The Daily Populous Thursday December 4th, 2025 day edition
Authored by advocate.com and submitted by AdvocateDotCom

The largest women's membership organization in the United Kingdom says it has been forced to ban transgender women after the U.K.'s Supreme Court ruled they are not legally considered women earlier this year.

The Women's Institute will no longer offer formal membership to trans women going forward, the organization announced Wednesday. CEO Melissa Green said in a statement that "this is not something we would do unless we felt that we had no other choice."

"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," Green said. "However, this change is only in respect to our membership policy and does not change our firm belief that transgender women are women."

Scotland, which is part of the U.K. but has a semi-autonomous government, passed a law in 2018 that all Scottish public organization boards must have an equal number of men and women members. Trans women were included in the number of women board members if they had a gender recognition certificate.

For Women Scotland, a right-wing organization dedicated to so-called women’s "sex-based rights" — a dog whistle used by anti-trans activists to exclude trans people from public spaces and reduce women to their genitals — filed a lawsuit against the government challenging the inclusion of trans women. They initially lost their case in Scotland before appealing to the U.K. Supreme Court. Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling helped fund the anti-trans legal challenge.

The court ruled in their favor, determining that trans women aren't legally considered women under the nation's Equality Act. The ruling has already been applied by some agencies, including the Football Association, which banned trans women from playing women's soccer in May without mentioning trans men.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission — the United Kingdom's leading human rights agency — issued guidance in August banning trans people from single-sex facilities, even those that match their sex assigned at birth in some cases. The guidance affects bathrooms or changing rooms in organizations that provide public services, including schools, hospital wards, sports clubs, domestic violence shelters, prisons, charities, and some shops.

The Women's Institute will be launching a national network of local "sisterhood groups" in April, Green said, which will "offer monthly opportunities for all people, including transgender women, to come together to socialise, learn from each other, and share their experiences of living as women."

"We know that many of our members will find this decision extremely painful," Green continued. "We have been actively seeking alternative ways — outside of formal membership — of continuing to extend fellowship, sisterhood, and support to transgender women, who have been such an important part of our WI family."

hawkwings on December 4th, 2025 at 08:38 UTC »

If I am reading this correctly, the Supreme court ruled that transgender women are not women.

Another organization banned trans people from single-sex facilities.

From the article:

"The Equality and Human Rights Commission — the United Kingdom's leading human rights agency — issued guidance in August banning trans people from single-sex facilities, even those that match their sex assigned at birth in some cases."

TheWhomItConcerns on December 4th, 2025 at 06:10 UTC »

> The Equality and Human Rights Commission — the United Kingdom's leading human rights agency — issued guidance in August banning trans people from single-sex facilities, even those that match their sex assigned at birth in some cases.

Wait, so trans people can't use women's or men's bathrooms in the UK? If that is indeed the case, I think that would pretty well illustrate the ridiculousness of the law.

Also, what are the laws pertaining to intersex people in the UK? Is their gender identity respected or do they also exist in a legal no man's land?

Mediocre-Sundom on December 4th, 2025 at 05:44 UTC »

All the progress we have done as a humanity in terms of humanism and peace seems to be getting undone entirely in the past couple of years. Hate, bigotry, nazism, radical nationalism, tribalism, exclusionism, homophobia, exceptionalism, xenophobia, pseudo-religious fundamentalism - all of these are on the rise again.

As a humanity, we never truly learn anything and keep repeating the same mistakes again and again.

UPD: Thanks to all those actively bombarding this comment with downvotes. You help to illustrate my point perfectly.

UPD 2: I love all the people deflecting or telling me how I lack "nuance".

Yes, you are entirely correct: my view is absolutely not "nuanced". There is no "nuance" required in the position of "how about we all treat each other with respect, empathy and understanding". It's not some complex philosophical concept. The only people who need "nuance" here are the hateful sophists who think that arguing about the meaning of words or definitions is more important than minimizing actual harm done to living human beings.

No, I will not be "nuanced" with this topic. "Being a transphobe is bad" isn't a "nuanced" position to hold. Saying "xenophobia/nazism/hate/etc is harmful" does not warrant some deep philosophical discussion. I can and will proudly say any time and anywhere that humanism and wellbeing are more important than your pathetic sophistry designed to divide people.

Trans people being killed and driven to suicide for simply existing and being who they were born, isn't "nuanced" - it's sad, tragic, terrible. And any transphobes trying to deflect and derail the discussion into "bUt wHaT iS a WoMaN" need to take good hard look at their priorities (if they are intellectually capable of doing so, of course).