High Court hears challenge to trans-inclusive rules at Hampstead Heath's men's and women's ponds

A two-day High Court hearing opened in London on November 3 that will decide whether one of Britain's best-known swimming spots can keep letting people use its men's and women's ponds according to the gender they live in. The charity Sex Matters is asking the court to declare unlawful the City of London Corporation's rules for the Kenwood Ladies' Pond and the Highgate Men's Pond on Hampstead Heath. Under those rules, trans women may swim at the Ladies' Pond and trans men at the Men's Pond, while the Hampstead Mixed Pond is open to everyone.

The case is one of the first full court tests of how the April 2025 Supreme Court ruling that "sex" in the Equality Act 2010 means biological sex applies to a public leisure facility. Its outcome could matter well beyond north London. Councils, leisure centers, gyms and clubs across England, Wales and Scotland have been reviewing their own rules since that judgment, and a statutory code of practice from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has added pressure to decide.

The hearing, before Mr Justice Linden at the Royal Courts of Justice, was due to end on November 4. The judge is expected to give a written judgment at a later date, according to the Evening Standard. No ruling has been made. This article sets out what each side told the court on the first day, how the dispute reached this point, the evidence each side relies on, and the questions the judge will have to answer.

What the court heard on the first day

Tom Cross KC, for Sex Matters, said the corporation's policy puts women at a "particular group disadvantage compared to men," the BBC reported. He said the charity was not suggesting that "every, or most, or even many" trans women posed "an actual threat" to women. "The point is that women are more likely to experience compromise to their privacy, dignity and/or sense of safety than are men in the presence of a person of the opposite sex in what they expect to be a same-sex space," he said.

Cross also told the court that there is "no requirement for a man who identifies as trans to have had any surgery when being permitted to undress and shower in front of women." He added: "Neither the defendant, nor a female pond-user, will know if the male pond-user genuinely has a trans identity or just prefers to use the facilities of the opposite sex." He argued that trans people could still use the pond that matches their biological sex, or the mixed pond. "There is nothing inherently 'manly' about the Highgate pond or inherently 'womanly' about the Kenwood pond," he said, according to the Standard. He also said the EHRC had "repeatedly advised" the corporation that its policy was unlawful.

Daniel Stilitz KC, for the corporation, said in written submissions that "there is no evidence before the court of any risk posed by the admission of trans women to the ladies' pond." The court heard that the corporation had recorded no substantiated incidents of inappropriate behavior involving a transgender person since the policy was introduced in 2017, the BBC reported.

Stilitz said the policy was "justified" and a "proportionate means" of reducing disadvantages that trans people face, while fostering "an environment that reflects the ethos of the ponds." A sex-based policy, he said, "would have deprived the ponds of their unique character" and "would also have been likely to give rise to claims of indirect discrimination by trans users, which the corporation would have struggled to justify." He added: "A biological sex-based option would force trans people to use other facilities where they do not feel as comfortable or safe. It would prevent them using the pond corresponding to their lived gender," which he described as an aspect of their rights.

The corporation is also arguing that the claim should fail for procedural reasons. Stilitz told the court it had been brought too late, should have been brought in the county court, and that Sex Matters lacks standing to bring it, the Standard reported. The Court of Appeal had already ruled in March that "expert charities" can have standing in claims like this one, according to Sex Matters' own account of the litigation, but the corporation may still press the point at the full hearing.

Volunteer court reporters at Tribunal Tweets, who were given permission to live-post, recorded the judge asking both sides for help on the difference between direct and indirect discrimination and on how proportionality should be assessed when a rule changes. Their thread is a running note rather than a transcript, and it says so; we use it only for the shape of the day, not for quotations.

How the dispute reached the High Court

The ponds have operated under a gender-identity-based admissions policy since at least 2017. After the Supreme Court's judgment in For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers on April 16, 2025, Sex Matters asked the corporation to change course. The corporation kept its rules. Signs setting out who may use each pond went up in July 2025, according to Sex Matters' counsel, and the corporation later ran a public consultation.

1. 2017Corporation admits trans women to the Ladies' Pond and trans men to the Men's Pond
2. 16 April 2025Supreme Court rules that sex in the Equality Act means biological sex
3. July 2025New signs say who may use each pond
4. 19 August 2025Sex Matters files its judicial review claim
5. January 2026High Court refuses permission for the claim
6. 17 March 2026Court of Appeal allows the claim to proceed
7. 12 May 2026First corporation committee votes to keep the current rules
8. 21 May 2026EHRC services code laid before Parliament
9. 4 June 2026Second committee vote confirms the decision
10. Early August 2026EHRC code comes into force
11. 3-4 November 2026Full hearing before Mr Justice Linden

Source: Sex Matters, City of London Corporation, EHRC, Evening Standard

Sex Matters filed its claim on August 19, 2025. The High Court refused permission in January 2026, but on March 17, 2026, Lady Justice Elisabeth Laing in the Court of Appeal granted it, finding each ground arguable, according to the charity. The corporation then completed its review. Committees voted on May 12 and June 4, 2026 to keep the ponds as "trans-inclusive spaces as currently operated," and to spend money upgrading toilets, showers and changing areas, including more private cubicles. Sex Matters amended its claim to challenge those decisions as well.

