A new type of pond life
I LOVED the story about the ladies who gatecrashed the men-only bathing pond on Hampstead Heath. They were inspired by a Mumsnet campaign called #ManFriday, encouraging women to “selfidentify” as men on Fridays.
It’s a typical Mumsnet reaction to the ludicrous upside-down gender world we now live in. The Government is poised to introduce a barmy new initiative called the Gender Recognition Act. This could enable anyone to “self-identify” as either a man or a woman, just by saying so, enabling them to have access to areas designated male or female only. It’s women who feel most cross. Nobody wants to see a hairy man in a ladies lavatory or single-sex sauna. It’s threatening, women rightly want to protect themselves from strange male glances at private moments.
So the Hampstead ladies invaded the male bathing pool wearing fake bushy beards and even a mankini. Needless to say the blokes were not amused and called the police.
I live near the heath and the ponds are sacred to locals. There are ponds for men, ponds for women and mixed ponds for everyone. This is an amusing little episode but it’s a foretaste of what may happen if the Gender Recognition Act is passed. Chaos. Private intimate spaces are male or female only for a good reason. Gender-fluid people should campaign for their own spaces, not invade the privacy of those who are genderfixed. We don’t need a new law. Just some common sense.