City of London Corporation consultation is out (this covers Hampstead Ponds)

[SwearyG]

And it's awful

No mention of sex, no mention of impact on any stakeholders, all leading questions, and horrible clear intention to filter.

This will affect the wonderful space at Hampstead Ponds so I urge you all to complete it. I will be speaking to the Corporation about its clear bias and lack of adherence to guidelines.

[SwearyG]

@Needmoresleep can you please email the City of London with what you've said here - they are accepting submissions that aren't on the surveywanky form thing. It's really important that stories like this are put across - that the risks exist and have to be managed, pretending they don't is a recipe for disaster. And effectively removing facilities from women is so wrong.

Hampstead Ponds needs to be cited in every third space argument - there is a third space re Hampstead Ponds and that's not acceptable to the TRAs. It's all about violating our spaces and our boundaries for the sake of validation and it stinks. There is a reasonable alternative at the ponds! It makes me so bloody furious.

[NothingOnTellyAgain]

"Sports facilities, especially those that appeal to girls and women are very limited in Central London. It would be wrong and disproportionate if, for the sake of a few - who can access the mixed pond in Hamstead without problem - a number of others were discouraged. It is worth noting that neighbouring Westminster has the highest rate of childhood obesity in the Country. There is a lot at stake here."

For sexist men though, sport is not for girls. Girls and women are for being quiet and pretty, not for running around, exercising, being strong. That can make girls and women forget that their bodies are primarily objects for men to look at/ fuck.

Obviously it doesn't matter about girls and women losing access to sporting facilities as it's not something that they should be interested in in the first place.

Plus, if women and girls must do this stuff, what is the point if men can't watch them?

[Needmoresleep]

Sweary, I already wrote on Monday. I care passionately about sports access for children/young people in Central London and have racked up the volunteer hours to prove it. The fact that so many do not do anything active at all is shocking. Swimming is one of the easiest, in an area where some schools have no outdoor space at all and where few people have gardens or cars. With swimming there are some quite specific racial/cultural issues at play, and one pleasure has been observing an incressing diversity amongst Tooting Lido users as peer influences amongst teenagers etc take effect.

This is such an important issue. Yet health needs of girls, assuming this forms a prescedent, will be abandoned in the flames of PCness. (And this is before we start on girls refusing at access mixed toilet facilities.)

Consultation should aim to understand competing needs with the aim of finding a fair and sustainable approach.

[SwearyG]

Good work, Needsmoresleep I think written submissions are going to end up being really important here due to the ridiculousness of the online survey. I am super very cross about this, I really am. Removing facilities from women and girls to support some egos is very much not on.

[R0wantrees]

CityCorpHeath delete the offensive retweet:
WPUK comment:
twitter.com/Womans_Place_UK/status/1024699141350416384

[QuarksandLeptons]

Placemarking

[MangoSplit]

Good news that our complaints have had some effect and the tweet has been deleted.

[corlan]

Just filled out the survey. It is incredibly biased. I will also email the City of London.

[Needmoresleep]

It strikes me that effective opposition to changes would best focus on the proposed changes to operating public spaces and facilities. Rather than the trans issue.

A local authority will have a set of aims and objectives around encouraging use of facilities either to promote public health and wellbeing and/or to maximise revenue/minimise subsidy.

They will recognise a duty to keep users safe, and that if users feel unsafe they will stop using the facility.

They will recognise that some very odd, potentially unsafe, people use public spaces and facilities. There is already quite a body of knowledge within the management of public spaces and facilities on how to design or manage out potential problems.

Only yesterday at the Tooting Lido I saw a security guard (a way of managing out problems) stop a middle aged man on his own without a towel/bag who was trying to gain entry and politely turn him away. Reassuring as there were masses of small children running around.

The main problem with the proposals is the lack of safeguards. Essentially any old Tom Dick or Harry would be able to claim to identify as a women. Lovely and PC but without safeguards or a management and design review, other users may feel unsafe, indeed may be unsafe.

Is there a user/friends group for the womens pond. If not its not too hard, using leaflets and email to set one up and hold an initial meeting. Look at the Corporations aims and objectives, seek to work constructively with them to meet these. Then carry out a seperate short user and potential user survey aimed at identifying what users want and dont want. That way you can claim to represent user views and, effectively dodge the transgender debate.

You may expect users to articulate concerns about sharing communal changing space with 'self declared' women, genuine or not. But that is then something for the Corporations to manage. If they have any sense they decide their obligations are under the sex (not gender) discrimination act. And that the potential conflicts between different user groups (including dodgy blokes who are using any TG concessions for their own ends) is such that management wise it is easier/safer to steer natal men to the mixed pond.

