Transgender people should use disabled toilets if they reject birth gender facilities – Kemi Badenoch
UK Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, has suggested that businesses should direct transgender staff and customers to use disabled toilets instead of building gender-neutral facilities, following a Supreme Court ruling.
Badenoch said this would offer a cost-effective solution after the court ruled that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act are based on biological definitions, effectively allowing organizations to exclude transgender women from female-only spaces like toilets and changing rooms.
Speaking on Good Morning Britain, Badenoch said the situation was “not as complicated as often portrayed.”
When asked whether transgender individuals should have separate restroom facilities, she noted that most businesses already have an alternative: “Nearly every business I visit has disabled toilets, which are unisex but distinct from gender-neutral spaces. Trans people can use those,” she explained. “If you provide a single-sex space, it must remain single-sex.”
Badenoch emphasised that this approach would save businesses from the financial burden of constructing new facilities.
She also pointed out that the problem wasn’t caused by transgender people but by “predatory men exploiting lax rules to enter women’s spaces.”
She mentioned that guidelines for toilets had been issued two years ago, although many initially dismissed them.
Meanwhile, a senior government minister confirmed that transgender civil servants and public sector workers would no longer be allowed to use toilets and changing rooms matching their gender identity.
Pat McFadden said the government would adhere to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) guidance but clarified that there would be no strict enforcement, saying, “there isn’t going to be toilet police.”
The UK Supreme Court’s recent ruling reaffirmed that “woman” and “sex” under the Equality Act refer to biological women and biological sex.
In response, the EHRC released updated guidelines requiring schools to provide separate changing facilities for boys and girls aged eight and above. It also clarified that while alternative arrangements should be made for transgender pupils, trans girls should not be allowed in girls’ facilities, and trans boys (biological girls) should not access boys’ facilities.
Furthermore, the EHRC guidance stated that sports clubs with 25 or more members could lawfully limit membership to biological males or females — meaning, for instance, that a lesbian women’s club is not obligated to admit trans women.
The commission is preparing a detailed code of practice based on the Supreme Court ruling, expected to be submitted to the government by June.
