Some 90 percent of people rejected the need for separate changing rooms or sessions for trans+ swimmers
A transphobic organisation has lost its bid to force Hampstead Heath’s famous swimming ponds to ban trans women.
And a huge majority of the thousands of swimmers who use the pond voted to stand with trans+ people against bigots.
Sex Matters took legal action against the City of London Corporation, which operates the ponds.
It said that allowing trans+ people to use the facilities for the gender with which they identify was sex discrimination.
But the challenge was dismissed. Sex Matters filed for a judicial review, arguing the policy was unlawful under the April 2025 Supreme Court ruling that a woman is defined by biological sex.
Their claim was rejected.
The legal decision came after a public consultation run by the City of London Corporation was published. It found that nearly 90 percent of respondents backed trans-inclusivity.
Over 38,000 people took part in the consultation. Some 90 percent rejected the need for separate changing rooms or sessions for trans+ swimmers.
Trans-led advocacy and human rights organisation TransLucent said it was unacceptable that public money “is wasted by relentless legal assaults from a powerful, well‑funded minority”.
This minority is “determined to exclude trans people and, as a by-product, cause havoc in feminism, when there are so many more important issues that women face.
Trans inclusion is the norm across the country—now, the government must provide decisive legal clarity, empowering service providers to act inclusively without being held hostage to costly litigation.”
Trans+ people have been free to use the pool of their choice since 2017. And a massive majority of those they swim with want them to continue, in defiance of the Supreme Court and the EHRC.
Julia Ryder, Worcestershire
We are told that Britain has a proud legacy of scientific discovery that spans four centuries.
It came as a shock then for us scientists to learn last week that the government schemes that fund fundamental research in sciences have been suspended. No clear date has been provided for their reinstatement.
If not reversed, this decision will have two main consequences. It will mean that the approximately two thirds of British academic scientists employed on fixed-term contracts will not know if they will have a salary in a year’s time.
More fundamentally, it could destroy in a matter of years the infrastructure for scientific research that has taken centuries to build.
So, what is to be done?
These devastating attacks on British science can be fought, but only as part of a concerted national strike campaign led by the university unions.
Workers in the sciences, social sciences and humanities need to join together to resist this latest example of the disaster that is the marketisation of higher education.
We should demand proper funding for academia.
Anon,by email
The Australian ruling class has tried to repress the Palestine movement following the Isis-inspired antisemitic shootings at Bondi Beach.
The New South Wales Labour government prohibited protest marches in central Sydney for three months.
But a defiant stand by Aboriginal activists has forced part of the city to be made exempt from the ban.
Aboriginal people and supporters counter the nationalist Australia Day celebrations on 26 January each year with mass anti-racist Invasion Day marches.
Organisers in Sydney pledged to defy the ban on marching. After first threatening mass arrests, the police commissioner caved in and allowed the march.
The following weekend saw the first pro-Palestine march in Sydney since the shooting.
In Boorloo (Perth), a Nazi threw a bomb into the Invasion Day crowd—thankfully it failed to explode.
More defiance and unity will be needed to meet the growing threat of the far right.
Paddy Gibson, Sydney, Australia
Management at the University of Edinburgh have pushed £140 million pounds of cuts.
These plans include over 1,000 redundancies and the closure of courses.
But data shows that the university had a budget surplus of £43 million pounds last year.
The cuts were never about “securing the long term financial security of the university”, they were about taking neoliberal reforms to their extreme conclusion.
Edinburgh UCU must fight for every job.
Alex Thomson-Strong, Edinburgh
Plus: readers on Zionist football chants and the legacy of empire
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