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Women’s Institute bans trans members.

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Gabriella SwerlingSocial and Religious Affairs Editor

03 December 2025 10:37am GMT

Melissa Green, the chief executive of the National Federation of Women’s Institutes, has said the organisation will still ‘support’ trans women Credit: Imageplotter/Alamy Stock Photo

The Women’s Institute has banned transgender women from becoming members.

The National Federation of Women’s Institutes (NFWI) revealed on Wednesday it can no longer legally offer formal membership to biological males from April next year in light of the Supreme Court judgment.

The Supreme Court ruled this April that the legal definition of a woman under the Equality Act was based on biological sex, not preferred gender identity.

Melissa Green, the chief executive of the NFWI, said: “It is with the utmost regret and sadness that we must announce that, from April 2026, we can no longer offer formal membership to transgender women.”

She added: “We will bring forward programmes to continue to extend fellowship, sisterhood and support to transgender women.”

Current transgender members of the Women’s Institute will not have their memberships cancelled, but they will not be renewed in April 2026.

Although a spokesman for the Women’s Institute said the organisation would be working with its current transgender members “to support them and to clarify the details of our new membership policy”.