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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