TWIBS: Girlguiding and Women’s Institute Betray Trans Girls and Women
As a result of the UK Supreme Court’s verdict on trans women’s lack of legal protection, youth scout organization Girlguiding has banned trans girls from joining. The Women’s Institute quickly followed suit.
by Aly Gibbs
This Week in Barrel Scraping (TWIBS) is Assigned Media’s longest running column! Every Friday, Aly Gibbs digs deep from the well of transphobia and finds the most obnoxious, goofy thing transphobes have said or obsessed over during the week and tears it to shreds.
Girlguiding, a youth scouts organization in the UK, has officially declared that they’re banning trans girls from joining the organization… and in the process, given another women’s group that has historically allowed trans women to participate permission to issue their own discriminatory ban.
Describing themselves as “the UK’s largest youth organisation dedicated completely to girls,” Girlguiding operates much like American youth scout organizations: They get together at the local level to engage in outdoors activities, as well as attending events abroad, and complete challenges and earn badges for their hard work.
Now, according to a statement released by Girlguiding’s CEO, Chair of Trustees and Chief Guide on Tuesday, trans girls won’t be allowed to participate, reversing a seven year old stance on inclusivity.
“Following April’s Supreme Court decision relating to sex and gender, many organisations across the country have been facing complex decisions about what it means for girls and women and for the wider communities affected,” begins the statement published on their website. “Following detailed considerations, expert legal advice and input from senior members, young members and our Council, the Board of Trustees for Girlguiding has made the difficult decision that Girlguiding must change, following the Supreme Court’s ruling. From today, 2 December, it is with a heavy heart that we are announcing trans girls and young women will no longer be able to join Girlguiding. This is a decision we would have preferred not to make, and we know that this may be upsetting for members of our community.”
The statement goes on to say that there will be no “immediate changes” for current young members, but that more information will be shared next week. It also says that most adult positions within the organization, such as “unit helpers, district helpers and administrative support,” will be unaffected by these changes.
Public backlash was immediate.
As of publication, a change.org petition demanding that trans girls and women be allowed back into Girlguides has over 22,000 signatures. TV celebrity Ashley James stepped down as a Girlguides ambassador in protest. Some Girlguides leaders discussed striking and openly disobeying the new ban.
The very next day, the Women’s institute—the largest women’s organization in the UK, founded in Canada in the late 19th century and established in the UK in 1915—announced that they too would stop offering membership to trans women starting in April.
“Incredibly sadly, we will have to restrict our membership on the basis of biological sex from April next year,” said Melissa Green, chief executive of the National Federation of Women’s Institutes. “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.” Green also said that they intended to create “sisterhood groups” that would be open to everybody, a sort of consolation prize for the organization tacitly declaring that trans women are men.
While the WI made their stance allowing trans women to join explicit in 2015, they had offered membership to trans women since the 1970s, meaning that this decision overturns fifty years of solidarity between the organization and its trans members.
Both of these organizations will wring their hands and tell us they’re deeply sorry that, regrettably, their hands have been forced by the UK Supreme Court. They’ll insist that there’s simply nothing they can do, because of threats of litigation by transphobes or risk of penalization from the Charity Commission, or whatever.
The truth, of course, is that these are incredibly weak excuses. I may not be a lawyer, or even overtly familiar with UK law, and I understand that these fights would do tremendous financial damage to the organizations that are meekly bowing their heads and banning trans women from participation… but frankly, I just don’t give a shit.
Surrendering to fascists is surrendering to fascists, no matter how you frame or spin it. Every organization that kowtows to gender critical terrorists is betraying supremely vulnerable people in the face of an organized, worldwide hate campaign, and they should be ashamed of themselves.
Let’s hope they regret their cowardice sooner rather than later.
Aly Gibbs (She/They), formerly Alyssa Steinsiek, is a trans writer who reports on news important to the queer community.
