Hampstead Ponds update today

[WallaceinAnderland]

I'm not sure that this is in line with the law.

They need to label all 3 ponds as mixed sex.

https://news.cityoflondon.gov.uk/hampstead-heaths-bathing-ponds-to-remain-trans-inclusive-spaces-as-city-corporation-agrees-future-access-policy/

I agree with your general take above, @MyAmpleSheep, but single race or colour services very much do exist usefully. There are also single race and colour services, plus manifold other 'single' or 'combined' services.

Think about religious, philosophical, ethnic etc groups. The SC guidance actually included real-world examples of single colour and single race/colour groups.

What you do not find are legitimate groupings of one or another characteristic. Valid combinations are characteristic X and characteristic Y, not one or the other as a single group.

So you can rationally permit:
Women (single characteristic)
Jewish women (combined)
Jews (single).

Not rationally permissible:
Women and only Palestinian men
Jewish men and Christian women
Black women and Jewish women.

There are no clear shared concerns between the combinations in the second group, such that would justify excluding everyone else.

Women and trans-identified men don't share such a concern, either. They might in certain narrow-interest activities, but not in a public leisure facility.

There are also single race and colour services, plus manifold other 'single' or 'combined' services.

I think you may be mixing up associations (which can be restricted to individual protected characteristics), and services, which may not. I was writing about services offered to the public.

However, even associations are not permitted to discriminate on the basis of colour.

So you can rationally permit:
Women (single characteristic)

You cannot have a women-only bakery, or bakery only for black people. Bakeries are services and cannot discriminate on the basis of sex or race.

Thanks! You may be right - I've been reading and thinking about this issue all day (with interludes for bra sizes and my dinner!) and have sex/gender fatigue.

This is my primary concern about the ponds. I want there to be clear guard rails around when a service can and can’t discriminate on the basis of sex. I don’t want to be put into a gender box without any examination of what that means and without my consent.

If the guard rails don’t exist, that can be exploited by any part of the political spectrum.

@MyAmpleSheep

I take your point that Schedule 3 services represent a tiny slice of the legal landscape in which sex-segregation is permitted for an important reason, with strictly equal treatment of the sexes otherwise being the default.

But it's not limited only to those things that cannot possibly exist in a mixed-sex form. The mixed-sex pond exists. And, whilst employers are compelled by regulation to provide multi-user single-sex toilets, service providers can offer mixed-sex facilities, albeit with a different infrastructure and inferior safety and hygiene outcomes.

Mixed-sex services are worse for women than for men, but we don't sue every time, because life is short, and consumer choice exists.

The rise of trans means that the repertoire of mixed-sex services has expanded to include services which are nominally single-sex but selectively allow in opposite-sex 'trans' people. This may be direct discrimination against the selectively-admitted sex, and/or indirect discrimination against the other sex if female, but in a fact-dependent way only, per Swift J. There's been no decision on direct discrimination, and the indirect discrimination findings in Darlington and LS v NHS don't seem to have put the CLC off one bit. It's going to be a constant litigation slog. And sub-optimal mixed-sex provision by providers trying to evade the problem altogether will continue to increase, at the expense of consumer choice.

So the problem is not enough single-sex provision, when there are important reasons (trauma, religion, safety, decency) to want it. So my idea was to use the existence of – let's call them single-gender services – as a hook. 'If you provide a single-gender service, you must also provide an equivalent single-sex service, sufficient to meet demand.' Obviously I'm hoping that the latter will be so popular that the former will wither away, saving the trouble of lawsuits.

Belief discrimination comes into it too. A service provider which provides single-gender, but not single-sex, services is catering to the moral proprieties of transgenderists, by giving them a quasi-Schedule 3-type service tailored to their beliefs. The up to 80% of the population who are non-believers are not receiving an equivalent service.

Can the Ponds declare themselves an explicitly transgenderist service, and tell non-believers to sod off elsewhere if they don't like it? Maybe, if they meet the rules that apply to religious organisations. But that means admitting that it is a religion.

Could I ask your opinion, from a legal point of view, about the following?

One group that can’t get the benefits of separate sex toilets is non-ambulant people.
Non-ambulant and women
Non-ambulant and men

I think new builds, where possible, should have a new design of accessible cubicle within single sex accommodation.

