The day before the announcement of the permissions judgment in our case against the City of London over the Hampstead Ponds, the corporation rushed out the results of its consultation exercise, saying:
Clearly this survey was worthless, given it was open to self-selected responses by a majority of non-pond-users, pushing a political view on "trans" validation in opposition to the Equality Act.
A pity it did not use the suggested straightforward means of getting respondees, via Eventbrite bookings and records of individual pond use.
It doesn't surprise me in the least that this happened. A friend of mine who works at one of the big art colleges in London told me that lots of her students were campaigning against sex matters on this issue and I'd hazard these students probably have never even been to the ponds. Crazily one of the things the activists really took an affront to is the notion that a person's Sex would be judged upon "appearances" alone..... which is clearly incoherent because how do they think we've been assessing one another's Sex up until this point?
The consultation is meaningless. The law is clear. Even if 100% of respondents wanted men in the ladies pond it really doesn’t matter and holds no weight.
The central issue regarding the use of the ponds is this: on what objective criterion are sex-segregated spaces based?
Sex segregation in changing rooms and intimate spaces did not arise as an arbitrary cultural gesture, but as a preventive measure grounded in an empirical reality: the vast majority of crimes, including sexual offences and indecent exposure, are committed by males, regardless of how they perceive or identify themselves. Is this fact irrelevant to those who defend self-identification as the sole criterion?
Acknowledging this does not turn all men into suspects, just as locking one’s front door does not mean considering the entire neighborhood criminal. It is a general rule based on risk categories, not on individual moral judgments.
For that reason, this is not a matter of arbitrary “discrimination,” but of functional segregation. All men are excluded from women’s changing rooms, and this exclusion is not experienced as a denial of dignity, but as a structural norm aimed at protecting women’s privacy and safety.
The stigma argument is therefore inadequate. That trans people experience discrimination is a real problem, but it is not solved by dismantling criteria designed to protect the rights of others. One injustice is not corrected by ignoring another. The association between male sex and higher rates of offending is not a moral prejudice, but a statistical fact underpinning preventive policies.
Trans people who identify as women may exercise broad personal freedoms, but like any right, those freedoms have limits when they come into conflict with the rights of others, especially in contexts involving privacy and bodily intimacy.
When sex as a criterion is replaced by self-identification, the preventive foundation becomes uncertain. If merely declaring oneself a woman is sufficient to access a female space, the boundary ceases to be objective and verifiable. The common response—“action will be taken if someone behaves inappropriately”—does not resolve the issue, because the purpose of segregation is to reduce opportunities for harm before it occurs, not to intervene afterward.
In this context, the Equality Act 2010 is crucial. The Act provides for exceptions for single-sex services where they constitute a proportionate means of achieving legitimate aims such as privacy, decency, and safety. In other words, the legislature explicitly recognized that tensions between rights may arise and that, in certain contexts, protection based on biological sex may be justified. If in practice that exception is neutralized by policies of unrestricted self-identification, the problem becomes one of legal coherence and of how sex is defined in law.
Nor is it convincing to reduce all concerns about safety to mere “stigma.” Recognizing real conflicts does not amount to denying anyone’s dignity. The question is which criterion best preserves the original function of these spaces.
Ultimately, the debate is not about inclusion versus exclusion in the abstract, but about two principles that can come into tension: subjective identity and sex as a legal and material category. If the law provides exceptions to protect female spaces, the legitimate question is when and how they should be applied. Avoiding that discussion by appealing solely to self-identification does not seem sufficient.
For that reason, my position is clear: in intimate spaces involving shared nudity, the relevant criterion should remain biological sex. Not out of hostility toward anyone, but because it is the only objective, verifiable criterion consistent with the preventive purpose of such spaces.
Moreover, Hampstead Heath has facilities for men, for women, and a mixed area. This is not a situation requiring major structural reform, but rather a decision about which criterion should govern each space.
Appalling
Why do we really care what these robots think? Surveys can trump a Supreme Court judgement?
