The Women's Institute is to revert to being an Institute for Women

Syracute

Mollygo

I never imagined you were making it up. If you’ve been on GN long enough you will have come across posts about trans friends, relatives, co-workers, choir members, etc.

If your friend shared all the medical details you mentioned, he was obviously aware that he was still a man.
How nice a man is has nothing to do with it.

No she is a woman. Maybe enlighten yourself and read or folllow on social media those who are transgender. You might learn something. This is not a new trend, transgender people have existed always.

Anyone taking your advice Syracute should select their transgender person very carefully. I'd suggest giving India Willoughby a miss....likes to call women c*nts and worse, suggests if black women are women then transwomen are equally qualified, considers themself to be far more woman than lesbians, and is generally very nasty.

Nobody in the history of this earth has ever managed to change their sex, therefore your friend remains male. Women were never consulted about whether or not they were prepared to have the definition of woman, ie adult human female adapted to include males. Seems the males decided that for themselves and then imposed it.

Thanks Rosie51

Enlighten yourself is evidently the newspeak from people who think it’s OK to lie about something especially if that lie affects others.

I’m not convinced that those people would accept lies which affected them in the same way as they expect people to accept the sex change lie.

Enlightening myself by reading about the likes of IW, mentioned above, or those who boast that they’re going into female safe spaces and no one can stop them.

Or reading about Emily Bridges or even Liar Thomas maybe.

Or the threats of death and harm from TW.

Or the heart rending stories of those who desperately regret the surgery they have undergone because it hasn’t made them a woman.

It’s unfortunate for trans who mean no harm to women, that their image is linked to those who have caused problems such as those I mentioned.

The fact remains, you can’t change sex.

If you were born male, no amount of chopping, poking, drug taking, or paper waving will make you into a woman.

Ilovecheese
I was shocked by the WI meeting that I went to .
There were numerous issues that I found
"old fashioned " - we might as well have stepped back to the fifties if not earlier .
We had a chat from a man ,who repeatedly sang the yin tong song ,did impressions of Asians and pulled his eyes back into a slant .
Two ladies - one Chinese and one Japanese looked increasingly uncomfortable.
I made a complaint ,but was told that as I wasn't a member it wasn't valid.
I got the impression that I wasn't welcome .

My mother was a long term member and disliked the attitude and the constant internal politics .
Both of us were disappointed .

Esmay I wish you had come to my WI. We have speakers talking on varied subjects and the membership are always asked for feedback after the speaker has left to gauge their response.

We have a summer show with a variety of tables some cakes, some craft items, photographs, poems written by members, flowers.

Occasionally I run a Bingo session which is old fashioned fun. We visit houses of interest.

We organise fund raisers for our own WI where I ask members to bring unwanted jewellery, scarves, handbags.

We support children with special needs and a women’s refuge.

We supplied a local school with a mix of free sanitary products as we heard some girls remained at home because they didn’t have any products to use monthly.

We have quiz afternoons and play Rummikub.

So all in all I feel we are useful to the community and have fun at the same time.

Whether or not individuals like their local WI is, with all due respect, irrelevant to the fact that it is a Women’s Institution - the clue is in the title.

Women are, in law, those of the female sex. So-called ‘gender’ is also irrelevant. Women can have crew cuts, tattoos and wear trousers, but they won’t be men, and men can wear floral frocks, lipstick and heels but they won’t be women.

It was covered upthread, but I will repeat for those who missed it - transwomen (males) were allowed to join the WI if they ‘lived as women’, but transmen (female) could not, regardless of their ‘gender’ preferences. As of April that will have to stop.

NanKate
Your WI sounds great.
I really think that my local WI reflects the attitude of the people who live in my area .
The speaker seemed to regale them with stories of 'er indoors including 'er driving ,over spending his hard earned money and '
unsuccessful dieting when he wasn't insulting Asians
It's five plus years since I went perhaps it's changed -it needed to .
The other thoroughly unenjoyable event was a church meeting in which I encountered hostility towards me over my ideas .
Even the Vicar was taken aback .
My friends and I have failed to organise fund raising and street parties as well .
And yes I'd love to move !

Apparently some people in the WI are not happy with what has happened and feel it is unfair that elderly transgender women who have attended the WI for many years will now be excluded. This seems really cruel to me. Transgender people have a lot of prejudice to contend with and this will only add to their feelings of rejection and isolation.

I would imagine the attitudes within a specific WI vary, particularly as to where they are located. City people tend to be more respectful and accommodating of difference, whereas rural areas can be less welcoming. My mum moved to the country in her 40's. Although she was initially quite contented there (in old age the lack of shops and amenities became problematic), she only attended the WI a couple of times because she found it old-fashioned and close minded.

Men often feel unhappy when they are told no and sometimes wonen enable that.

I agree that it was incredibly cruel to pretend that men could be women. It was always going to end this way, if you build a movement on a lie, it will eventually bump up against reality.

Rosie you say scouts don’t allow mixed sex sleeping arrangements well my grandaughter was in the airscouts a few years back and they certainly were all sleeping in the same dorm then maybe it’s changed since she left about 5 years ago

Perhaps it’s because country people actually know the difference between a bull and a cow 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Can we put the blame for this firmly where it belongs?