This will help take pressure off the mixed sex accessible as adults with young children (especially with pushchairs) can use these and also independent wheelchair users who do not need assistance with transferring. It’s disability and child inclusive.

Practically, it means parents don’t have to leave a pushchair and belongings outside the cubicle. It also means greater safety - if disabled users did up on the floor, they would have some means of getting attention if the cord wasn’t reachable/working.

Certainly it would give wheelchair users more dignity and privacy, as any same sex carer can wait outside the cubicle, only entering if help needed. This is currently difficult when the sound-resistant accessible doors lead straight into mixed-sex thoroughfares.

edit: I also forgot to mention non-ambulant people who won’t use accessible toilets for religious reasons.

@theilltemperedamateur I was watching yesterday's interview with Forstater on GB News with this except:

Exactly. And and the ponds are such a stark example. They have open showers where there's nudity. It's a women only space, when it's a hot weekend, people are not just changing in the cubicles. They're changing on the grass all over the place and there are open showers. You just don't expect to see somebody with a penis, sorry, in that space.

It does seem as though this case is well suited to broadening the scope single sex exclusion, as it highlights the dangers of sexual harassment that it puts women in when they're in spaces that they expect are for women only.

Currently seeing FB exploding with comments on all this. Not sure how much is bot led but there seems to be an increase of men saying women are pro trans inclusion. In surveys this is not the case I think but there are some high profile women droning on about poor trans. Utterly sick of having to fight this all the time.

Yes, people are excluded. Women who don't want to be partly undressed or swimming with men for whatever reason. They are excluded from all 3 ponds. Needs challenging.

I meant that there are no grounds for excluding anyone else.

The Corporation seems to think you can, but it's not clear how. I suspect snobbery might come into it.

Not trying to argue it one way or the other, but it's worth pointing out that the Mixed Pond, unlike the other two, is closed to the general public from October to April. You can go in at certain times if you're a member of their swimming club.

The mixed pond should be open year round.

I wonder why the solution of having the mixed pond open all year wasn't brought up, instead of having to do all this legal stuff

It was, according to this item on the BBC News site in January.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yx97w5vydo

But having transgender people use the mixed pond only wouldn't be validating for them, and that's what this is all about. Especially for the men who say they are women.

Well doesn't that just say it all 😂

I'm interested that it's the mixed pond that is closed in winter - is there a practical reason or is segregated swimming just more popular in Hampstead?

So this would mean that there should be no men in women's sports as only those that usethose sports should get a say?
Also rape centres?
DV centres for women?
etc. etc.

@Keeptoiletssafe
Could I ask your opinion, from a legal point of view, about the following?
One group that can’t get the benefits of separate sex toilets is non-ambulant people.
Non-ambulant and women
Non-ambulant and men
I think new builds, where possible, should have a new design of accessible cubicle within single sex accommodation.

I think a number of larger accessible cubicles in single sex toilets are a very good idea.

The mixed PC groups is an artifact of associations and clubs. Its appearance in discussions of services I think is a perpetuated misunderstanding, although forgiveably so.

https://democracy.cityoflondon.gov.uk/documents/s233563/Hampstead%20Heath%20Bathing%20Ponds%20Future%20Access%20Options%20Report%20v10.pdf

Page 13

"The City Corporation cannot rely on the exceptions under Schedule 3 to the Equality Act 2010 to resist a claim, because the Men’s Pond and the Ladies’ Pond would not be being operated as single-sex spaces. However, it is unlikely that this would amount to direct sex discrimination, as the relevant criterion for entry would in effect be one of lived gender, not biological sex."

So according to this the criteria for discrimination is NOT biological sex, it's 'lived gender'.

So I rock up and the person on the gate has to judge my lived gender?

I reckon that as long as I'm wearing board shorts and a rash vest they have no reason to deny me entry to the men's pond. (Are wetsuits allowed?)

(I could push it by wearing a bikini and arguing that I am a man wearing a bikini, but I can't be sure that they are that open minded).

If they are dividing the pools by gender and the mixed pool is closed for some of the year, where does one swim if one is non-binary?

One arm and leg in the ladies pond and the other anrm and leg in the men’s pond.

Defined ‘lived gender’.

I watched football last night on tv - male gender? But it was the Lionesses - so am I living ‘female’ or ‘male’ gender. And I’m wearing blue - male, but have long hair - female - and did some cooking - female.

This parallels with the WI’s ‘living as a woman’ non- definition.