Hampstead Heath Votes to Keep Its Ponds Trans-Inclusive, and 86% of Swimmers Agree
There is a swimming pond on Hampstead Heath that has been used by women since 1926. It is fed by springs, flanked by ancient oaks, and attended by a community of swimmers who regard it with something approaching devotion. It is also, depending on whom you ask, either a sanctuary of inclusion or a battleground for the soul of sex-based rights in Britain. On 15 May, the City of London Corporation, which manages the Heath, voted to keep the Kenwood Ladies' Pond open to trans women, in line with the policy that has been in place since 2019.
The vote came after months of consultation, legal challenge, and sustained campaigning by the gender-critical group Sex Matters, which argued that the Supreme Court's April 2025 ruling, defining "sex" under the Equality Act as biological sex, required the ponds to adopt strictly sex-segregated access. The Corporation received more than 38,000 responses to its public consultation, making it one of the largest exercises of its kind in London's recent history. Of those respondents, 84 per cent had actually swum at the ponds, and 74 per cent lived in London. The results were unambiguous. Eighty-six per cent supported the existing trans-inclusive access policy. A similar proportion opposed the introduction of strictly single-sex access. Ninety per cent rejected proposals for separate changing rooms or separate swimming sessions for trans swimmers. Two-thirds opposed making all three ponds mixed-sex.
In other words, the people who use the ponds, the people who live near the ponds, the people who have a material stake in how the ponds operate, overwhelmingly want them to stay as they are.
Sex Matters had filed for a judicial review against the Corporation, arguing that its policy was unlawful following the Supreme Court ruling. The High Court dismissed the challenge, with Daniel Stilitz KC, representing the Corporation, describing the legal action as "unhelpful, premature and the wrong way for doing these things." Sex Matters has since announced that it will seek permission to appeal.
The Corporation has committed to spending approximately £1 million on improved changing, showering and toilet facilities at the ponds, including at the Ladies' Pond, to ensure that swimmers who want privacy while changing can do so. The executive director of the environment, Katie Stewart, confirmed that the upgraded facilities would allow for greater privacy without altering the access policy. Final funding and timings are due to be presented to members in July.
What makes the Hampstead story significant is not only its outcome but its method. In a political climate where decisions about trans lives are routinely made by courts, commissions, and parliamentary committees without meaningful consultation with trans people or the communities affected, the Heath consultation asked the relevant public and then listened to the answer. The answer was clear. The overwhelming majority of pond users do not regard the presence of trans women as a threat to their safety, their comfort, or their enjoyment of the space. They regard it as normal, because for the past seven years, it has been.
The ponds will not resolve the wider legal and political questions surrounding trans rights in the UK. But they do offer a model for how those questions might be approached: with evidence, with consultation, and with the understanding that the people most affected by a policy are usually the best judges of whether it works.
