Gender bender! When London’s Savile Club bent its 150-yr-old rule

Mayfair’s Savile Club recently bent its 150-year-old ‘men-only’ rule to allow a transgender member to stay on after a sex change to a woman — but it’s just a one-off. The traditional London gentlemen’s club currently allows women to visit the club as guests of members.

Requests to admit females have been rejected in the past. So it’s a promising, albeit small victory for gender equality supporters.

A representative of Savile Club told ETPanache, “We were surprised but encouraged by the publicity we received and feel certain we were doing the right thing.”

Another member was quoted saying, “He’s not joining as a woman, he joined as a man. It would be unfair for a terrific, friendly guy to expel him from the club just because he’s become a woman. That was never considered.”


(Image: savileclub.co.uk)

Some of its famous members, include composer Andrew Lloyd-Webber, writers Rudyard Kipling and Henry James. Many elite clubs in the UK have a no -women policy — and this rule even prompted former Prime Minister David Cameron to resign from White’s, a gentleman’s club in London, in 2008.