‘Gender-neutral’ lavatories are an invasion of women’s privacy
I would never have guessed when I first became an MP how much time I would spend looking at toilet policy. But, increasingly, my job is spent legislating for common sense and stopping people determined to do destructive things.
A decade ago, there was no need to clarify who could use which toilet. However, in today’s world, some are trying to redefine biological sex to mean however one chooses to identify. This has led to multiple instances of organisations, from schools to music venues, removing single-sex (male only or female only) toilets and replacing them with “gender-neutral” versions. This is compounded by an assumption that a private and self-contained unisex toilet and a “gender neutral” toilet are the same thing. But they are not.
That is why today the Government is setting out clearly what the difference is, and what best practice toilet design should look like. The debate around sex-based rights has become confused. Basic tenets of everyday life, such as the right to privacy in a single sex space, are framed as transphobic by a vocal minority of activists.
Women should have exclusive access to public toilet facilities reserved specifically for them. Men should have the same. Female loos must have cubicles, while male ones can have urinals. Transgender people should have privacy. The sign on the door should clearly tell you what to expect. Yet, women increasingly find the space they understood to be their own fitted out with urinals, supposedly to accommodate anyone who identifies as a gender different from their biological sex. This has led to perverse outcomes.
Recently, doctors reported that girls at some schools that had installed “gender neutral” toilets had been skipping school or picking up infections because they refused to urinate all day out of fear of using the facilities. After refurbishments in 2019, the Old Vic theatre in London added a host of new “gender neutral” toilets, in a misguided attempt to remove sex-based distinctions. The predictable result was a significant reduction in facilities for women, who were expected to pass through urinal blocks to access a stall.
We want a society where transgender people are treated with respect and sensitivity. But this needs to be done sensibly. For obvious reasons, women face longer queues than men to use the toilet. We have physical needs that are more complex, from menstruation to pregnancy and menopause. Female-only toilets give women the peace of mind that they will be shielded from having their privacy violated.
Unisex toilets are very different to “gender neutral” facilities. A unisex toilet is similar to a bathroom in a family home: a fully enclosed room with a handbasin and lockable door. In a venue, like a small café, there may only be space for a single unisex toilet. A “gender-neutral” facility is a mixed sex facility where men and women use the same toilet cubicles and the same facilities to wash and dry their hands.
Providing a unisex option means transgender people have a private facility where they won’t be subject to invasive questions, and they should be accessible so disabled people can use them with greater ease.
Last year, I committed to changing building guidance so that new public buildings should have separate, clearly demarcated, single-sex lavatories. Today the Government is publishing that draft guidance that will protect the dignity, privacy and safety of all. We are also publishing guidelines which will make clear that “gender neutral” toilets are no longer an option.
No doubt, there will be cries from our ideological opponents that this is the Government “fighting culture wars”. Others who do know better feel topics like this are beneath them and will complain that we should focus on the economy not on toilet privacy, as if it isn’t possible to do both. Our job as a Government is to speak for those who have no voice and regulate where there is market or common sense failure.
The Conservatives are the only party who still speak for everyday people on this issue. The former SNP and Lib Dem leaders Nicola Sturgeon and Jo Swinson both lost their jobs shortly after making nonsensical comments redefining what a woman is. Keir Starmer’s own Labour-run Camden council turned women’s public toilets on the high streets into “gender neutral” ones. It even marketed the replacement of women’s toilets in the town hall as an “improvement”.
The Conservatives are the only party of common sense. We won’t sit idly by as schoolgirls get infections because they feel uncomfortable using “gender-neutral” loos. We will never be ashamed of defending the right to privacy and dignity for all. No matter how trendy the opposition or how vocal the outrage, we will intervene where common sense disappears.
Kemi Badenoch is Business and Trade Secretary and Minister for Women and Equalities
