Hampstead Heath Ladies' Pond faces legal action

[IwantToRetire]

Hampstead Heath Ladies’ Pond is facing legal action for allegedly failing to ban transgender women despite the landmark Supreme Court gender ruling.

The famed women-only bathing spot has maintained its trans-inclusive policy pending a ‘review’ in spite of the UK’s highest court ruling in April that trans women are not legally female.

Women’s rights campaigners sent a legal letter to the City of London Corporation, which manages the ponds, last week warning they intend to bring a legal challenge unless the policy is revoked with 'immediate effect’.

The legal letter, seen by the Mail, says that the current policy ‘violates the dignity of women using the Ladies’ Pond’ and that the Corporation is ‘operating it unlawfully by allowing trans identifying males to access it’.

From https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14851251/Hampstead-Heath-Ladies-Pond-legal-action-ban-trans-women-Supreme-Court.html

Different version of same story https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/06/26/hampstead-ladies-pond-swimmers-accuse-trans-women-spying/ and at https://archive.is/fZ31q

Perfectly put. It's deeply annoying that vast swathes of people who should know better - especially MPs and managers of swimming facilities - appear to have no understanding of AGP men.

You know what really grips my shit. I know that they are in the wrong. They know that they are in the wrong. Despite knowing that they are in the wrong, they hide behind EHRC final guidance.

They are going to look like all sorts of arseholes when the ruling is delivered.

They are going to look like all sorts of arseholes when the ruling is delivered.

They're going to do their damnedest to misinterpret it or find ways to say it's not clear. So I hope the EHRC nail the thing down very carefully. Fill in that consultation everyone.

Oh the guidance will come out, it will be the wrong guidance, and there'll be a new reason to deny women their legal rights. We'll be waiting for the European Court, and should that court decline to get involved - which is quite possible - we'll wait for Godot.

In the meantime, the case law will stack up and so will the pay outs to women.

She didn’t say ‘reduced rights’. That’s very plain from the article, if you read it with a tiny bit of care. Plus the Guardian were required to amend the headline and first para due to it being inaccurate, and potentially defamatory.

Do you have a link to that? Sorry if I missed it.

@Insanityisnotastrategy it's here but you'd better get your skates on, it closes at midnight! https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/equality/equality-act-2010/codes-practice/code-practice-services-public-functions-and-associations

Sex Matters has some info here: https://sex-matters.org/take-action/respond-to-the-ehrc-consultation-now/

No.

When you say reduced rights, you left out ‘reduced from what you wrongly believed they were’. It’s Iike the head explaining to a bully that they are not allowed to punch other students- the bully feels their rights are reduced, but the head is explaining the very fair rules as they have always been and highlighting that they actually apply to the bully too.

'Reduced rights'....

-absolutely no issues though in that these actions reduced women's righ, its, that was fine apparently, and to go on reducing women's rights in law would be what, the right thing to do? More for men, less for women, all good?
-they never WERE rights at all, they were illegal trespassing upon women's legal rights and protections
-this is like whinging that the guy you stole the phone from has gone to the police and now you have to give it back when you like having the phone and need a phone, and you've had it a while now so it's unfair to deprive you of it.
-rights are not a trans-only thing.

Indeed.

Talking of which, the Church of Scotland - one of whose sacred buildings was the scene of the blessed nuptials of Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell - is jolly cross with Stonewall and the Good Law Project for misleading them over, erm, the law and TRA-IdPol overreach. Dear oh dear.

If only someone had said something before.

Sad.

I know, right? Why didn't some ladies say anything or do some nice little tribunals or something?

😂
So much egg on face incoming 😂

Oooh, tell us more. What have they been saying?

Have they caught a glimpse of the light?

mean (a) I'm not a man and I'm not going to swim in the men's

Isn't it wonderful that there is a Mixed Sex Pond for you to use then @BeeSouriante, you can use that and no outing required either - win win as they say.

Possibly we need a massed performance of the I Told You So dance for their benefit.

@BeeSouriante you’ve no business using the women’s pond. You’re male, use the men’s or the mixed sex.

The Telegraph has a new article

https://archive.ph/WcHaR

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/04/trans-row-women-only-pond-hampstead/

I see that the Telegraph thinks quoting MN (must be FWR) gives credibility!

However, some women on the online forum Mumnset did see the survey and sensed problems straight away.

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

www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/church-scotland-embroiled-trans-row-35480771.amp

Good article!

New article in the Times:
https://www.thetimes.com/article/5fe7a58d-7359-4963-8674-3da33a80ff02?shareToken=6af3669fb047c13596eca53fc1ccf87a

Bring it on. No mention of Man Friday and the difference in response to women going into the men’s pond compared to geezers in the women’s pond 😡

What is really interesting (at least to me - for various reasons) is reading what is essentially the particulars of claim, the "Statement of Facts and Grounds".

Ans also Maya Forstater's witness statement.

Both are available here:

https://sex-matters.org/posts/updates/hampstead-ponds-we-have-filed-our-case/