14:19, 17 Dec 2025<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1_GettyImages-1465694317.jpg\")
Men’s swimming pond at Hampstead Heath, London, England, UK. (Photo by: Alex Segre\/UCG\/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)(Image: Getty)<\/p>\n
Rules allowing trans people to use the single-sex facilities in Hampstead Heath\u2019s swimming ponds \u201ctreat individual women less favourably than men\u201d, the High Court has been told. Charity Sex Matters is taking legal action against the City of London, which operates the men\u2019s, ladies\u2019 and mixed bathing ponds in north London.<\/p>\n
It is seeking permission to challenge the policy of allowing trans people to use the facilities for the gender with which they identify, on the basis that it amounts to sex discrimination. The challenge comes following the Supreme Court ruling earlier this year that a person\u2019s legal sex is the one they were biologically assigned at birth. The City of London is opposing the legal claim.<\/p>\n
Tom Cross KC, for the charity, said in written submissions for a hearing on Wednesday: \u201cIn providing the service on terms or in circumstances which permit the opposite sex to enter the bathing ponds, the admission rules treat individual women less favourably than men because an individual woman is at greater risk of suffering the detriment of her privacy, dignity or safety being compromised than is an individual man.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the City of London has been allowing people who identify as trans, which includes people who are \u201cgenderfluid, gender queer or non-binary\u201d, to use the single-sex facilities since 2019.<\/p>\n
But Mr Cross said that the City of London should change its policy in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling, which he said had \u201cmade clear that such an approach to single-sex service-provision is based on a misunderstanding of the law\u201d.<\/p>\n
The barrister continued: \u201cBut in spite of this, the defendant has resolved not to change the rules to ensure that the provision of these ostensible single-sex services is based on biological sex, as the Supreme Court explained that Parliament intended such facilities to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Cross also said that the policy was taken offline and that signs at the ponds were changed in July. He said: \u201cThe fact that they have withdrawn the policy supports the substance that there is a change in terms of eligibility of access to the ponds post-16 July, or post-the signage.\u201d<\/p>\n
The City of London ran a consultation on its trans access policy that ended in November and Mr Cross said a decision is expected in March next year.<\/p>\n
In asking the court to allow the legal challenge to continue, he said the City of London would \u201cbenefit from the court\u2019s determination in making its further decision\u201d.<\/p>\n
Daniel Stilitz KC, for the City of London, said the legal action should not continue while the consultation is still ongoing.<\/p>\n
He told the court: \u201cThis application completely jumps the gun in circumstances where the admission arrangements for the ponds are currently under active review, where 38,000 people have contributed to that exercise, where the report on the results of that consultation are due in less than a month and where all the Corporation of London has done is maintain the status quo for a brief period before it can properly and thoroughly reconsider the admission arrangements.\u201d<\/p>\n
The barrister added that the claim is out of time because the current policy has been \u201cin place unchanged since 2017\u201d and described the legal action as \u201cunhelpful, premature and the wrong way for doing these things\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mr Stilitz also said that Sex Matters, which he described as a \u201cbusybody\u201d that should not be allowed to bring the claim, has \u201csteamed in\u201d ahead of the consultation\u2019s conclusion, while an alternative legal course would be through the county courts.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cWe have heard nothing about the gender recognition discrimination which is in play here.\u201d<\/p>\n
The hearing, before Mrs Justice Lieven, is due to conclude on Wednesday with a judgment expected at a later date.<\/p>\n