My experience is that people running public facilities are keen to do a good job and like recognition/appreciation. They may not be able to express their concerns within their organisation (which is why gender equality people are running the survey) but may not be inhappy to have a user group who can articulate user concerns.

Sorry that was so long. I have done my share of campaigning to protect public facilities.

[Whitecurrents]

www.klpa.org.uk Is the Ladies' Pond Association. They don't seem to mention any of this on their site.
The survey is still open for comments

[R0wantrees]

WPUK comment on the consultation:
"We are very concerned that this survey is not being carried out in good faith and that it is being done in such a way as to privilege the interests of some people over others. We believe the City of London Corporation may be in breach of its obligations under the Equality Act (2010) and the Public Sector Equality Duty.

We are therefore calling on the City of London Corporation to halt the consultation and review its implementation to ensure it is in line with good practice and with the law.

What can you do?
If you share our concerns, please:

Write to the City of London Corporation explaining why you are concerned about the proposals
See below for the contents of our letter and feel free to adapt: personalised letters produce better responses.
Refer to any sites and facilities run by the City (see above) that you use and explain how a change in this policy would impact on you and others.
Submit your letter here
Let us know that you have contacted them and share any response you get" (continues with example letter)

womansplaceuk.org/write-to-the-city-of-london/

[Ereshkigal]

Timely bump - ends tomorrow.

[Needmoresleep]

Whitecurrents, why is the Ladies Pond Associaton not publicising a consultation that is of direct relevence to their members. They dont have to give a steer if they dont want to, but their members should have a chance to have their say.

My guess is that members of various transgender groups will know about the consultation and will have submitted responses, even if they have never been to Hampstead. ....democracy in action.

I never did get a reply from the City of London questioning the way the survey had been distributed/publicised and about the bias within the questions.

[Prawnofthepatriarchy]

I've just finished. Took me an hour and a half, FFS. Still each of us is another voice speaking up for women.

It sounds like everyone on the thread has taken their own line on the questions, each stressing slightly different angles, which is brilliant. No one can claim we're a hive mind rather than women concerned about the implications of Self ID and the proposed changes. I made much of the stats on assault in unisex facilities.

I was very struck that after a stream of questions about did I 'identify' as this, that and the other, when we got to the question of ethnicity they suddenly changed the wording. I wasn't asked which ethnicity I identified as. Weird, that. Dunno why it got me thinking of Rachel Dolezal.

[AsAProfessionalFekko]

There are plenty of free text boxes. Fill your boots!

[ChattyLion]

I have filled out that utter shower of shite survey too. It was so horrendously skewed and badly done it was laughable.

I had to keep on writing with this one, ‘Nope, I think you meant sex here, and here, and here..’ I thought that Scottish government one was bad!

mobile.twitter.com/CityCommons/status/1038806810101211137/photo/1

To the PP who was talking about forming a group- this twitter link shows that the same organisation that runs the ladies’ pond is also wanting to fund community-building get togethers of the community in their green spaces -

maybe a women’s community group might like to apply to hold an event to raise this issue of single sex provision with other women who use the Heath and want to the Ponds to remain single sex... ?

[ChattyLion]

You don’t have to be a charity to apply but you do have to have ideas to ‘connect communities to THEIR green spaces’.

I know, I know a great idea - let’s give the community of Women access to green space to use, just for themselves as Women... maybe a pond for swimming in?

Mixed or men’s pools are also going to be provided. Sounds like a good idea that could catch on, doesn’t it?

[flintyminty]

Thanks for the reminder about the end date. Just completed. Agree with above, what a shower of shite.

[NotAnotherFeckingMuftiDay]

Done.
At first I was enraged but once I got going it was really cathartic to let it all out without worrying about the MN rules on permitted terms

[witchmountain]

Just done it. Bump for the last day. What a load of bollocks. No pun intended.

[seafret]

45 minutes left. It can still be done!!

[R0wantrees]

UPDATE current thread:

OP 2010Equality wrote Wed 22-May-19
"City of London Consultation Results - they can't get away with this
Man Friday!

The City of London consultation on “gender identity” and single-sex facilities (including Hampstead Ponds, toilets and changing rooms at running track, facilities at the Barbican etc... ) results are out .

It's bad. The policy has been adopted on the basis of the flawed survey and misreading of the equality act.

My thread here

//threadreaderapp.com/thread/1130973355849461765.html

They can't get away with this!"
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3592053-City-of-London-Consultation-Results-they-cant-get-away-with-this