 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. ){kind=link}
We are standing up for common sense, and ensuring everyone is treated with dignity and sensitivity
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.