The group was officially formed on 10 September 1984 in India, by Rinchen Khando Choegyal, a former Tibetan Youth Congress activist, although the group itself claims that a precursor was created in Tibet during the 1959 Tibetan Rebellion.

[1] Stephanie Roemer traces the organization back to the Lhasa Patriotic Woman's Association, founded in 1953 by the People's Liberation Army, which introduced the idea of women participating in politics, which was "radical" to Tibet.

In 1995, the TWA attempted to join the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, but the organization was denied accreditation on technical grounds, a situation which received widespread disapproving press coverage in America and Europe.

[2] In 2012, it was revealed that the president of the TWA, who is also a member of the Parliament of the Central Tibetan Administration, had embezzled $3,800 from the organization from 2000 to 2003.

[6] In April 2021, Tenzing Dolma [fr] was elected president of TWA.