A NEW era has begun in Westbury on Trym with the formation of a Women’s Association to replace the Women’s Institute branch.
The new group held its first monthly meeting on May 18 and intends to continue its programme of speakers, and extra activities of crafts, lunch club, skittles, book club, coffee mornings and pub evenings, as an independent organisation.
The decision to disband the WI branch after 33 years came after a ruling by the national organisation that membership should be restricted to biological women. This was following the UK Supreme Court’s judgement that the legal definition of a woman is based on their sex at birth, meaning that transgender women can no longer be WI members.
Frances Riley, who was president of Westbury on Trym WI, said every WI member across the country had been required to sign a form declaring they had been born female. The eight committee members at Westbury all refused to sign – and all but four of the remaining branch members made the same decision.
This led to the Avon Federation of WIs attending a meeting in April at which the 46 members voted overwhelmingly to suspend the Westbury branch for three years.
“We are sad about it,” said Frances. “Many of our members have been in the WI for decades. But we felt that by signing the forms we would be colluding with discrimination and contributing to an erosion of rights that have been hard-won. The WI nationally did not explain why they felt this action was necessary.”
She explained that the branch did not have any transgender members, although they would be welcome as the group, whose members are aged 59 to 96, was determined it would continue to be inclusive.
Another Avon branch, in Longwell Green, has also closed this spring because of the WI’s change of policy to ban transgender women “exacerbated by the manner in which this was handled without engagement or consultation with the grass roots members”. It too is forming an independent group.
The National Federation of Women’s Institutes, which has had transgender members for 40 years, said it had had to make the decision to ban them from April to protect its status as a single-sex charity and avoid the risk of costly legal action.
It intends to set up a network of WI Sisterhood groups, “where all women can come together to learn, share ideas, and work together to improve lives in our communities”.