Century-old women's group forced to ban trans women after a decade of inclusion - LGBTQ Nation

"Membership in the organization - founded in Canada in 1897 before welcoming women in chapters across the Commonwealth - will be restricted in the UK to those who are documented female at birth, with new members or those renewing expected to confirm that they meet that criteria beginning in April 2026."

"The organization made it with the "utmost regret and sadness," she said, adding it had "no choice" but to exclude trans women from its membership."

""Incredibly sadly, we will have to restrict our membership on the basis of biological sex from April next year," Green said. "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.""

The Women's Institute in the UK will restrict membership to people documented female at birth following the UK Supreme Court ruling on the legal definition of "woman" and "sex". New applicants and renewing members in the UK must confirm that they were documented female at birth beginning April 2026. The organization began welcoming trans women in the 1970s and formalized inclusion in 2015. The group reports more than 175,000 members across the UK, Canada, Australia, and South Africa. The federation described the decision as made "with the utmost regret and sadness" and said it had "no choice." The federation affirmed its belief that transgender women are women and indicated plans for trans women to remain "part of the WI family." Fewer than a hundred complaints preceded the policy change.

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