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A consultation has been launched on transgender swimmers’ access to Hampstead Heath ponds, which could result in them being banned from using the pools for the gender they identify as.
The Kenwood Ladies’ and Highgate Men’s ponds are gender-segregated, with trans people currently able to swim in whichever they feel most appropriate, or use the heath’s mixed-gender pond instead.
The consultation, by the City of London Corporation (CLC), is now presenting six options for gender inclusivity in the historic institution, one of which would ban trans people from using their preferred ponds.
It comes amid a battle between groups who swim in the natural pools, with a protest in 2018 in the men’s pond by women wearing fake moustaches and beards to draw attention to the organisation’s refusal to ban trans women from the ladies’ pond.
While this was unsuccessful, the Kenwood Ladies’ Pond Association (KLPA) rejecting a motion among its 200 members last year that “only those born female in sex can use the pond”, pressure has since mounted after the supreme court ruled earlier this year that trans women were not legally defined as women.
The consultation appears to have come in response to threatened legal action by the campaign group Sex Matters.