Sunak leans into culture war with crackdown on gender-neutral toilets

Rishi Sunak’s government has announced a crackdown on gender-neutral public toilets by insisting that all new buildings have separate single-sex facilities.

The prime minister has made clear he is willing to defy transgender rights groups on the issue, leaning into the so-called “culture war” rows over bathrooms.

His equalities minister Kemi Badenoch said the rise in gender-neutral toilets had removed the “fundamental right” for women and girls to have “privacy, dignity and safety”.

Trans rights groups have argued that gender-neutral toilets can help combat discrimination, since trans people can face difficulties using male or female toilets.

But the Sunak government argued that forcing people to share communal cubicles and hand-washing facilities has created “dignity and privacy concerns” from women who feel “unfairly disadvantaged”.

Pledging to halt the increase in neutral gender facilities, the government is bringing forward changes to regulations so all new non-residential buildings must offer separate single-sex toilets for women and men.

The government says self-contained, private unisex toilets should be provided in new buildings if there is space, but should not be put in at the expense of single-sex toilets.

“It is important that everybody has privacy and dignity when using public facilities,” said Ms Badenoch. “Yet the move towards ‘gender neutral’ toilets has removed this fundamental right for women and girls.”

The cabinet minister promised to publish guidance on the changes aimed at protecting “the dignity, privacy and safety of all”.

In 2022 the Equality and Human Rights Commission ruled that organisations are entitled to exclude transgender people from single-sex toilets and changing rooms.

But they must demonstrate their actions are proportionate, with legitimate reasons including allowing for privacy, or preventing trauma.

The Independent understands that the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has not gathered any data showing the scale of the increase in gender-neutral public toilets.

The government has been accused of using the issue to stoke divisions. Labour’s Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, told The Independent in June that Mr Sunak was exploiting the trans debate as a “wedge issue in an ugly culture war”.

The PM was also accused of transphobia after a leaked video saw him mocking Lib Dem leader Ed Davey for “trying to convince everybody that women clearly had penises”.

The Lib Dem leader accused the PM of treating trans people like a “punchline” after the clip surfaced. But No 10 insisted the joke was at the expense of Mr Davey, not a minority group.

It comes as the government prepares to finally set out new guidance to schools on trans issues when parliament returns next month.

The delay document is widely expected to tell headteachers to consult parents if their child talks about a desire to socially transition to a different gender, so that they could choose another pronoun or name.