Clearly this survey was worthless, given it was open to self-selected responses by a majority of non-pond-users, pushing a political view on "trans" validation in opposition to the Equality Act.
A pity it did not use the suggested straightforward means of getting respondees, via Eventbrite bookings and records of individual pond use.
The survey should be repeated on this basis.
Great analysis, thanks.
In any event the consultation is nonsense - it can't change the law!!
Have cross posted
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/the-bone-collector-part-2
Dusty
It doesn't surprise me in the least that this happened. A friend of mine who works at one of the big art colleges in London told me that lots of her students were campaigning against sex matters on this issue and I'd hazard these students probably have never even been to the ponds. Crazily one of the things the activists really took an affront to is the notion that a person's Sex would be judged upon "appearances" alone..... which is clearly incoherent because how do they think we've been assessing one another's Sex up until this point?
The consultation is meaningless. The law is clear. Even if 100% of respondents wanted men in the ladies pond it really doesn’t matter and holds no weight.
You must fight on
The central issue regarding the use of the ponds is this: on what objective criterion are sex-segregated spaces based?
Sex segregation in changing rooms and intimate spaces did not arise as an arbitrary cultural gesture, but as a preventive measure grounded in an empirical reality: the vast majority of crimes, including sexual offences and indecent exposure, are committed by males, regardless of how they perceive or identify themselves. Is this fact irrelevant to those who defend self-identification as the sole criterion?
Acknowledging this does not turn all men into suspects, just as locking one’s front door does not mean considering the entire neighborhood criminal. It is a general rule based on risk categories, not on individual moral judgments.
For that reason, this is not a matter of arbitrary “discrimination,” but of functional segregation. All men are excluded from women’s changing rooms, and this exclusion is not experienced as a denial of dignity, but as a structural norm aimed at protecting women’s privacy and safety.
The stigma argument is therefore inadequate. That trans people experience discrimination is a real problem, but it is not solved by dismantling criteria designed to protect the rights of others. One injustice is not corrected by ignoring another. The association between male sex and higher rates of offending is not a moral prejudice, but a statistical fact underpinning preventive policies.
Trans people who identify as women may exercise broad personal freedoms, but like any right, those freedoms have limits when they come into conflict with the rights of others, especially in contexts involving privacy and bodily intimacy.
When sex as a criterion is replaced by self-identification, the preventive foundation becomes uncertain. If merely declaring oneself a woman is sufficient to access a female space, the boundary ceases to be objective and verifiable. The common response—“action will be taken if someone behaves inappropriately”—does not resolve the issue, because the purpose of segregation is to reduce opportunities for harm before it occurs, not to intervene afterward.
In this context, the Equality Act 2010 is crucial. The Act provides for exceptions for single-sex services where they constitute a proportionate means of achieving legitimate aims such as privacy, decency, and safety. In other words, the legislature explicitly recognized that tensions between rights may arise and that, in certain contexts, protection based on biological sex may be justified. If in practice that exception is neutralized by policies of unrestricted self-identification, the problem becomes one of legal coherence and of how sex is defined in law.
Nor is it convincing to reduce all concerns about safety to mere “stigma.” Recognizing real conflicts does not amount to denying anyone’s dignity. The question is which criterion best preserves the original function of these spaces.
Ultimately, the debate is not about inclusion versus exclusion in the abstract, but about two principles that can come into tension: subjective identity and sex as a legal and material category. If the law provides exceptions to protect female spaces, the legitimate question is when and how they should be applied. Avoiding that discussion by appealing solely to self-identification does not seem sufficient.
For that reason, my position is clear: in intimate spaces involving shared nudity, the relevant criterion should remain biological sex. Not out of hostility toward anyone, but because it is the only objective, verifiable criterion consistent with the preventive purpose of such spaces.
Moreover, Hampstead Heath has facilities for men, for women, and a mixed area. This is not a situation requiring major structural reform, but rather a decision about which criterion should govern each space.