Hampstead Heath Ladies Pond - considering the SC judgement

[QuetzalTerfLus]

Apparently the CoLC is considering its position

https://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/25109343.equality-ruling-affect-hampstead-heath-swimming-pond/

Maybe we should 😂

Love to watch this - what's she/he on??

Talk TV.

Venice Allan's put the clip on Twitter: https://x.com/roseveniceallan/status/1919868202755956799?t=g5oUDeJunZBt7Lcybw3ctw&s=19

Glad to see it’s getting some publicity.

Those articles are awful @Davros No need to put three on there from one side of the discussion with no attempt at balance.

Great interview from Hannah. Kevin was never a fan of the TRAs but ISTR he was more “let’s be kind” in the past so he’s been on a journey and gets it much better now!

I hope these brave women will be regularly identifying as men in the men's pool. Maybe everyone could feel like a bloke every Manday / Monday.

I reckon where they went wrong with the security was the absence of a sock in the swimsuit and maybe they didn't suggest being kind. Or threaten to sue.

Great article in the Standard by Emma Hilton - very clear and to-the-point.

Latest in one of our two local papers
https://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/25163679.discrimination-protest-hampstead-heath-swimming-ponds/?ref=eb&nid=2390&block=article_block_a&u=a248f39b87a0e63551993ca1336fdb9a&date=290525

Interesting that the article puts the words "discrimination", "self-identified" as men and "claim their right" in sneer quotes.

Also the implication that the only men swimming in the pond are the few who have been through a difficult & traumatic process in order to get a GRC.

No way is anyone asking to see GRCs before letting them in.

And having a GRC does not in any event allow you to access a SSS for the opposite sex, according to the Supreme Court.

Anyone at all can complain to LGO if you have had a problem with a local authority that hasn’t been able to resolved by the complaints process of that local authority.
It doesn’t require a lawyer or cost anything except your time.
The only rule is that you have to have already been through the complaints process of the local authority first before LGO can consider your complaint.

First place to start, complain to the City of London Corporation. Unless they make a fully Supreme Court compliant response and immediately implement that at the pools, then you can refer their response and your complaint on the LGO.

I’d imagine the LGO must have been busy writing out to local authorities to remind them of their obligations to uphold the law, following the 2025 Supreme Court decision, otherwise LGO will be expecting a llllloooooootttttttt of extra work coming their way from complainants. Nobody wants that. Which is why complaining is a really effective thing to do. LGO’s decisions are published on their website so it’s a good way of bringing further attention and transparency to this issue.

The CoLC are crazy to be still clinging on to upholding their sexist misogynistic policies that have always been against the law. The fact that they disallow transmen in the men’s but do allow TRA women in the women’s pool just absolutely says it all. By their own standards they’re transphobic. Let alone not allowing self IDibg women into the men’s pool but allowing self Iding men in. But they don’t care because this is all simply about giving men what men want. They’re showing themselves to be straightforwardly illegal women- haters.

If it came to an argument, the pond management might say that people whose self-identification is genuine are allowed, but they'll exclude people whose "self-identification" is just a stunt done for attention. (Quotes versus not-quotes.)

Of course we'd say that identification should be based on biology and nothing else, and that the law supports that policy. But they'd probably disagree.

But I think all of that is irrelevant anyway if they want to continue calling it the women's pond; the law says that if places are advertised as being single-sex then that has to go by biology.
Actually, that's a good point: I don't know what the actual wording has to be, or more to the point what wording they could use to get around it. I presume they don't want to drop calling them the women's pond, men's pond and mixed pond, because that would make it patently obvious that they were pretending to have facilities for each sex; but could they weasel their way round it with the wording?

They can make all pools fully mixed, or they can make them properly single sex. Those are the 2 options the law allows. No messing with 'clever' wording changes that.

The law regulates what it is, not what it's called.

Then I'll be very interested to see what they do!

They'll have a serious challenge from the men's pool if they make them all unisex. Its a famous gay cruising ground and not at all a similar environment to the ladies pond. But their fight for male only status helps the fight for women only, so it may all come good.

Absolutely agree tho just for the record I believe there’s a little bit of lesbian cruising that happens in the Ladies’ too

Sorry for the incoherence, please ignore!

But how on earth can they tell the true trans from the fakes?

That's a hell of a risky line to tread (and incorporate into their policies, staff training, etc).

Can you imagine the poor sod on the gate having to turn people away for not being the right kind of trans?

I thought the mantra was something about being who they say they are. That's either true for everyone, or true for no one. Can't be only true for an indefinable special group.

It's cute that they think it matters whether they agree or disagree with the law.

Can't be only true for an indefinable special group.

It's "true" when men declare they are who they say they are. They can still tell men and women apart for the purpose of giving men the right to trample on women.

And hoy them out of “their” pool