How oasis for feminine swimmers grew to become entrance line within the tradition wars

Ever since she moved to London greater than 20 years in the past, Venice Allan has made some extent of carving out time to go to a spot she finds brings her specific pleasure.

It means a prolonged trek throughout town on the Tube from her house in south London. But such is the magical pull of Kenwood Ladies Pond, a pure swimming lake on Hampstead Heath, that she goes as typically as she will be able to.

‘It’s probably the most lovely, particular place,’ says the 48-year-old jewelry designer. ‘It really feels like an oasis.’

Many tons of of different girls have lengthy felt the identical, amongst them native celebrities together with Helena Bonham-Carter and Emma Thompson, who stay in and round this trendy – and achingly liberal – a part of London.

And definitely, for many years the Ladies’ Pond has been a singular area. Designated girls solely in 1926, for practically a century it has been billed as a spot of refuge and safety for girls of all ages, one thing underlined on the signal on the entrance which makes clear that males – who’ve entry to their very own male-only pond, in addition to a combined pond close by – usually are not allowed ‘beyond this point’.

You may suppose that message couldn’t be clearer – besides, after all, that the definition of ‘woman’ has latterly grow to be a vexatious, extremely contentious subject.

So maybe it was solely a matter of time earlier than it reached the as soon as tranquil setting of the Ladies’ Pond, which now finds itself mired in an ongoing and more and more ugly row.

On one facet are 11 of the 12-strong committee members of the Kenwood Ladies’ Pond Association (KLPA) – backed, it have to be stated, by a sizeable contingent of different common swimmers – who’ve declared that anybody who identifies as a girl has a proper to swim there and that to counsel in any other case is a breach of the 2010 Equality Act.

On the opposite is an equally massive band who consider that the committee has grow to be overtly politicised and ‘captured’ by gender ideology, and is making an attempt to strong-arm those that don’t subscribe to their views.

The latter insist that the committee is ignoring the needs of members who need the pond to grow to be a female-only area once more.

They additionally accuse the committee of stoking division between girls who swim all-year spherical and people who are unable, or unwilling, to swim each week. They level to a failed try by the committee to ascertain a type of ‘pond apartheid’ which might have restricted the rights of fair-weather swimmers to have any say in Association issues.

The row is ready to come back to a head this Sunday on the pond’s annual basic assembly, at which one committee member, Janice Williams, has submitted a decision asking that the organisation recognise that the definition of girl can – on this context – solely apply to these born biologically feminine.

There has been some wrangling over whether or not the decision might be aired in any respect: co-chairs Pauline Latchem and Beth Feresten have made clear the proposal could also be illegal, sending a observe to AGM members studying ‘Pending further legal advice, the amendment may be removed from consideration at the AGM’ – one thing Janice labels ‘nonsensical’.

‘How can a vote be unlawful?’ she asks. ‘It is a cornerstone of the democratic process.’

It is definitely all a really good distance from the genteel pond’s inception. Along with the opposite bathing ponds on Hampstead Heath, the Ladies’ Pond was initially created within the seventeenth and 18th centuries as one of many reservoirs to fulfill London’s rising demand for water.

Some have been repurposed for swimming, used primarily by male swimmers, till in 1926, the Kenwood Pond was designated as women-only.

Over the years 1000’s have visited, having fun with the magic of swimming in recent water within the coronary heart of a busy city capital. 

‘You walk down the pedestrian lane to get to the entrance, and it is like being in the heart of the countryside,’ says Sally Kennedy, a 46-year-old teacher and devoted swimmer who loves the pond so much that she moved to north London from her native east London ten years ago so she could be nearer to it.

Three years ago, the writer Esther Freud wrote of the way it unified women across the social and age spectrum. ‘At the height of summer, as many as 2,000 women of every shape and size, all classes, all ages, from across London, across the country, even from abroad, arrive to swim and sunbathe on the meadow,’ she wrote in an article for Vogue journal.

