Feminists arrive at the men’s pond on Hampstead Heath, north London, last month to make a point about people who self-identify

Ministers have vowed to defend women’s rights to exclude transgender people from female-only spaces such as changing rooms, lavatories and swimming sessions.

In a significant victory for campaigners, the government has promised not to put the rights of those who identify as women ahead of those who are biologically female. Its intervention comes in the wake of a series of clashes that have come to light in the year since the government floated proposals to allow adults to change their gender legally without a doctor’s diagnosis.

Men identifying as women were permitted to swim in the ladies’ pond on Hampstead Heath in north London; a woman who requested a female nurse to perform her cervical smear was called in by a person with stubble; and