Transgender girls and women who are part of Girlguiding groups in the UK have been given until September 2026 to leave the organisation, under new rules introduced following a Supreme Court ruling on gender. The decision, announced on Tuesday, applies to young members and volunteer roles open only to women. Trans boys, trans men, and non-binary people assigned female at birth are not affected.
Girlguiding said the date was chosen to give as much notice as possible and to allow current members to participate in summer holiday activities. The organisation's leaders stated that their values of 'dignity, respect and inclusion' remain unchanged, but they 'must operate lawfully' and cannot ignore legal responsibilities.
The advocacy group Trans+ Solidarity Alliance criticised the move, saying it represents 'a profound failure of this government to live up to its promises to the trans community.' A Girlguiding volunteer, Lily, 28, described a sense of 'devastation' and 'betrayal', noting that many volunteers are considering resigning. Some have joined the Guiders Against Trans Exclusion group to protest, with demonstrations planned across the country.
Helen Joyce of the sex-based rights charity Sex Matters welcomed the decision, stating it was 'the right thing to do' and would come as a relief to many girls and parents who value single-sex provision. She acknowledged it would be difficult for the boys who were 'wrongly told by the adults around them that claiming to be girls made it OK for them to be in girl-only spaces'.
The policy change follows a December announcement that trans girls would no longer be allowed to join Girlguiding, and comes after the Supreme Court ruled in April 2025 that 'woman' and 'sex' in the Equality Act refer to biological sex. Girlguiding, which has some 300,000 young members and 80,000 volunteers, had faced legal action over its previous inclusive policy dating from 2018.
