On 3 December 2025 the National Federation of Women’s Institutes (NFWI) released a statement informing members “we can no longer offer formal membership to transgender women”. The tone of the statement was hand wringing and used dramatic language. The NFWI said the decision was with the “utmost regret and sadness” members might find the decision “extremely painful”, they have “regrettably concluded” again it is “extremely painful” and there is the assertion that “our strong belief is transgender women are women”.
If Melissa Green, the CEO, and Jeryl Stone, Chairwoman of the Trustees, thought this language would mollify the members who are very vocal in support of a mixed sex WI they were very much mistaken. It did not help that the use of such loaded opaque language has also frustrated those who believe the WI should return to a single sex organisation.
I was informed by attendees at the meeting on 3 December, where the announcement was made to Federations, that the tone was funereal. Both Melissa and Jeryl wore black. Melissa Green was on Woman’s Hour that day and sounded as though she was about to cry, although in fairness, if I was her, I would have be terrified of the backlash that she must have known was going to come. The backlash has started.
There are threats from a group of vandals known as Bash Back to target the NFWI building in London, as well as the Girl Guiding building. This group have defaced Health Secretary Wes Streeting’s constituency office and the Brighton Conference centre that hosted FiLiA in October 2025. Alex Horwood, a disgraced former police officer, has started to claim he will be submitting:
“Formal legal requests to Girlguiding and the WI demanding:
Copies of all litigation threats.
Correspondence from gender-critical lobbyists.
Details of any external “legal advice” supplies
Minutes of trustee meetings where coercive threats were discussed”
He will undoubtably now harass the NFWI and Girlguiding, my sympathy goes to the women who suffer due to this abusive man, although I would be lying if I didn’t admit to some schadenfreude, I am human after all.
But an internal bruhaha maybe more concerning, and this is starting too, in the largest WI Facebook (Unofficial WI) group and on individual Federation pages, as well as local WIs. The Women’s Institute relies on volunteers at every level. Whilst the National Federation has between 40 to 50 paid members of staff Federations generally only have 1 part time employee. The Federation I am a member barely received enough in membership subscriptions to cover its staff costs, and this money dropped between 2023 and 2024. Federations have to work extremely hard to cover their running costs. Organising outings, events, merchandise and other fund-raising activities to ensure they are financially viable. All this is carried out by volunteers. At local level groups are entirely run by volunteers and considerable time and effort is spent ensuring a varied programme for members, fund raising activities. Whether or not I agree with the opinions of these women, it needs to be recognised that they do stalwart work. It is also really hard to get members to be on committees at all levels, often women are busy caring for grandchildren, elderly parents, working or might be involved with other community groups.
Federations are starting to organise Surrey Federation is hosting a meeting to “plan a way forward”, East Kent Federation thinks this is “a great idea”. There is no mention of support for the women who agree with this decision, until prompted, but this wasn’t proactive, members will have to email to request this. Whether these meetings are well attended or fall flat will only time will tell. This is before the detail of the Sisterhood Groups has been announced.
Cover star Petra Wenham is starting a support group for “women who have a transgender history” and “allies”, and many are with him on this. Members are: considering options, praising Mr Wenham as he is so brave, and marginalised, some bright spark has suggested remaining the WI the Women and Trans Gender Institution as “surely what wouldn’t be breaking the law?” The Good Law Project has been signposted too. Whilst I mock these people, their ignorance is not their fault, but due to years of obfuscation and opaque language by the NFWI.
This debate (or lack of it) has largely taken place excluding members. For all the NFWI claims that 60% of members want the organisation to remain “trans inclusive”, many WI members will simply be unaware of what has happened. How the constitution has not been followed for over 10 years, and many will simply not be interested in the interaction of the EDI policy and constitution, how creeping of gender identity ideology is rotting 110-year-old organisation from the inside out. They just want a pleasant night out once a month, and who can blame them.
The biggest worry that the NFWI now must have is a revolt from Federations, and committees standing down en masse, without a succession plan, leaving chaos. Federations are the important mid-level group that carries out much of the administrative burden including auditing accounts and acting as a conduit for information. Already the chairman of Devon Federation has stood down, albeit leaving a successor, and he would have been forced to leave in March 2026 anyway. However, many will simply carry on as normal and possibly breath a sigh of relief that this topic did not arise in their tenure on a committee.
The furore on the Unofficial Women’s Institute Facebook Group represents a tiny minority of members. The size of the group is about 10 to 15% of the WI membership, not all members of the Facebook group are WI members, and voices opposing the inclusion of men have been actively silenced. Members have been trained to go along with the “trans women are women” mantra to avoid exclusion.
My initial thoughts are that some WIs will close over this. I have already seen that those with trans identifying children are very upset, and as Helen Joyce said these are the Japanese soldiers on the Pacific Islands refusing to believe the war is over, they will not re-join. However, the vast majority of WI members will carry as usual, oblivious that an organisation they give enormous amount of energy to betrayed them and is being forced to obey the law, due to threats of legal action, rather than admitting they were wrong and actively changing the policy. The next year will be interesting for the NFWI, will they be able to sustain an organisation or if a dwindling membership is put into freefall due to inept handling and flagrant law breaking.
Women's Institute Declaration 