Leicester Square Christmas Market offers gender-neutral toilets – but only in women’s cubicles

Women who visited a Christmas market in central London were left with no single-sex lavatories after event organisers designated them “gender-neutral” but allowed the men’s lavatories to stay single-sex.

Online event information for the attraction, in Leicester Square, stated customers would be offered separate facilities for men and women, and that it would have a third set of “gender-neutral” lavatories.

However, signs placed on Monday showed a set of cubicles marked “male toilets”, and two sets of cubicles marked “female toilets”.

Both sets of women’s toilets carried signs at the entrance that read: “Gender diversity is welcomed here, please use the toilets that best fit your gender identity or expression”. The sign was not placed on the men’s toilets.

Underbelly, which puts on the festive attraction, hosts alpine-themed outdoor bars, food vendors and market stalls for three months each year with shows by award-winning cabaret troupe La Clique in the main Spiegeltent.

Earlier this year, London theatre The Lyric was criticised for leaving female attendees “uncomfortable” after they were forced to use gender-inclusive lavatories featuring five urinals and one cubicle. The theatre said it provides a range of lavatory facilities to meet the needs of all the individuals who use its building.

A month later, a study found that gender-neutral lavatories carry the most germs, while women’s toilets carried fewer microbes than men’s.

Campaign group Sex Matters said the signs on the toilets were “anything but inclusive” and called for the lavatories to be changed.

Helen Joyce, the group’s director, said: “It’s very revealing that proponents of gender-identity ideology consistently demand that women – not men – give up their single-sex spaces.”

She said the signage is “an attack on women’s hard-won rights to privacy, safety and dignity” and amounts to “discrimination against women”.

“Underbelly should immediately fix its signage to ensure that the thousands of women and girls attending the event over the coming weeks have access to genuinely female-only facilities. That means no men allowed in, not even the ones with special identities,” she added.

A spokesman for Underbelly said the “gender-diverse” signs had been placed exclusively on the women’s toilets by mistake following an inquiry by The Telegraph.

She said the three sets of cubicles available to the public should have been designated men’s, women’s, and “gender-diverse”.

“The signage in the picture displayed is to give customers an option of gender-diverse toilets, so we have something available for everyone,” the spokesman said.

“The signage was mistakenly put towards the female cubicles, however it should have been placed in the middle.

“This has now been updated so there is a male, female and gender diverse option over the three separate toilet blocks.”

The female toilets sign has now been removed from one set of cubicles, and the “gender diverse” sign has been removed from the women’s cubicles.