From The Spectator
'Not another step!’ The large women in an old T shirt stretched across her bulging shoulders glared at my father. We were standing under a canopy of trees on Hampstead Heath in north London. Sunshine dappled through the leaves onto my face. I was 12 years old and clutched a wet and muddy costume. Through the greenery was a glimpse of lake and naked limbs.
My childhood oasis of tranquillity is under threat. My father had come to pick me up from swimming in the Kenwood Ladies’ Pond. He had started up the path only to be confronted by the lifeguard. ‘Women only.’ she growled and pointed to the board declaring ‘Men cannot go beyond this point,’ Then she took in our long-haired dachshund. ‘And he’s male too,’ she said with disgust.
To my astonishment my fearless father who had charmed even Russia’s secret police and would go on to do the same to former Red Guards in Communist China, hung back, dragging our dog with him. He accepted without a murmur the orders of the still angry guard determined to preserve this female only space.
That lifeguard’s determination has long gone. Kenwood Ladies’ Pond has become a front line in the culture wars. All my father has to do now is declare himself a woman and barge his way through.
Designated women-only in 1926, the pond was a refuge for women of all ages and backgrounds and played a unique role in my childhood. It is breathtakingly beautiful and peaceful. The pond itself is surrounded by trees trailing their branches into the deep water and meadows where women often sunbath naked.
The changing room has barely altered. It still is rough and ready and communal. Women walk around unselfconsciously and wash themselves in open showers. It was one of the first places my parents let me go on my own or with school friends because they knew it was safe.
In hot weather I perform the same ritual I did as a child. I swim in a slow circuit around the pond in the shade of the overhanging trees. My feet tangle in the roots of the water lilies as my chin pushes through the yellow flowers. On my last visit, I find myself at eye level with two, teenage ducklings as they received a midge catching lesson from their mother. Obediently they copied her every action, the surface of the pond dimpling faintly with their movements. Their eyes focused on the rising midges as beaks snapped in unison. From all around come the comforting sound of women’s voices, murmuring to each other as they swam.
But my childhood oasis of tranquillity is under threat.
This week Venice Allan became the first woman to be banned from the group which runs the place – the Kenwood Ladies’ Pond Association (KLPA). Her crime? She criticised their decision to allow in transgender women. The snake that has entered my paradise is a gender intelligence training course funded by the City of London, which administers the pond. All 11 of her fellow committee members, says Venice Allan, have been on it. ‘The result is they declare that trans women are women.’ To suggest otherwise, they warn, is a breach of the 2010 Equality Act.
Gender ideology has infiltrated even here.
‘They are of course entitled to that view,’ says Venice Allan who clearly has not had the required gender training, ‘but I felt I had to speak out.’ Which she did in March at the pond’s annual general meeting. She jumped up on a chair, an unmissable figure in a brightly flowered dress, and demanded to know why the KLPA had rejected a motion to allow only those ‘born female in sex’ to use the ladies’ pond. For good measure she also accused them of making ‘male violence’ possible.
She is not alone in being upset. There are three ponds on the Heath, mixed, women and men only. Men can now swim in all three while women have lost the one place they could call their own. In protest, about 20 women ‘identified’ as men for the afternoon and gate crashed the men’s pool nearby – where my father used to swim regularly – dressed in face beards and even a lime green mankini, to highlight the absurdity of gender self-identification. They were ejected by staff. No such luck for the man in tiny trunks displaying his genitalia who entered the Ladies’ pond, as one regular lady swimmer complained.
‘I have been there when someone with hormone induced moobs is at the edge of the pond letting it all hang out. It’s hard to feel that isn’t a statement.’ Allan told the Mail on Sunday.
‘Banning me sends a message – just a year before we celebrate 100 years of this iconic women’s space – that women who object to men using the pool are not welcome.’
So I am glad I experienced Kenwood Ladies’ Pond when it was still exactly that. And the only thing to surprise me was the ducklings learning how to snap up a midge.
Harriet Sergeant is a journalist and the author of Among the Hoods: My Years With a Teenage Gang.