Tuesday, April 29, 2025 - UK Tories leader, Kemi Badenoch has
suggested that firms should require transgender staff and customers to use
disabled toilets after a Supreme Court ruling.
The Conservative Party leader said this would be a
cost-effective alternative to building new gender-neutral facilities, after the
court blocked trans individuals from using toilets matching their identified
gender.
Appearing on Good Morning Britain, Badenoch discussed the
court's decision, which declared that the words "woman" and
"sex" in the Equality Act refer to biological definitions. The ruling
has been interpreted to mean that transgender women, who are biologically male
but identify as women, can be excluded from women-only spaces like toilets and
changing rooms.
Badenoch said the situation was "not as complex as it's
often made out to be." When asked if transgender people should have
separate toilet facilities, she explained that most organisations already have
a solution. "Almost all businesses I see have disabled loos. They are
unisex, different from gender neutral. Trans people can use those," she
said. "If you are providing a single-sex space, it has to be a single-sex
space."
She emphasized that this approach would avoid the financial
burden on firms of building new facilities for transgender people.
Badenoch also said that the problem was not created by trans
people themselves but by "predatory men who used lax rules to claim they
were women and access women's toilets." She noted that regulations on
toilets had been issued two years ago, though at the time many people had
laughed at the move.
Meanwhile, a senior minister confirmed that trans civil
servants and public sector workers will be barred from using toilets and
changing rooms aligned with their identified gender. Pat McFadden stated that
the Government would follow the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)
guidance, but admitted there would be no active enforcement, saying,
"there isn’t going to be toilet police."
The UK Supreme Court's decision over the Easter period
reaffirmed that "woman" and "sex" in the Equality Act mean
biological woman and biological sex. The EHRC released new guidance in
response, clarifying that schools must provide single-sex changing facilities
for boys and girls over the age of eight. It noted that suitable alternative
provisions might be necessary for trans pupils, but that trans girls should not
be permitted to use girls' facilities, and trans boys (biological girls) should
not use boys' facilities.
Additionally, the EHRC guidance explained that
sports clubs and associations with 25 or more members can lawfully be limited
to biological men or women, meaning, for example, that a lesbian women's sports
club should not admit trans women. The watchdog is developing a detailed code
of practice based on the Supreme Court ruling, aiming to submit it to the
Government for approval by June.
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