Hampstead Pond - Brave woman speaks

[WandaWomblesaurus]

https://twitter.com/roseveniceallan/status/1764345843178512414?s=48

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20240302074256/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13146349/How-tranquil-oasis-female-swimmers-line-culture-wars-Bitter-row-trans-women-allowed-bathe-historic-single-sex-pond-comes-ferocious-head.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20240302074256/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13146349/How-tranquil-oasis-female-swimmers-line-culture-wars-Bitter-row-trans-women-allowed-bathe-historic-single-sex-pond-comes-ferocious-head.html

Venice Allan

Do you understand who was actually able to vote, @WandaWomblesaurus ? I haven't understood if there is a committee of a few people, or if all members were given a vote? I've never used the pond, just been reading a bit about it.

Not sure @HarpQuartet
It seems like the majority of women and some men voted - it’s so upsetting. And shame on the women who voted to include men in the spaces with no empathy for their sisters who might have trauma or rape trauma and want to be away from male bodies.
Shame on them.
They are entirely responsible for what happens next. And must be held accountable if a woman is raped, attacked or flashed at.

I’d also like to know.

I understand that the vote went in favour of the men remaining. I also saw some women who swim in the pond and are members were complaining this morning that they hadn’t been notified.

But I’d be very interested to know more about how close it was and whether there was any obvious manipulation, as we know there was when the original consultation was held.

It's just that I read there are something like 1000 members and I would be astonished if 1000 people were asked about this, and a majority thought this was the right decision.

Last time there was a vote I think most of the women's votes went in the bin if I remember rightly?

So misogyny and men's so very important feels and jolly experiences win over inclusion and equality of women again? Some women must lose everything so that men can have all the happy best life choices?

It's getting starker and starker that this is nothing more than a particularly ugly men's rights movement, and it is anything but left politically. Or socialist. It's almost pure 1970s round table stuff.

Funny, I thought "women are responsible for mens actions" was generally frowned upon on here.

Is this the right website?
https://www.hampsteadponds.co.uk/contact

Can we contact them to ask who voted?

In awe of Venice Allan. She is an amazing, fierce woman.
Thank you Venice.

I’m now wondering if an ‘I ❤️ Venice T shirt’ but in suffrage colours would be obtuse enough to just get knowing nods and discreet smiles of acknowledgement.
I 💜🤍💚 Venice

It was a very disappointing AGM with a fabulously chaotic ending.
Venice was amazing as were many other women.

The committee had managed to gather enough handmaidens - many twentysomething women with "queer" hair, who genuinely believed they were on the side of the right and the good. They voted approx 160 to 60 to appoint all the "be kind" brigade to the committee.

It was democratic in that all 1000 members were invited and a large school hall had been hired.

The BIG mistake was the chair telling Venice to "sit down and behave".
NOBODY tells Venice Allen to behave!

Maybe mumsnet could mobilise for the next one!

The Terfs lost the room. They went in like bulls in a china shop and the existing committee and their supporters, who are really supporters of the status quo (I.e. we love the pond so leave it as it is) were repelled. Yes, the KLPA committee plus members have beclowned themselves by being such ardent supporters of men's rights to swim in the ladies pond, but if the intention of the activists was to change hearts and minds, this was not the right tactic.

That said they got some superb publicity and it puts the row on to a different level, hopefully they will challenge city of London now.

Is it really a long standing status quo though?
I thought the men in all three ponds was a relatively new thing - so from a "we love the pond and don't want it to change" attitude, you would want it back to men, women and mixed.

I wonder whether many of the women who were excluded from the pool when it became mixed sex would have voted for returning the women's pool to single sex status, but had already left the Association because of being excluded from the pool.

Can all men use the former Ladies’ pond? or only the men who say they are women?

Someone's been briefing the DM
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13152345/tempers-vote-ban-trans-bathers-hampsted-heath-protest.html

@HereForTheFreeLunch I meant that they voted in favour of the current status quo regarding the familiar and hard working committee and the pond they love, rather than for aggressive infiltrators. Almost like the trans issue isn't the point and they're just voting in favour of the pond, as they see it.
There are definitely many who voted strongly on the trans issue and there were lots of younger women there who probably don't swim but were drafted in to vote. (Same as team terf).

I don’t understand. Surely if there is already a mixed pond then everyone is already provided for and there’s no need to make the woman’s pond mixed too?

Yes, but validation.

It would be interesting to know whether there was a wave of new registrations in the lead up to this and whether all members were actually contacted and told what the vote was for.

I do think that persuasion can work better than aggression though. While I admire the spirit of a woman who can disrupt a meeting when she didn’t like the outcome, if I was wavering over who had the more reasonable argument, I don’t think the argument that “someone will inevitably get raped or assaulted and it will be all your fault” would be persuasive.

I mean that’s obviously a worst case scenario, but if all the men who’ve been using the pond up til now have been carefully quiet, it might seem like a massive scaremongering attempt. For me, it’s more about the women who now can’t access the pond when they could before, and also because it simply wouldn’t feel like a comfortable woman only space as soon as I saw a male person there, and it would be especially unnerving if I found him in a changing room.

I don’t know what the changing room is like, but in a woman only space I would feel very free and relaxed and would feel no need to rush. I’ve been using Scandinavian changing rooms for a number of years, where nudity is absolutely normal. If there was any risk of a man being there, that relaxed feeling would be gone.

And for me, those things would be important and persuasive. If we look at who has done the persuasion in the opposite direction, it tends to be those who’ve gone in with a softly, softly, approach. That is what we have to fight.

It would be interesting to know whether there was a wave of new registrations in the lead up to this

Applications for new membership are closed 28 days prior to the AGM, so it's unlikely.

and whether all members were actually contacted and told what the vote was for.

Invitations to the AGM are sent to all members no less than 28 days in advance. In terms of voting for committee members, information is circulated in the newsletter in December.

Toseland · Yesterday 19:24

Last time there was a vote I think most of the women's votes went in the bin if I remember rightly?

If it has a constitution, surely there could be a legal case to be had, as to their actions?

Cazpar · Today 07:42

Applications for new membership are closed 28 days prior to the AGM, so it's unlikely. Invitations to the AGM are sent to all members no less than 28 days in advance. In terms of voting for committee members, information is circulated in the newsletter in December.

Well, that gave them two months to recruit a gang of blue hairs. Also, it's been rumbling on for much longer than that, so they've had plenty of time to recruit.

So the pond now excludes many religious women, any women with PTSD or trauma histories, and any other women who don't want to swim/change with male bodied people. But includes males with the right feelings.

They shouldn't call it a 'ladies pool' anymore, I hope the signage is very clear.

Very true. In the past there were Orthodox Jewish women who swam there regularly. When all this blew up, they disappeared.