How are the Conservatives going to avoid a humiliating defeat at the next general election? Sadly, some Tories think that transphobia could be a vote winner. Similarly, in the US, right-wing conservatives, having been defeated in their battle against same-sex marriage, have now moved on to campaign against trans rights.
Defining transgender and transphobia / terms
Trans (transgender) is an umbrella definition encompassing people whose gender is not the same as, or does not sit comfortably with, the sex they were assigned at birth. There are trans men and trans women, not all of whom want to undergo medical/surgical transition, and non-binary people who may identify as a separate third gender.
Transphobia manifests with hostility to trans people and to gender reassignment, based on the belief that male and female genders are rigid and unchangeable. Within the LGBTQ+ community, trans people are the most frequent victims of hate crimes, including harassment and violence.
Trans people represent about 0.5% of the English population, whereas over 3% may identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual. The smaller size of the trans community may increase prejudice, as we are more likely to have friends or relatives who are homosexual rather than trans.
Why access to gender neutral toilets is important
Being able to access public toilets is a fundamental necessity and right. However, trans people have experienced discrimination or harassment when accessing public toilets.
Trans people argue that they should use the toilets of the gender they identify with, regardless of whether they have undergone transition. Some women feel that this may create a risk of predatory men pretending to be trans women, though there does not seem to be an increased risk in reality.
There are only two options. Either we welcome trans women in women’s toilets, or we encourage the adoption of gender-neutral (mixed-sex) toilets.
Gender-neutral toilets have always been widely available in trains and in small establishments, usually as single toilet facilities. However, gender-neutral toilets have also been increasingly available as multi-user facilities which can be accessed by anybody, regardless of sex or gender identity.
What do the Conservatives have to say?
And here enters the scene Kemi Badenoch, the secretary of state for business and trade. Badenoch has decided to crack down on gender-neutral toilets as part of a “war on wokeism”.
Thus, all new non-residential buildings will have to provide separate single-sex toilets for women and men, with additional gender-neutral toilets being tolerated only in specific circumstances.
There has been talk of making Badenoch the “lavatory czar”, before the Tories realised it would have been utterly ridiculous.
In my experience as a cisgender person, there are disadvantages with single-sex toilets. To start with, there are always queues outside the ladies’, whilst there is always unused spare capacity in the gentlemen’s.
Secondly, if men ever feel embarrassed, it is in the gentlemen’s toilets, as there is less privacy when standing at the urinals, and you can bet it will just be the moment when the cleaner walks in. Have you noticed how the duty cleaner is invariably of the opposite sex?
When I recently visited a museum in Copenhagen all the toilets where gender-neutral. There were no urinals, and all the cubicles were fully enclosed. The only communal space was for handwashing at the basins: I did not get the impression that either men or women felt embarrassed or unsafe.
Gender-neutral lavatories would be the best solution in many places. Alternatively, if some buildings retain female and male toilets, the presence of additional gender-neutral toilets should, in my opinion, be mandatory.
We should not use toilets to wage transphobic culture wars. What we need is fairness and common sense.
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