What the corporation decided, and why

In announcing its June decision, the City of London Corporation said that "biological and trans women will continue to use the Kenwood Ladies' Pond, and biological and trans men will continue to use the Highgate Men's Pond," with the mixed pond open to all. It said committee members had weighed the consultation "alongside their legal duties, equality impact assessments, safeguarding responsibilities, and operational requirements."

Chris Hayward, the corporation's policy chairman, said: "Whilst the Supreme Court judgment confirmed the legal definition of 'sex', it did not decide that all trans inclusive services must become single-sex services." He added that the corporation had "continued to listen and take detailed legal advice throughout this process."

That statement points to the legal core of the corporation's position. It does not argue that the Ladies' Pond is a lawful single-sex service. Sex Matters says the corporation told it in July 2025 that it was "expressly not seeking to rely on the exceptions" in Schedule 3 of the Equality Act that allow separate and single-sex services. The corporation's case is that the ponds are something else: gendered spaces that include trans people, which it says it can lawfully run and which it argues are a proportionate way of serving everyone who uses them.

The corporation manages Hampstead Heath as a registered charity. It says the Heath draws about 8.1 million visits a year. In court, Stilitz said the corporation is spending between £730,000 and £1.08 million on more private changing and shower provision at the Ladies' Pond, according to the Standard.

The consultation, and what it can and cannot show

The corporation's consultation drew more than 38,000 responses. Sex Matters puts the figure at 38,742. The published results showed strong support among respondents for keeping the existing arrangements.

Support keeping the current rules

86%

Oppose strict single-sex access

86%

Oppose separate changing for trans swimmers

90%

Oppose making all ponds mixed

66%

Source: City of London Corporation consultation results

Show the numbers

Response	Share of respondents
Support keeping the current rules	86%
Oppose strict single-sex access	86%
Oppose separate changing for trans swimmers	90%
Oppose making all ponds mixed	66%

The corporation said 84% of respondents had swum at the ponds and 74% lived in London. Independently run focus groups with regular pond users also favored keeping the current rules, it said. Hayward has said the exercise "was never a referendum."

Sex Matters disputes the weight the corporation gives the survey. It says the consultation was self-selecting and "promoted online as a call to action by groups campaigning for that outcome," noting that earlier surveys of pond users drew between 600 and 2,000 responses. Its expert witness, the sociologist and criminologist Jo Phoenix of the University of Reading, wrote that the survey "establishes the balance of expressed preference among those who chose to respond" and "cannot establish that the arrangements cause no disadvantage," according to the charity. The corporation has objected to the court relying on her report; the judge said he would decide that after hearing the arguments, according to Tribunal Tweets.

Both points can be true at once. An open consultation measures the views of the people who took part, many of them regular swimmers with a direct stake. It is not a sample of Londoners or of the British public, and it does not settle a legal question about discrimination, which turns on the Equality Act rather than on popularity.

For the wider public, the most recent representative evidence we found is older and points the other way. A YouGov survey of 2,078 adults in Great Britain, fielded online on December 17-18, 2024, found 58% said trans women should not be allowed to use women's changing rooms, 25% said they should and 17% did not know. When the question specified a trans woman who had not had gender reassignment surgery, 63% said she should not be allowed and 19% said she should, according to YouGov's published tables. That poll predates the Supreme Court ruling and did not ask about these ponds, so it describes national attitudes to changing rooms in general, not views on Hampstead Heath. We did not find a representative poll on the ponds themselves.

Sex Matters' legal arguments

Sex Matters makes three main claims, set out in a pre-hearing explainer and pressed in court.

The first is direct discrimination. A woman who wants to swim at the larger Men's Pond is turned away because she is a woman, while a man in the same position would be admitted, the charity says. The reverse applies at the Ladies' Pond. Under the Equality Act, direct discrimination cannot be justified except through a statutory exception, and the charity argues the corporation has disclaimed the single-sex exceptions. "It is not lawful to exclude persons from one sex but include others of that same sex," Cross told the court. The charity has filed witness statements from a man who wants to swim at Kenwood and two women who want to swim at Highgate.

The second is that women at the Ladies' Pond are treated less favorably because they may have to undress or shower beside someone of the opposite sex. The Ladies' Pond has communal changing, communal showers and an outdoor meadow where some women sunbathe topless, the charity says. It cites accounts from women who say they now cover up, avoid the meadow or have stopped going.

The third, in the alternative, is indirect discrimination: a rule that looks neutral but puts women as a group at a particular disadvantage that the corporation cannot justify. Professor Phoenix's report argues the disadvantage arises "from the rules of the space rather than by events within it."

Sex Matters says it is not asking the court to make the ponds mixed. It says the corporation must choose a lawful model: single-sex ponds alongside the mixed pond, or three mixed ponds.

The case for the current rules

The corporation's defense rests on evidence of how the ponds have operated, on the rights of trans users and on the value of the ponds' character. It says no substantiated incident involving a trans person has been recorded since 2017. It argues that a sex-based rule would push trans people out of spaces they have used for years and would itself risk indirect discrimination claims under the Equality Act's protection for gender reassignment. And it says more private cubicles answer privacy concerns for anyone who does not want to change in a shared area.

