There is something quietly wonderful about a pond. Cold water, open sky, the sound of other people enjoying themselves nearby. For a lot of trans people, finding a place like that, a place where you can simply be, without scrutiny or explanation, is rarer than it should be. So when I read that the Hampstead Heath ponds have voted to stay trans-inclusive, I felt genuinely glad.
The City of London Corporation, which manages the Kenwood ladies' pond and the Highgate men's pond, put the question to the people who actually use those spaces. Thirty-eight thousand people responded. Eighty-six per cent said they wanted the current arrangements to continue, arrangements that allow trans women to swim in the ladies' pond and trans men in the men's pond, just as they have been doing. The message from the community was not ambiguous.
The policy chair, Chris Hayward, put it plainly: people want these ponds to remain safe, respectful, and inclusive. He also made a point that is legally important and often lost in the noise around the Supreme Court ruling. The April 2025 judgment confirmed the legal definition of sex under the Equality Act, but it did not rule that all trans-inclusive services must become single-sex services. There is a difference between what the law defines and what any given organisation is required to do with that definition. The City of London Corporation took legal advice, listened to the community, and concluded that inclusion was both defensible and right.
Alex Matheson from the LGBT Foundation described the decision as a powerful message at a time when trans communities face increasing scrutiny and exclusion. Dani St James from Not A Phase pointed to what access to spaces like this actually means in practice: health, wellbeing, community, the chance to connect with nature and with other people safely and authentically. These are not abstract values. They are the things a pond on a summer morning can give someone, if that someone is allowed through the gate.
The Corporation has also added more private cubicles to the changing facilities, which is a thoughtful and practical step. Creating more privacy benefits everyone, not only trans swimmers, and it reflects the kind of considered approach that tends to come when you actually consult the people affected rather than deciding on their behalf.
Sex Matters have indicated they intend to pursue legal action, and Fiona McAnena's response was characteristically fierce, describing the vote as unlawful discrimination against women. I want to address that directly, because the framing matters. The ladies' pond has been trans-inclusive for years. Eighty-six per cent of the people who actually swim there want it to stay that way. The argument that trans women swimming alongside other women is a harm to women requires you to discount the voices of those women almost entirely, including the many women who are themselves trans. Describing a mixed community of swimmers who have chosen inclusion as a threat to the dignity of women is not a defence of women's rights. It is a claim made on behalf of some women, against the expressed wishes of many others.
The legal challenge will continue. Sex Matters won a Court of Appeal application earlier this year to keep their challenge alive, and the EHRC guidance published last month on single-sex services adds a layer of complexity that bodies like the City of London Corporation will have to navigate carefully. None of that is simple. But the law has not settled the question of what any given service must do, and the ponds' community has spoken clearly about what it wants.
What strikes me most about this story is the ordinariness of it. Thirty-eight thousand people were asked what kind of place they wanted their local swimming pond to be. Most of them said: welcoming. Not complicated, not political, just welcoming. Trans people have been swimming in those ponds, making friends, feeling the cold water and the morning air, for a long time. The vote did not create that reality. It recognised it.
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Dr Helen Webberley is a Gender Specialist, Medical Educator, and founder of GenderGP. She writes about gender diversity, trans healthcare, and the lives of trans people and their families.