In more moderen occasions, nonetheless, controversy has began to lap spherical the perimeters of this as soon as untroubled area. In 1989, the operating of Hampstead Heath and its ponds got here below the management of the City of London Corporation which, in 2005, to the dismay of many, instigated a ‘self-policed’ charging system suggesting a contribution of between £1 and £2 be made by swimmers every time they visited.

Many believed this went in opposition to the elemental ethos of the pond, and protests adopted, however the City of London went on to make the fees obligatory in March 2020. Entry is now strictly managed by limitations and a gate, a flip of occasions that’s the topic of an ongoing authorized problem.

But this controversy pales when set in opposition to the backdrop of right this moment’s more and more poisonous row about entry, which dates again to 2019 when the City of London adopted a brand new coverage to permit trans girls (organic males who establish as girls) to make use of the pond, citing the Equality Act.

The coverage was overseen by Edward Lord, a City of London councillor and variety champion (pronouns ‘they/them’) who launched a web-based survey session on whether or not trans folks ought to be capable of entry companies referring to their gender identification.

On paper the reply was an amazing sure, as 12,390 had voted in favour of transgender customers, and eight,610 in opposition to – till it emerged that almost 19,000 different responses had been disregarded as customers have been deemed to haven’t answered the survey in full.

Either manner, Lord was very clear on the problem: ‘It shouldn’t be a debate,’ they declared. ‘Trans women are women; trans men are men.’ The self-ID coverage was duly ushered in, which allowed any male to entry the Ladies’ Pond merely on their declare to be a girl.

A sequence of protests adopted, together with an illustration throughout which round 20 girls ‘identified’ as males subsequent to the lads’s pool of Hampstead Heath.

One girl sported a pantomime beard; one other wore a lime inexperienced mankini (a Borat-style male model of a bikini) earlier than demanding entry to the close by males’s pond to spotlight the absurdity of ‘gender self-identification’. They have been promptly ejected by workers.

Undeterred, Venice Allan went on to discovered Let Women Swim – a marketing campaign to reclaim the Kenwood Ladies’ Pond as a female-only area by 2025, in time for the centenary of its basis.

In August 2022 she staged one other protest, during which 130 girls lined the pedestrian lane to the pool. ‘The only buoy allowed’ learn one placard, sported by a girl with a lifebuoy around her neck.

‘I don’t need to stay in a female-only society, I’m not a separatist,’ Venice instructed the Mail this week. ‘But it’s a particular, iconic place that has now grow to be unnecessarily politicised. It’s additionally deeply ironic that the City of London talks about inclusion, when its coverage clearly discriminates about girls.

‘Trans women can swim in the mixed pond, but the female-only pond is the only place where women of certain religious faiths like Orthodox Jewish women and Muslim women can swim, as they cannot be in a space with someone who is biologically male. I know for a fact that some women from those backgrounds now no longer come.’

Venice herself is evident that she has swum within the presence of organic males. ‘I’ve been there when somebody with hormone-induced moobs is on the fringe of the pond letting all of it hang around and it’s laborious to really feel that it isn’t an announcement,’ she says.

Another common swimmer, who requested to not be named, stated that she had watched in amazement as a person in tiny trunks exhibiting his genitalia entered the pond unchallenged. He then went on to sunbathe close by.

Such infractions – as they’re seen by many pond customers – have basically modified the texture of the place, based on Sally Kennedy.

‘For many women the pond serves two quite separate functions,’ she says. ‘Yes it’s a spot to swim, however it’s additionally this very particular exterior female-only area during which to only calm down, hang around, and that’s actually uncommon. In the broader world we now have our guard up however not there. That has now modified, definitely for me.’

Venice acknowledges that others beg to vary. ‘Leaving aside the politics on the committee, there is a conflict amid pond users which is pretty much divided by age,’ she says. ‘There are many women who have been swimming there for decades who are bitterly opposed to the changes. Many – but not all – younger women are not as bothered.’