TransLucent, a trans-led advocacy group, was granted permission to intervene and to file evidence from trans swimmers, according to Landmark Chambers, whose barrister is among its counsel. In a statement issued through its solicitors when it applied to intervene, Leigh Day, the group said the case could have "profound implications" for whether organizations can provide services that include trans people, and that its evidence shows the ponds are "a place of community, belonging and wellbeing." "Too often, issues impacting trans people are debated without hearing from the people most affected," it said.

The Good Law Project, which also applied to intervene with evidence from long-time women swimmers who support the current rules, was refused permission. The court found its points were already covered by the corporation and TransLucent, the group said. The Good Law Project said more than 14,000 of its supporters had signed a petition backing the corporation's position.

The national legal backdrop

The Supreme Court's 2025 judgment held that "woman" and "sex" in the Equality Act refer to biological sex. It also stressed that trans people remain protected from discrimination under the characteristic of gender reassignment. What the judgment means for services that were never set up as legally single-sex has been fought over since.

The EHRC's updated code of practice for services, laid before Parliament on May 21, 2026, came into force in early August after neither House voted it down, the BBC reported. The code says that where it is proportionate for a facility such as a changing room to be single-sex, only people of that biological sex should use it. It also says forcing a trans person to use facilities matching their biological sex could in some cases be discrimination, and points to gender-neutral options as an alternative. The EHRC's chair, Mary-Ann Stephenson, said when the code was laid that "we don't make the law" and that the regulator's job is to help organizations comply "while respecting everyone's rights."

The ponds case asks a question the code does not fully answer: whether a provider can run gendered spaces that are openly not single-sex in the legal sense and still exclude some people by sex. Similar disputes have reached tribunals in recent weeks. A Scottish employment tribunal recently rejected nurse Sandie Peggie's discrimination claim against the Royal College of Nursing, a separate case arising from a changing-room dispute. The EHRC has also been assessing complaints about Reform UK councillors' remarks, and Parliament is taking evidence on the draft conversion practices bill. Our United Kingdom issues guide tracks where the parties stand on these and other questions.

What to watch

The hearing concludes on November 4, and a written judgment is expected later. The judge could rule on the procedural objections first, decide the discrimination grounds, or both. If Sex Matters wins, the court could quash the corporation's decisions and leave it to pick a new admissions model; if the corporation wins, its current rules stay in place. Either side could seek to appeal.

Several questions remain open. The court has not yet said whether it will rely on Professor Phoenix's expert report or on additional survey material the corporation asked to file late. It is also unclear how a ruling on outdoor bathing ponds with shared changing areas would translate to indoor facilities with more private layouts. We did not find statements on the hearing from the UK government or the main parties by early afternoon UK time on November 3.

For how we handle polls, consultations and court reporting, see our methodology.

Differing perspectives

Can the City of London Corporation lawfully admit trans women to the Ladies' Pond and trans men to the Men's Pond on Hampstead Heath?

Each position is summarized as its supporters make it, with equal weight and in alphabetical order. A summary is not an endorsement; the evidence for each is weighed in the story above.

• Keep the current gender-inclusive admissions rules

  Who holds it: City of London Corporation, which manages Hampstead Heath, and its policy chairman Chris Hayward

  The corporation says the Supreme Court defined sex in the Equality Act but did not require every trans-inclusive service to become single-sex. It points to rules in place since at least 2017 without a substantiated incident involving a trans person, a consultation of more than 38,000 people in which 86% backed the current rules, focus groups of regular swimmers, and new private cubicles for anyone who wants them. It argues its rules are a proportionate way to serve all users and that a sex-based rule would push trans people out of spaces matching their lived gender.

  In their words: City of London Corporation ↗

• Protect trans swimmers' access to the ponds

  Who holds it: TransLucent, a trans-led advocacy group granted permission to intervene, and trans pond users whose evidence it filed

  TransLucent says the court should hear directly from the trans people the policy affects, many of whom describe the single-gender ponds as a place of acceptance and calm that they have used for years. It argues the case could have far-reaching effects on whether organizations across the UK can offer services that include trans people, and on whether trans people can use facilities in daily life in line with the gender they live in. It says the ponds are a place of community, belonging and wellbeing, not only somewhere to swim.

  In their words: Leigh Day (solicitors for TransLucent) ↗

• Run the ponds by biological sex or make them mixed

  Who holds it: Sex Matters, the claimant charity, and the women and men whose witness statements it filed

  Sex Matters argues that the Equality Act lets a provider turn people away by sex only when it runs a genuine single-sex service, and that the corporation has said it is not relying on those exceptions. Admitting some men to the Ladies' Pond while refusing others is, it says, direct sex discrimination against both sexes. It adds that women undressing in communal changing rooms and showers face a greater loss of privacy, dignity and sense of safety than men do, and that a self-selected consultation cannot outweigh that. The charity says the corporation must choose single-sex ponds alongside the mixed pond, or three mixed ponds.

  In their words: Sex Matters ↗