Women's Institute Declaration

Thank you

I am signing this because I believe women are entitled to single sex spaces without the presence of men however they identify . I am concerned that the WI leadership is presenting their recent decision to exclude men to be under duress & not the will of the members. I am assuming lots of WI members don't want males in the WI but have perhaps never been consulted.

Frinton-on-sea, Essex WI

I wrote to the NFWI and asked why women had been left out of the list of protected characteristics. They replied to me by email to say : "We are aware the word sex has been left out of the new WI Handbook, this was not intentional, but a human error when being re-edited earlier this year. We are amending the changes and will be updating our Federations and WIs of the update via internal correspondence. Thank you for bringing this to our attention."

I am a natal woman. A trans woman is NOT the same as I am. The WI is the last organisation to support LBGT+ in my opinion. Is it trying naively to be trendy? Are we happy to mutilate our grandchildren? I am a university lecturer in social science. Please could you recommend the book 'Trans.' by Helen Joyce? We all need to know the effects of all this on bodies. Because of the trolling nature of disagreeing with Stone Wall, please keep me anonymous. Thanks.

NO to cross-dressers. Keep the WI a single sex organisation.

Woman is not a costume. You only become a woman if you are born female.

W.I WOMEN did not agree to this erasure of our rights. Trans ideology is bad for women and children

There is a place for single sex organisations in our society. Please take care of the WI.O

WI is a safe place for women and some would feel threatened or uncomfortable, therefore we would loose members.

I am very uneasy with this suggestion. I feel we are in danger of making our Women's Institutes no longer a safe place for all women. We have many members who are/have been in difficult relationships with men. A fully transitioned person without his 'equipment' is very marginally more acceptable but with a fully functioning tackle quite a different story. They are still biological men (xy rather than xx) with the physical strength of men and the brain of a man. I will not be fully relaxed in a, WI with a transgender because I will not feel safe.

I have no wish to see any group persecuted or discriminated against but I feel the rights and safety of women is being eroded by the need to accommodate a small number of transgender people. Single sex spaces have been created for good reasons and the need for them remains unchanged.

I firmly believe that women need to feel safe at WI meetings. This will not happen if they try to include Transgender people. Leighton Buzzard Riverside. Bedfordshire Federation.

Let the members debate and decide

I agree totally with your petition

Protect women's hard fought rights.

The current policy has been put in place by an y democratic process . Such an important issue should have been put to the whole membership for discussion , rather than being imposed from NFWI

Protect the rights of women. 2 biological sexes and that fact cannot be changed. I believe Trans ideology and the pushing of it is corrupting children and damaging for women and girls

Keep women’s spaces & organisations for born women only!

So disappointing that an important and established women's organisation should have chosen to become mixed sex. I've worked with WI in the past, but not now it's got this policy.