The Architects’ Journal Architecture News & Buildings
All new public buildings will have to provide ‘separate male and female toilets’, or self-contained private toilets, while gender-neutral toilets with multiple cubicles will be banned.
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) said it would make single-sex toilets the new default through changes to building regulations and guidance.
The department said ‘separate unisex (or universal) toilets should be provided if there is space, but should not come at the expense of female toilets’, the AJ’s sister title Construction News has reported.
Advertisement
The government said the move was in response to concerns for the dignity and privacy of women and elderly people, who feel they are ‘losing privacy and being unfairly disadvantaged’ as a result of a rise in gender-neutral facilities.
According to the DLUHC, the increase in gender-neutral toilets has led to longer waiting in shared queues, decreased choice and a limitation on privacy and dignity.
But organisations including feminist architecture and design collective Edit and grassroots group Architecture LGBT+ have hit back at the plans, describing them as a 'backwards step'. Edit called the move 'a distraction tactic by our government to fuel the culture war and transphobia'.
And Architecture LGBT+ said: 'Gender neutral spaces allow transgender and non-binary people, some of the most marginalised in society, the freedom to use facilities with dignity, without having to gender themselves'. (Read both comments in full below).
The government says it is basing the changes on findings from a call for evidence on toilet provision for men and women, which gathered the views of more than 17,000 people.
Advertisement
The changes will require the provision of separate single-sex toilet facilities for men and women and/or self-contained, private toilets. Mixed-sex shared facilities will be banned except when lack of space allows only a single toilet.
DLUHC insisted its approach ‘will mean women, who may need to use facilities more often, for example because of pregnancy and sanitary needs, have appropriate facilities’.
The guidelines will also consider the design of self-contained unisex toilets, which must be fully enclosed with a hand basin for individual use, alongside improvements to disabled toilets, in a consultation.
The technical consultation is now open, and will close on 8 October. Any changes will affect England only.
Minister for women and equalities Kemi Badenoch said: ‘It is important that everybody has privacy and dignity when using public facilities. Yet the move towards “gender-neutral” toilets has removed this fundamental right for women and girls.
‘These proposals will ensure every new building in England is required to provide separate male and female or unisex facilities, and publish guidance to explain the difference, protecting the dignity, privacy and safety of all.’
Parliamentary undersecretary for faith and communities Jane Scott said: ‘These proposals will mean separate toilets for men and women, as well as self-contained toilets for those that need them, become a requirement for every new building across England.'
Conservative MP Caroline Nokes, who chairs Parliament’s Women and Equalities Committee, has previously argued that schools should have gender-neutral toilets to be 'inclusive' and to stop trans and non-binary students being ‘incorrectly gendered’.
Following the latest announcement, Nokes told Pink News: ‘What matters most when it comes to toilets is design. I always point at Portcullis House in Parliament which has bathrooms on every floor, nobody refers to them as gender-neutral bathrooms – they are just bathrooms.
‘If you have lavatory facilities that are each self-contained units, with their own wash basin and hand drier, and wall-to-ceiling walls and doors, and men remember to put the seat down, there really is nothing to complain about.’
'The new legislation is a distraction tactic by our government to fuel the culture war and transphobia'
Feminist architecture and design collective Edit weighs in
In the UK, public funding cuts have meant that we have fewer and fewer truly public toilets, forcing people to rely on private businesses and institutions, with repercussions for huge parts of our society: disabled people, people with chronic health conditions, older and pregnant people and parents with young children, among others.
The new legislation is a distraction tactic by our government to fuel the culture war and transphobia, which are increasingly rampant. It is trying to solve a problem that does not exist and fails to engage with real issues to do with access to public amenities, and by extension, to public spaces, for huge groups of the society and among them, marginalised minorities.
'Gender neutral toilets allow some of the most marginalised in society the freedom to use facilities with dignity'
Not for profit grassroots organisation Architecture LGBT+ comments
We are alarmed by this backwards step to reverse Gender Neutral toilets in public buildings, preventing authentic inclusivity. Gender neutral spaces allow transgender and non-binary people, some of the most marginalised in society, the freedom to use facilities with dignity, without having to gender themselves. Gendered spaces speak of boundaries, segregation and ideas of who is allowed in and who is not. Government-led culture wars lead to division in society, whilst we currently have a rise in Homophobic and Transphobic hate crime.
It’s a squalid tactic to scapegoat vulnerable minorities in an attempt to distract from the government’s failure to solve any of the major problems such as the meltdown of the NHS. Anyone supporting this policy is only helping them to do this.