Caitlyn Jenner has said she would not feel safe using men’s toilets and finds women’s toilets to have a “much better environment”.
Jenner, who came out as a trans woman in 2015, said she has been using women’s toilets for eight years and has “never had a problem”, when speaking to Sky News on The UK Tonight with Sarah-Jane Mee.
“It is a much better environment in the ladies room, but I treat it with respect,” she said. “I go in there, I do my business and I get the heck outta there.” (sic)
The 73-year-old, who is best known as an Olympic gold medallist turned reality TV star, with her connection to the Kardashians, went on to say that she wouldn’t feel safe using a men’s toilet.
“Would I feel more safe going into the men’s room, looking like this?
“I don’t think that would be a good idea, for my safety. I treat it with respect, that’s by far the most important thing,” she said.
Caitlyn Jenner says she treats women’s toilets with ‘respect’
Jenner’s comments come after the UK government confirmed in August that it is working to reverse the “rise in gender-neutral toilets” as part of its wider efforts to protect single-sex spaces.
New regulations brought in by the government means that all new non-domestic public and private buildings will be required to provide separate single-sex toilets for women and men and/or a self-contained, private toilet as a minimum.
At the time, Kemi Badenoch, minister for women and equalities, said the move towards gender-neutral toilets had removed women and girls’ fundamental right to privacy and dignity.
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“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,” she said.
What is the current law in the UK?
Currently in the UK, transgender people can be excluded from using single-sex services such as toilets in certain scenarios, for example to prevent trauma and enable privacy.
“A sufficiently good reason” must be demonstrated by an organisation for doing so, a failure of which would be deemed unlawful, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) states.
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Why are gender-neutral toilets controversial?
Going one step further, Ms Badenoch wrote to the EHRC in April, asking for its advice to change official wording in the Equality Act from just “sex” to “biological sex”, which she described as a “technical and contested area of law”.
In response, the parliament’s human rights watchdog said the amendment would result in “greater legal clarity” around women-only spaces, hospitals and access to sport.
The recommendation was met with anger from the LGBTQ+ charity, Stonewall, which said the move would “risk opening yet another chapter in a manufactured culture war that will see little benefit to women, cis and trans alike”.
Jenner has previously spoken about her views on transwomen taking part in sports, claiming that individuals who were born male should not be allowed to compete in girls’ sports teams.
Reiterating her stance to Sky News on Wednesday, she said: “In swimming, trans women should not be competing in women’s sport, that’s the bottom line.”
She added that when she was at the height of her sporting career, she “wouldn’t have transitioned”.
