When the chief executive of the Women’s Institute said last week that she felt the organisation had no choice but to end its 40-year policy of transgender inclusion, she sounded genuinely upset. When asked on Woman’s Hour whether a debate over trans members had been raging inside the organisation this year, Melissa Green was clear that “this hasn’t been a conversation that has dominated”. Much of the pressure, she said, had come from outside the organisation.

The decision followed a similar announcement from Girlguiding the day before, which will now ban trans girls from joining. Both organisations blamed the change on April’s supreme court ruling on the meaning of the word “sex” in the Equality Act 2010, but that’s far from the whole story. Really, it’s about those pressuring organisations on the basis that the case is closed, and exclusion is now legally required – when that is far from the case.

Consider the Guides. The court ruled that “sex” in the Equality Act means “biological sex” (what is, usually, recorded at birth) in contrast to “certificated sex”– which would have meant, for example, that trans women with a gender recognition certificate were considered female under the act. But under-18s have never been able to get gender recognition certificates. This means that whether a “biological” or “certificated” interpretation is adopted is entirely irrelevant to the inclusion of trans girls. Either way, they would have been considered “male” under the act. If they could be lawfully included notwithstanding this before April, they still can be now. Clearly, then, it isn’t a change to statutory interpretation which is at issue........

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