave a stain on their reputation for years to come as they walked back on equality.

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