The Women’s Institute in the UK started back in 1915 with two aims: to revitalise rural communities and to encourage women to become more involved in producing food during the First World War. Each individual WI is a separate charitable organization, run by and for its own members with a constitution agreed at the national level, but with the possibility of local bye-laws As of January 2019, there were approximately 220,000 members of 6,300 Women’s Institutes in England, Wales and the islands linked through the Associated Country Women of the World to other WIs worldwide.
The WI campaigns on a wide range of issues affecting women, based on resolutions agreed at each year’s national Annual Meeting. In 1943 they called for “Equal Pay for Equal Work” and continued to argue for this until the Equal Pay Act 1970 was passed/ The WI discussed HIV/AIDS in 1986, agreeing “to inform the general public of the true facts concerning the disease AIDS” and subsequently working with the Terence Higgins Trust to produce a leaflet on “Women and AIDS”.
From the 1970s, trans women were included, and that policy became official in 2015. In a 2017 statement, Transgender WI membership, the organization clarified that “Anyone who is living as a woman is welcome to join the WI and to participate in any WI activities in the same way as any other woman”. However, following the 2025 UK supreme court ruling in For Women Scotland, the organization said it was being legally compelled to exclude trans women from membership, a policy that would begin in April 2026.
In response, several branches suspended activities due to refusal to comply with the ban. At least 12 Women’s Institute (WI) groups are closing or considering closure after the organisation barred transgender women from membership. This includes a branch in Manchester that has been forced to close after a majority of its membership quit over its trans ban, who had said it fundamentally opposed the decision and was “incredibly disappointed” by the move.
It is the latest chapter of the 110-year-old women’s rights organisation to close its doors in the wake of the announcement. Chapters in Hackney, Cheshire, and Seven Hills, all of whom condemned the move, have also disbanded over mass exits by members.
This follows on the heels of a similar move by the Girl Guide Movement in the UK, who have said they will not accept biological boys who identify as girls in response to the UK Supreme Court ruling. Trans rights organisation TransActual said: “There is no problem being solved here, only harm being done.”
It is not clear how many people the rule change will directly affect, as the organisation says it does not collect data on gender identity.
In British law, the 2010 Equality Act sets out the rules that allow organisations to exclude members of the opposite sex from single-sex spaces. In April, the Supreme Court ruled that this meant biological sex, meaning, for example, that a trans man could be excluded from a service set up for men.
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