Womens institute bans trans women

The Women’s Institute (WI) has said that from April, it will no longer accept trans women as members.

In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Melissa Green, the chief executive of the National Federation of Women’s Institutes, said it made the decision with the “utmost regret and sadness” and that the organisation had “no choice“.

She said:

To be able to continue operating as the Women’s Institute – a legally recognised women’s organisation and charity – we must act in accordance with the Supreme Court’s judgment and restrict formal membership to biological women only.

She added:

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.

This follows yesterday’s decision by the Girl Guides to ban trans girls from joining. Since the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex and gender in April, many organisations have either willingly or under pressure from TERFs been excluding trans women and girls. Now, the WI follows with their decision to exclude trans women.

Since the April ruling, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has drafted updates to its code of practice. It calls for gender-exclusive facilities and groups to exclude trans people from spaces, including toilets, changing rooms, and gender-specific groups.

But legal experts and human rights groups have questioned its recommendations. They have accused the controversial regulator of misinterpreting the law.

The Good Law Project said:

The law is uncertain – but the consequences of the Supreme Court’s decision in For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers (FWS) have almost certainly been misstated by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and government ministers.

When discussing the ruling, it said:

• It is still possible for women-only spaces to include trans women and – importantly – there are still certain general obligations on employers and service providers under the Equality Act to provide spaces and services for trans people.
• The Equality Act contains some general provisions on single-sex public spaces (see further below). However, the specific law governing toilets, changing rooms and strip searches is not contained in the Equality Act itself, but in different sets of regulations, like the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 and the School Premises (England) Regulations. The definition of “biological sex” does not automatically read into this law. There will be argument in courts and tribunals over the knock-on impact of the FWS judgment for all of this related law, but it is wrong to assume that the outcome will be the same as in FWS. What can be concluded is that, regrettably, the decision has created a great deal of uncertainty.

Its guidance is extensive. But it basically says that the EHRC guidance does not explicitly mean that businesses can exclude trans women.

This means the WI is not legally required to exclude trans women — it is choosing to make that decision, which will only push back the rights of trans people even further.

Feature image via WomensInstitute/ YouTube