Sex Matters - Hampstead Heath Ponds -

[SexRealismBeliefs]

Sex Matters, a charity that campaigns for single-sex rights, will argue that the City of London Corporation is breaching equality law by allowing trans women to use Kenwood Ladies’ Pond on Hampstead Heath.

Hearing this Wednesday.

https://www.thetimes.com/article/cceca8ca-4167-4b04-875a-40ddacfea782?shareToken=e9fe25a546d20835f1a5a66564cbf27b

Oh quelle surprise - they are going for privacy over health&safety. On Hampstead Heath.

Should I spell it out what will happen?

Thanks! So there was a public meeting.

I wonder how that went.

Or was it just that members of the public were invited to listen whislt they read their statement out?

I wonder how many gender critical sex realist women have been told their presence is not welcome over the years.

Preaching to the choir as a consequence.

My reading of it is that the meeting was public in the way that council committee meetings are public - where the public don't get to contribute (just watch and seethe).

Expert legal advice? From whom? Someone who identifies as a barrister? Or one who is trying to pass himself off as a woman / bludgeons passing wildlife?

Wow. They didn’t even bother paying lip service to why women might feel this is a sexist and dangerous policy. The patriarchy is so strong with these ones.

Also the journalistic write up is highly misleading. The Hampstead Heath Ladies’ Pond is already trans inclusive and rightly so. Transmen are welcome there as they always have been. Because women-only environments are a safe space for (amongst other things) women be free and to not conform to gender stereotypes, in an environment away from the censure and the threat of the male gaze.

Following this policy if it were even legal to continue to do so which it isn’t, is discrimination against all women- the women who would be forced to stay home or swim with men, and the transmen and gender non conforming women who would be not allowed entry because they are now seen as men. Caught up in that exclusion would be butch lesbians who very much don’t identify as men nor want to swim around men. Because being a woman isn’t about your external presentation of hackneyed sex stereotypes. It’s absolutely grotesque for any public body to be clinging on to this homophobic lesbophobic position when lesbian culture has already been so heavily oppressed by gender identity authoritarianism in recent decades. The needs of women (including lesbians and transmen) are totally overlooked in this lionisation of men’s sexual rights and men’s sexual access to women and girls. (Yes, girls too, because don’t have to be an adult to swim there)

Only major red flaggy controlling misogynist sexists would want want to take away a space to be free, from women. Obviously people can think what they want but it’s totally unacceptable that some institutions seem feel entitled to act as if they are above the law simply because of male sexual entitlement. Why are women still having to spend our time and money restating all of this stuff, year after year?

It’s interesting how different bodies argue this case. The NHS have generally tried to say that safety is the only reason to exclude and that privacy & dignity aren’t issues. Which is the opposite of here…

I wonder if they’ll get why private cubicles aren’t a good idea when cleaners refuse to clean them anymore (like when public toilets get closed down).

So what happens from here? Do they carry on until/unless someone raises a private lawsuit?

I wonder why they need more privacy? Females concerned about seeing other females or something else? 🤷🏻‍♀️

Well, now they’ve stated that trans identifying females should use the men’s, surely they couldn’t possibly argue about another Man Friday event?

It’s the same ‘logic’ that used for toilet cubicles - increase the privacy because privileged people don’t understand why it’s not completely private - in their world they like to think everyone behaves well and no one is ill. The only thing they concede is the discomfort that men and women don’t like to hear to see body parts of the opposite sex when doing intimate things like undressing or going to the loo.

I am tempted to link to a stomach-churning university project but I think (rightly) mumsnet would delete it.

If the pond people are on here: please can you rethink. At the moment, it appears that the open communal changing rooms provide a degree of health and safety so that other activities that the Heath is renowned for don’t go on as much. You may recall a counter protest on the Heath last year against the dog walkers who asked people not to have sex in front of them and their families.

Toilets and changing rooms are such vulnerable places and I am sure you want the ponds to stay as non-threatening as possible so everyone can enjoy them. If you make spaces more private in public areas you are designing-in problems that will make it less welcoming to others. Then what happens is many people stay away, and it leads eventually to closures as it costs too much to maintain and police. It’s one of the main reasons we have so few public toilets left. And that affects women, elderly and people with medical conditions the most. Just as this will.

Surely what happens now is that the Sex Matters appeal goes through and these muppets have to follow you know the law.

Men who want to be women and object to women’s rights might act out but no more than usual.

GLP will fundraiser and progress women’s rights further. It’s win win win. 🏆

Are they saying that they will make adjustments to the toilets/changing rooms, then people can go ahead and use the facilities they choose?

But haven't we also had reports of trans-identifying men ogling topless women sunbathing at the women's pond? Or commenting on their large breasts (these were in mumsnet threads somewhere).

Yes, I think so. From what I gather they will make the changing rooms and toilets private so no one gets upset about what goes on inside these spaces because they can’t see or hear it.

Various people before me have used the phrase: sex, drugs and rocking the (toilet) bowl. Sex may be consensual or non consensual. It may include homeless people setting up home and the occasional medical emergency leading to a much worse outcome. Cleaning will be not so pleasant as you have to deal with cleaning up the bodily fluids from the above.

I can provide them with the evidence of the above for a risk assessment if they so chose.

Evidence-based? Risk assessments? We'll have none of that dodgy talk, if you don't mind!

I hope not.

Two of the women who I know regularly went there in summer (one has moved away from London) did so because they wanted to be able to sunbathe topless without men trying to chat them up.

Agreeing with the comment that completely enclosed changing could lead to drug use, though that can apply in other places just as much.

Case to be heard in the autumn

https://sex-matters.org/posts/updates/hampstead-ponds-update/

.

Chucked them a few quid.

I don't understand- why don't they just making the ponds all mixed sex then.

Surely the issue is advertising somthing as a "mans" or "womens" when it is mixed sex?

I don't understand why it is so hard?

Because it is fine for men to have single sex spaces. Just not women.

As with most things trans, it's all about making penis happy. That's why transwomen are the important ones and transmen are usually forgotten.

Thanks for this. Their legal analysis is poor.

Enabling trans indentified men to encroach on single sex spaces won’t last the year.

This is the quiet bit out loud