The Women’s Institute will no longer accept transgender women as members from April following the UK supreme court ruling on the legal definition of a woman, the Guardian can reveal.

    • Bassman27@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      I wouldn’t blame the institute they’re doing it against their wishes for legal reasons. I believe they’re going to still support trans women the best they can within the rules of the law.

      • Ledivin@lemmy.world
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        They are choosing to disenfranchise people instead of fight for them. If they are willing to throw people away to maintain their own positions, then they never actually cared about you in the first place. They are choosing to sacrifice people for their own comfort.

        Fuck Melissa Green, the bigot.

      • Catoblepas@piefed.blahaj.zone
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        2 days ago

        You can absolute blame them for doing it without a fight. We’ll see if these ‘legal routes’ they’re exploring go anywhere, or if it’s just ‘sowwy, the gobermint said we had to uwu’

      • GeneralVincent@lemmy.world
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        What legal reasons? They’re not legally bound to only accept cis women, its just one of their own rules. They don’t have to go through the courts, they can change their bylaws to include trans women. Or whatever verbiage they need.

        Unless I’m missing something, they have no legal obligation to keep the same bylaws as an organization. Then there’s no basis for a terf to sue.

        ETA: whoop, missed this part of the article apparently;

        Green said the organisation wanted trans women to remain “part of the WI family” and that from April it would launch new “sisterhood groups”, open to all, which would be “a place where we will recognise transgender women as women and explore what it is to be a woman in the 21st century."

        So if that’s possible, then it seems absurd that the main organization could be at risk of legal action

        • Bassman27@lemmy.world
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          Have you read the article? It literally says it’s due to the Supreme Court ruling on the definition of a woman.

          The head of the institute expresses deep regret and is exploring legal routes to correct this…

            • Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works
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              Nah they can just ignore the law.

              Seriously though, I’d guess their funding comes from the government in some way, and if they do not adhere to the laws governing that, their funding could be completely pulled.

              Edit: To be more clear, it’s likely the definition of woman in the eyes of the govt would determine what aid groups do with funds provided by the government if they say they serve that population, so it could be considered defrauding the govt if you’re helping trans women with funds allocated only for “women” under the new definition.

              I think it’s fucked up the court ruled this way, but it’s at least understandable why this institute would need to follow along unless they want to try to self-fund in some way, which might not work at all and then the good they are doing is completely lost. They also did say they’re going to work on it from a legal perspective so unless that’s just BS (could be) then it seems they are trying to do the right thing and advocate for trans rights.

        • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
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          The Women’s Institute will no longer accept transgender women as members from April following the UK supreme court ruling on the legal definition of a woman, the Guardian can reveal.

          “Incredibly sadly, we will have to restrict our membership on the basis of biological sex from April next year,” Green said. “But the message we really want to get across is that it remains our firm belief that transgender women are women, and that doesn’t change.”

  • Nate Cox@programming.dev
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    2 days ago

    Ugh, this creates a dilemma: upvote or not? I’m never sure what to do here.

    I hate the content so I want to downvote, but I like the awareness so I want to upvote.

    • tedd_deireadh@lemmy.world
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      I think upvotes are for the quality of the content in the post and comments are for sharing your opinion.

      So, upvote when the post fits the purpose of the community, spurs discussion, and follows the rules.

      Comment to tell people what you think about the content of the post.

      If we downvoted every time there was horrible news we didn’t agree with communities like news and politics would never receive a single upvote.

      • PhobosAnomaly@feddit.uk
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        2 days ago

        I think you’re spot on yeah.

        Content aggregators (where Digg, Reddit, and to a certain degree StumbleUpon were the obvious choices) generally use the upvote/downvote tooling to promote content that users think are worthy to be shared or should be seen more; same with comments if they add constructively to the discussion regardless of viewpoint.

        The problem with using upvote and downvote style tools to express like and dislike means that you just end up with an echo chamber of “goodthink” and a community that circlejerks itself, where dissenting or controversial but possibly accurate comments and posts never see the light of day.

  • shalafi@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    The org wanted to retain trans women but the UK’s court ruling made that a legal hazard? I’m not sure who would have standing to sue and over what exactly?