Government Launches Toilet Consultation on Banning Shared Gender-Neutral Loo

A sign of segregated male and female restrooms. thitiwat_t1980/Shutterstock

The government has launched a toilet consultation on Sunday over plans to crack down on gender-neutral toilets in England.

Announcing the planned rule change, women and equalities minister Kemi Badenoch said the proposals will “ensure every new building in England is required to provide separate male and female or unisex facilities.”

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities said it’s changing the rules because the rising conversion around turning public toilets into gender neutral facilities have resulted in “shared queues, decreased choice, and a limitation on privacy and dignity for all” and left women and elderly people feeling vulnerable and that they are being unfairly disadvantaged.

According to a draft guidance (pdf), building regulations will be changed to require new or newly refurbished non-residential buildings to provide either separate men’s and women’s toilets or fully enclosed universal toilets, or both if they have enough space.

“Mixed sex shared facilities are not an option, except when lack of space allows only a single toilet,” the department said in a press release.

Writing in The Telegraph, Ms. Badenoch sought to differentiate a unisex toilet, which she said is “similar to a bathroom in a family home” which is fully enclosed and can be locked from the inside, and gender-neutral toilets, in which men and women are in the same space and sharing the same toilets and washing facilities.

Attempts by some to “redefine biological sex” have led to multiple instances of organisations replacing men’s and women’s toilets with gender-neutral facilities, the minister stated.

She cited recent reports that said some school girls had been skipping schools or picking up infections because they refused to urinate all day out of fear of using gender-neutral facilities in schools.

“Women should have exclusive access to public toilet facilities reserved specifically for them. Men should have the same,” Ms. Badenoch wrote.

“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.”

Kemi Badenoch, Secretary of State for the Department for Business and Trade, departs the weekly Cabinet meeting at Downing Street, in central London, on May 2, 2023. Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

However, the requirement will not apply to schools, prisons, or en-suite facilities in individual rooms for residential purposes, the draft guidance said.

According to the consultation document, Schools and cellular accommodation in custodial facilities are exempted because these are building types where extra supervision is needed.

The government said schools are exempt because existing regulations already require them to provide single-sex toilets.

Statutory rules in the School Premises (England) Regulations 2012 and the Education (Independent Schools Standards) Regulation 2014 require schools to provide separate toilets for boys and girls aged 8 or above unless the facility is intended for one person at a time and can be locked from the inside.

The consultation on requiring single-sex toilets was a year in waiting.

Following an earlier consultation that asked for thoughts on the toilet provision, which gathered over 17,500 responses, Ms. Badenoch told Parliament in July 2022 that gender neutral facilities place women at a significant disadvantage.

“While men can then use both cubicles and urinals, women can only use the former. The net effect is actually to reduce toilet provision for women. Women also need safe spaces given their particular biological, health and sanitary needs (for example, women who are menstruating, pregnant or at menopause, may need to use the toilet more often). Women are also likely to feel less comfortable using mixed sex facilities,” the minister said at the time.

Commenting on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, Sex Matters, a campaign group advocating for single-sex spaces, said “female-only privacy when washing, changing, and using the loo is essential for women and girls’ inclusion in public life.”