Hampstead Ponds update today

IANAL but I think the argument is that you have to show detriment to prove discrimination. It's the idea that separate but equal is not discriminatory.

So you could have supermarket for men + women over 6 foot and a supermarket for women and men under 6 foot as long as they were identical?

In practice I think you would stumble over the problem that services are rarely identical and women and men have different needs.

It continues to surprise me just how many people believe that if a man calls himself a woman then, somehow, he is a woman.

I feel like we'll be blighted with this idiocy for generations.

No I don't think so. How would you justify offering a service that includes all women and some men but not others?

Where I live women only sessions ( specifically for muslim women and girls) have been created - and this means exactly what it says.I have long suspected that this is what would happen......that Muslims would create their own female only schools, services and facilities to avoid the madness of 'inclusion'.

Not quite. The Equality Act entails that it may discriminate against the men who are not allowed in. But whether or not it is actually discriminatory would depend on the details of the individual case brought. And I think that the men would have to show that they had suffered some detriment? IANAL etc.

I'll be gardening for the High Court case.

Interesting argument given that you apparently want to remove sexual orientation from the list of protected characteristics in the Equality Act.

We know that stopping fully-clothes trans women piping meringues with their friends isn't feminism, or safeguarding.

I don't think anyone has prevented anyone from piping meringues with their friends.

Ha, it cannot be argued at all the SC ruling has seen to that.

No, they do break the law.

Allowing one specific subset of men into a woman's group while excluding other men is discriminatory.

Of course they shouldn't. But my post was suggesting ways in which it can be argued that the trans-inclusive arrangements don't in fact break the law.

And even then, for the challenge to succeed, they would have to prove some sort of detriment, presumably? Which would be hard if the men's and ladies ponds offered similar benefits to one another

I think it would be difficult to show that the ponds are identical.

Although personally i feel really sad that the women's pond can't be left alone by men, I'm starting to feel that if it is genuinely true that a majority of users prefer the trans-inclusive arrangements, these arrangements should be allowed to stand,

I don't think service users should be able to vote on whether equality legislation applies.

It all seems an awful lot of effort when there’s a mixed sex pond already that everyone can enjoy.

This. This is GI ideology writ large. There was a man's pond. A women's pond. A mixed pond. All the facilities were already there, no money needed to be spent (except perhaps for some upgrading). But they didn't want the mixed pond. They want the women's pond. The mixed pond is not enough. Nothing is ever going to be enough.

Of course a swimming pond is not a toilet so the thinking is not directly applicable. However the purpose of single sex toilets for privacy, dignity and propriety could potentially read across? Not to mention the need for separate toilets and changing facilities at the newly mixed sex ponds.

It all seems an awful lot of effort when there’s a mixed sex pond already that everyone can enjoy.

No doubt, but the end of that paragraph makes clear that in this case the “female” lavatory would be mixed sex.

Reading that paragraph in the context of earlier paragraphs makes clear (to me and IANAL although I can read) that failure to provide single sex facilities for women (even if mixed provision is available) would be indirect discrimination towards women.

This is currently the case at Hampstead, it’s all mixed sex.

Even if it were true, why do you think 'a majority of users' should get to overrule the law?

Of a majority of a car club (random example) wanted to overrule the law on speed limits, would that be okay also?

they don't have to provide any single sex ponds if they don't want - they just have to clearly label the ponds as such

"If it's genuinely true" lol - we're very familiar with the city of London 'consultations' driven by the NB Edward Lord who disregarded all the consultation responses that disagreed with his stance around 'gender neutral toilets'

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womensrights/3650789-Advice-please-Edward-Lord-1-what-has-he-done-that-is-so-appalling-2-has-everything-been-decided

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4572896-tra-on-tribunal-panel-for-school-gender-identity-cass

But only where it is a proportionate response to a legit need. If there are adequately private changing facilities (and apparently these are going to be upgraded to ensure they meet the relevant standards), surely there is no legal requirement for single-sex swimming to be provided.

The legal challenge would need to come from non-trans-identified men (in the ladies pond) and non-trans-identified women (in the men's pond). And even then, for the challenge to succeed, they would have to prove some sort of detriment, presumably? Which would be hard if the men's and ladies ponds offered similar benefits to one another - and even harder because of the existence of an everyone-welcome mixed-sex pond.

Also, regarding the names of the ponds, the Equality Act doesn't directly state rules about the naming of facilities as such. It just holds that calling a service single-sex when it isn't in fact single sex (bcs there are transwomen using it) is legally null in the sense that it doesn't do anything to establish that the provider is making needful provisions for women.

Possibly consumer laws might entail restrictions on the name?? -- at any rate they would require the pond providers to make it absolutely clear that the ladies pond wasn't single sex.

Although personally i feel really sad that the women's pond can't be left alone by men, I'm starting to feel that if it is genuinely true that a majority of users prefer the trans-inclusive arrangements, these arrangements should be allowed to stand,

I am totally up for identifying as man-gender and going in the men's pond. It's only men complaining that will change anything.

No. Women's rights to single sex spaces (not gendered spaces) are enshrined in law. Deal with it.

There certainly used to be but the TRA got them either stopped or replaced with "anyone who identifies as a woman" swimming sessions. Any leisure centre advertising women only usually has a policy underneath which allows self id

www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/list_of_council_funded_women_onl_30/response/2353922/attach/3/37339022.docx?cookie_passthrough=1

If they aren’t complying with one of the exceptions in the Equality Act then they are just randomly discriminating.

Do you think sex discrimination should be legal just because an organisation has a poll? Can Reform councillors do that too?

If on tbe other hand all the pools are now mixed sex and open to all, I’m sure many women will enjoy swimming in the larger men’s pond and I can only assume that they will be made welcome.

There is sno such thing as a 'mixed gender' session but there are many pools which operate women only sessions so that women and girls can swim free from the presence of men; and increasingly many gyms and saunas are implementing these single sex sessions too. In fact, there has been a surge in women only gyms in recent times.

Most of the deaths, every year, in lakes, rivers, reservoirs and in open sea are of young men.

Ffs.

Featured on the local BBC news part of BBC Breakfast and the court case from Sex Matters was referred to. Along with the entrance to the Ladies Pond and the clear sign it is women only.