Article/Archive
Gabriella Swerling
Social and Religious Affairs Editor
03 December 2025 10:37am GMT
The Women’s Institute has banned transgender women from being members. The National Federation of Women’s Institutes (NFWI) revealed on Wednesday it can no longer legally offer formal membership to transgender women from April next year in light of the Supreme Court judgment. The Supreme Court ruled this April that the legal definition of a woman under the Equality Act was based on biological sex, not preferred gender identity. Melissa Green, the chief executive of the Women’s Institute, said: “It is with the utmost regret and sadness that we must announce that, from April 2026, we can no longer offer formal membership to transgender women.”
She added: “We will bring forward programmes to continue to extend fellowship, sisterhood and support to transgender women.” Bridget Phillipson, the women and equalities minister, has been accused of deliberately delaying guidance by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), the UK’s equality watchdog. The new guidance reportedly would mean that trans people could be asked whether they should be accessing single-sex services based on their physical appearance. NHS trusts, councils and businesses have continued to allow trans women to use female-only facilities despite the Supreme Court ruling. Since then service providers have been left in limbo as they wait for updated guidance from the EHRC to be published before introducing any changes in public venues.
She said the future of the charity relied on acting on the Supreme Court’s judgment. “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. “However, this change is only in respect to our membership policy and does not change our firm belief that transgender women are women.”
“We also want to ensure that while our legal change is clear, our intention to maintain our sisterhood with transgender women is equally clear.” The Women’s Institute is the UK’s largest women’s membership organisation. It has campaigned nationally women’s issues and offered self-development opportunities for women since 1915. The NFWI is the Women’s Institute’s umbrella organisation. Although a spokesman for the Women’s Institute said that while they would no longer offer transgender women formal memberships from, it would be working with its current transgender members “to support them and to clarify the details of our new membership policy”.
“If women – or men – want to join mixed-sex groups, there are plenty available. There are also plenty of charities that solely serve trans-identifying people. “What is distinctive about single-sex groups is obviously lost if people of the opposite sex are admitted. A group set up for women must be able to keep out all men, even the ones who are very insistent that they feel like women.
Gabriella Swerling
Social and Religious Affairs Editor
03 December 2025 10:37am GMT
The Women’s Institute has banned transgender women from being members. The National Federation of Women’s Institutes (NFWI) revealed on Wednesday it can no longer legally offer formal membership to transgender women from April next year in light of the Supreme Court judgment. The Supreme Court ruled this April that the legal definition of a woman under the Equality Act was based on biological sex, not preferred gender identity. Melissa Green, the chief executive of the Women’s Institute, said: “It is with the utmost regret and sadness that we must announce that, from April 2026, we can no longer offer formal membership to transgender women.”
She added: “We will bring forward programmes to continue to extend fellowship, sisterhood and support to transgender women.” Bridget Phillipson, the women and equalities minister, has been accused of deliberately delaying guidance by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), the UK’s equality watchdog. The new guidance reportedly would mean that trans people could be asked whether they should be accessing single-sex services based on their physical appearance. NHS trusts, councils and businesses have continued to allow trans women to use female-only facilities despite the Supreme Court ruling. Since then service providers have been left in limbo as they wait for updated guidance from the EHRC to be published before introducing any changes in public venues.
‘No other choice’
Ms Green said: “It is with the utmost regret and sadness that we must announce that, from April 2026, we can no longer offer formal membership to transgender women. “As an organisation that has proudly welcomed transgender women into our membership for more than 40 years, this is not something we would do unless we felt that we had no other choice.”She said the future of the charity relied on acting on the Supreme Court’s judgment. “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. “However, this change is only in respect to our membership policy and does not change our firm belief that transgender women are women.”
Continued ‘sisterhood’ with trans women
A statement added that since the Supreme Court ruling, the organisation had been working with legal advisors to understand its impact and how it needed to respond in order to “maintain our sisterhood with transgender women”. It said it had “explored all options available to us before making any changes”. The Women’s Institute said although it is still awaiting the formal EHRC guidance, “we have done our due diligence as an organisation and taken independent legal advice”. “We also owe it to our members to be upfront and honest with them about the issues that might affect them, so we wanted to inform them as soon as we could.“We also want to ensure that while our legal change is clear, our intention to maintain our sisterhood with transgender women is equally clear.” The Women’s Institute is the UK’s largest women’s membership organisation. It has campaigned nationally women’s issues and offered self-development opportunities for women since 1915. The NFWI is the Women’s Institute’s umbrella organisation. Although a spokesman for the Women’s Institute said that while they would no longer offer transgender women formal memberships from, it would be working with its current transgender members “to support them and to clarify the details of our new membership policy”.
‘Other charities’ for trans women
Girlguiding bosses said on Tuesday the organisation had made “the difficult decision” to stop biological boys from becoming members. Helen Joyce, the director of advocacy for the campaign group Sex Matters, said there were plenty of other charities offering support for transgender people. She added: “Just a day after Girlguiding accepted that its charitable mission was focused on girls, not boys who say they are girls, Women’s Institute has followed suit and will exclude men who say they are women from its membership.“If women – or men – want to join mixed-sex groups, there are plenty available. There are also plenty of charities that solely serve trans-identifying people. “What is distinctive about single-sex groups is obviously lost if people of the opposite sex are admitted. A group set up for women must be able to keep out all men, even the ones who are very insistent that they feel like women.
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