All entries on Feminist Legal Clinic’s News Digest Blog are extracts from news articles and other publications, with the source available at the link at the bottom. The content is not originally generated by Feminist Legal Clinic and does not necessarily reflect our views.
Following the For Women Scotland case, some organisations have been bringing their policies into line with the law. Others have been making the excuse of waiting for EHRC guidance.
But the City of London, which runs the men’s, women’s and mixed bathing ponds on Hampstead Heath, doubled down on its “trans women are women” stance.
Despite admitting that its policy of admitting swimmers to the single-sex ponds and changing rooms on the basis of gender self-identity “was based on what has turned out to be a misinterpretation of the law”, it put up new signs in July saying:
“Those who identify as women are welcome to swim at the Kenwood Ladies’ Pond. The Ladies’ Pond is open to biological women and trans women with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment under the Equality Act 2010”.
This means that fully intact males are allowed to swim with, and use communal changing rooms and showers shared with, women and girls.
We are challenging the lawfulness of this policy.
A one-day “permission hearing” will take place on Wednesday 17th December at the Royal Courts of Justice in London.
You can read the papers for the case:
- our statement of facts and grounds
- Maya Forstater’s witness statement
- our skeleton argument.
Several women told us about upsetting experiences of encountering trans-identifying men at the pond:
- A GP who has given a witness statement asking for anonymity says that in July 2019 she saw a man in a tight-fitting bikini bottom visibly displaying his male genitalia being helped by a group of women bathers to fit a bikini top. He entered the women’s changing room and stood staring at a group of naked teenage girls. She reported her concerns to the lifeguards, who said the person was entitled to be there.
Women shouldn’t have to worry about whether a man in the women’s changing rooms is there for nefarious purposes or to affirm his womanly identity. In either case he is breaching her privacy and dignity and she should not be accused of being a “transphobe” for objecting.
There is a mixed pond that can be used by individuals of either sex.
Source: High Court hearing on Kenwood Ladies’ Pond this week