Such disagreements are, after all, solely pure amongst any massive organisation: the KLPA has round 1,000 members who pay annual membership subs of round £5 a yr to assist keep the pond.

Latterly, nonetheless, these variations of opinion have morphed into one thing uglier, with accusations of bullying on WhatsApp teams, and supporters of single-sex areas saying they’ve been ejected from the group’s Facebook web page.

That, definitely, is the assumption of company administration coach Janice, who was elected to the committee final yr and is liable for placing ahead the decision to return the pond to make use of by those that are biologically feminine solely.

The 68-year-old put herself ahead for election final yr and located herself instantly outnumbered on the committee by her fellow members when it got here to her views on entry to the pond.

‘The other committee members had just been on a Gendered Intelligence training course – funded by the City of London – and were all very clear that trans women are women,’ she says. ‘They are of course entitled to that view, but I felt I had to speak out.

‘I wrote a measured email saying I have to disassociate myself from this policy, and these were my reasons. I made it clear that I understand they had a different view, but I felt people were vulnerable and I would feel terrible if something happened.’

She acquired no response however claims that ever since she has been successfully marginalised.

‘I have evidence that they are meeting without me and not issuing minutes, and there has been some very unpleasant bullying on WhatsApp,’ she says. ‘I have been accused of joining the KLPA merely to create dissent and make people feel uncomfortable, while one member invited everyone to rate my behaviour on a scale of one to nine, with nine being excellent and one being terrible.’

Another KLPA member, who requested to not be named, stated the committee had been ‘entirely deaf’ to issues from girls about self-ID.

‘I have emailed saying that the Equality and Human Rights Act makes it explicitly clear that single-sex exemptions can remain when it comes to spaces where women might feel vulnerable, such as swimming pools and changing rooms, both of which actively apply to the pond,’ she says.

‘I received no response. This is why there has been a groundswell of protest, as members feel they are not being listened to. Moreover, the committee talks about receiving legal advice – well what exactly was it? As this was presumably paid for by the members, why has it not been shared with us?’

In November, there was additional unhappiness when, at an ‘extraordinary’ basic assembly, the committee proposed ‘tidying up’ the Constitution with modifications that might have given ‘regular’ swimmers – who they described as ‘those who swim year round at least once a week’ a better say over pond enterprise.

‘Conveniently, this applies to most of the women on the committee, who all live nearby and can get to the pond easily,’ says Janice. ‘This is effectively pond apartheid, giving greater say to some than others. Not terribly equal is it?’

Another member places it in stronger phrases. ‘The behaviour of the committee would make Putin proud,’ she says.

While not everybody would go that far, Heather Binning, founding father of marketing campaign group the Women’s Rights Network says a few of her members have additionally expressed issues concerning the actions of the KLPA committee.

‘Members from a number of London WRN groups who are also members of the KLPA have expressed their concerns about the committee’s behaviour and the bullying of girls who want to see the Ladies’ Pond return to being a pond for girls solely,’ she instructed the Mail. 

‘When the City of London Corporation opened up the Ladies’ Pond to men in 2019 this was sold as inclusion. But it has actually excluded many women who no longer use the pond because they do not want to swim and share changing facilities with males. This may be for reasons of faith, culture, experience of male violence or simply because they value a female-only sanctuary.’

Yesterday, KLPA co-chairs Pauline Latchem and Beth Feresten instructed the Mail: ‘We don’t management who swims on the Ladies’ Pond, that’s the accountability of the City of London which owns and manages Hampstead Heath. As a person group, we aren’t dismissing anybody’s views as is clear from the truth that a decision to unique switch girls from membership is being put ahead to members fats the SGM. 

‘The officers of the KLPA do nonetheless have sturdy purpose to consider that if adopted the proposal can be illegal and it’s our obligation to make that clear to all members earlier than they vote on the matter.’

For Venice Allan that is mere politicking. ‘We shouldn’t need to justify having an area for ourselves,’ she says. ‘Our slogan is safety, dignity and joy, and the joy part of that statement is just as important as everything else.’