Kenwood Ladies’ Pond: letter before action

Sex Matters has threatened the City of London with legal action if it doesn’t drop its gender self-ID policy for the Ladies’ Pond, and return to restricting admission to women.

The Ladies’ Pond has offered women-only freshwater swimming for 100 years. In 2019 the City of London Corporation announced a new policy, which it said was to ensure services were “fully compliant with the Equality Act 2010, and do not discriminate against trans people”. It allows men who say they identify as women into the Ladies’ Pond and its communal changing room and showers.

Women have been protesting since 2018, saying that access to the women’s, men’s and mixed ponds should be on the basis of sex, not gender identity. 

In May 2025, the corporation announced that it would maintain the self-ID policy while reviewing it in light of the For Women Scotland judgment. We have pointed out that the judgment clarified what the law is now (indeed, what it always was), and that women-only has to mean what it says on the sign. 

Allowing trans-identifying men to access the Ladies’ Pond also flouts Hampstead Heath byelaws, which say:

“No male person over the age of 14 years shall go or attempt to go into any part of any open space in contravention of any regulation of the Council specified in a notice exhibited on such part reserving such part for the use of female persons and children under the age of 14 years only.”

Let women swim

Women who use the pond have told us that the presence of trans-identifying men makes them feel unsafe and uncomfortable. One said: 

“I was showering outside after my swim, when a big man with a long wig and a long coat came walking down the path to the pond area.

“This man came and lingered in the restricted area between the outdoor showers and the fence, where my towel was draped. He stood there turned at an angle, looking at me and evidently wanting me to know that he was looking at me.

“I was trapped, because I was naked, and my towel was on the fence behind him.”

Our letter before claim follows a response from the corporation to a Sex Matters supporter, in which it claimed that the Ladies’ Pond is not a single-sex service, and so trans-identifying men can lawfully be admitted. We have put the corporation on notice that unless it withdraws the policy and confirms that it will operate the ladies’ pond as a single-sex service, we will seek to challenge it in court .

If you have an experience of using the women’s pond, tell us: [email protected].

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