On some trans and particularly TW.

We’ve all heard endless stories about “you wouldn’t know” “You can’t tell,”
“they’ve been living peacefully unnoticed among us for ages”
“ I know trans, and they wouldn’t . . .” and even, if X is to be believed,
“my whole family is trans.”

They’re probably all true to some extent at least.

The problems were caused by TW who decided there was something to be gained by lying about their sex. For example

• More easily achieved sports awards.

• Places in women’s prisons away from men who might harm them.

• Opportunities to intimidate women, by accessing their safe spaces.

• Telling people (who didn’t know or couldn’t tell) that they are trans.

Why do they do that if they really want to be seen as the opposite sex?

• Attempts by the likes of IW to prove they were better at being a woman than women can be.

•Then the threats to women started.

It’s a shame about these elderly transgender women although how do you know they exist since you can’t tell and you’d never know?
How do you decide which TW should or should not be allowed in female groups/spaces?

Actually I hadn’t thought before but yes, if you want to live as if you are a woman and nobody can tell you were born male, why would you go around telling everyone and demanding your ‘rights.”

You’d have exactly the same rights as the other women you were imitating because nobody would know.

Ladyleftfieldlover

For a while we had one man who attended WI meetings. He suffered from Alzheimer’s and couldn’t talk. His wife brought him to meetings as he wouldn’t be left with anyone apart from his wife. One day at a coffee morning he suddenly took out a mouth organ and played a tune beautifully.

What a lovely post I think this man should be let in to a meeting as he had no one to look after him

Poor chap. Perhaps playing you all a tune was his way of saying Thank You !

90% of the time you can always tell when a man is pretending to be a woman. The Adam’s Apple and the big hands are a giveaway. I can wear jeans, boots, have a crew cut but that wouldn’t make me a man and everyone would just know I was a woman with short hair. Wearing a frilly dress and high heels doesn’t make a man a woman.

Why not just call it the People's Institute, and let anyone in?

keepingquiet

Why not just call it the People's Institute, and let anyone in?

So you think women should give up things set up for them, because males think their rights overrule them?
Interesting.

Would you (or TW) be happy if a people’s institute was set up that anyone could go to, whilst the WI was kept up solely for women.

keepingquiet

Why not just call it the People's Institute, and let anyone in?

Yes that would be the easiest answer. Some women seem to want women only things but I have never felt the need for them. Apart from back in the 1970's when I had a very sexist boss I have got on very well and I worked in a mainly male environments but my views were always taken into account and I was never excluded from anything. I am involved in several social groups and have just as much influence in the running of them as the men. If I started demanding separate female sections in the groups then yes the men would probably start treating me differently.

I think you've answered your own question. As you rightly say, 'Some women seem to want women-only things. . .' Isn't that enough reason?

You may not want them, which is fine. I like some mixed 'things' and some single-sex ones, which is also fine. All people are asking the WI for is that it doesn't unilaterally change from being a women's institute to a 'people's' one because those people want to be in a club for women. There are all sorts of reasons why some women may prefer single-sex environments, and they don't ned to run them by you.

If every club, institute, team etc became unisex, those wanting single-sex versions are disenfranchised. As it stands, there are both single-sex and unisex options, so women like you can choose. Nobody is stopping you from attending only unisex 'things', but you seem to be saying that you would stop those who want single-sex versions from exercising their own choice. Is that fair?

Well put Doodledog

Totally agree Doodledog

Well said Doodledog.

Doodledog 👏👏👏

It's just like those women who have no objection to intimate examination or care by men, being in mixed sex hospital wards, having men who desire to be women invading single sex spaces thereby rendering them mixed sex etc etc who because they don't mind nobody should. I wonder if they'd even 'allow' lesbians to want to keep a group for themselves a female single sex one? They'd surely have to allow Muslim and orthodox Jewish women single sex care and groups, or risk being labelled Islamophobic or antisemitic, so where's the consistency?

I dont think ‘It doesn’t/it’s never happened to me “ is a valid argument for anything really.

I’ve never been burgled, but it doesn’t mean that other people haven’t and would want to prevent it. Or actually that I won’t take steps to avoid that experience, because I believe that it is a real experience.

It's a smokescreen for what has been called "an epidemic of violence against women and girls". It is outrageous, of course, that women and girls sometimes curtail their behaviour in order to try and keep safe - and that women are often told not to walk alone in the dark, etc., etc. - placing the onus on them to maintain their safety.

But, honestly, do people really think that violent crimes against women and girls are primarily carried out by immigrants and transgender people? For goodness sake, the police force seems to be crammed full of men who been involved in the most awful treatment of women, including rape and murder - and the vast majority of sexual and violent crimes are committed by heterosexual men.

It is so much easier to point the finger at minorities than to actually address more pertinent issues - like the growing number of boys and men who have been getting some very unpleasant messages on line which have led them to to see women as "the enemy" - manipulative and untrustworthy, and requiring to be "put in their place" by whatever means necessary.