By Hugh Cameron and Shane CroucherShareNewsweek is a Trust Project memberThe Women's Institute in Britain will stop accepting transgender women as formal members following a landmark ruling on the legal definition of a woman by the country's Supreme Court earlier in the year.
The move is a symbol of the turning tide on transgender rights across Western nations, as laws and policies shift back towards the traditional definition of women as biological females, prioritizing instead sex-based rights and the protection of female-only spaces, in a movement spearheaded by the U.S. under President Donald Trump's second administration.
Melissa Green, chief executive of the National Federation of Women’s Institutes, said the decision to stop taking on trans members from April 2026 was made with the "utmost regret and sadness".
"As an organisation that has proudly welcomed transgender women into our membership for more than 40 years, this is not something we would do unless we felt that we had no other choice," Green said in a statement on Wednesday.
"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. However, this change is only in respect to our membership policy and does not change our firm belief that transgender women are women."
This is a breaking news story. Updates to follow.
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