A public toilet isn’t a neutral space. It’s a border, a checkpoint. And it’s precisely there that trans people often lose their dignity. Sometimes even their lives. Public toilets are one of the few public spaces where gender segregation is institutionalised. The division into “men” and “women” is literal here and visually controllable. This makes them problematic spaces for anyone who doesn’t fit into this binary system. Trans and non-binary people often face suspicion, verbal attacks, ejections—and in some cases even physical violence.

Why does right-wing criticism of “gender ideology” so often turn to who’s allowed to piss where?

In 2018, trans woman Amia Tyrae Berryman was killed in the US shortly after being accused of “inappropriate behaviour” in women’s toilets. A year later, trans woman Muhlaysia Booker was brutally beaten in public after leaving public toilets in Dallas (she was found shot dead a month later). There are dozens of similar incidents annually—in 2023 alone, the Human Rights Campaign recorded 32 murders of trans people in the US, most of them Black trans women.

Whilst we don’t have such bloody statistics in Czechia, contempt and bullying are common realities for people who are visibly trans. Anyone who hasn’t experienced it doesn’t know what it means to hold in your wee all day just to avoid a trip to the school toilets, where the cleaner or even the headmaster will drag you out by the ear.

The Conservative Obsession with Ceramics

Ejecting trans people from public toilets cannot be seen as a natural reaction to an incomprehensible or threatening situation, simply because trans people, including trans children, have always existed and always will exist, and what happens to them in loos can be very easily eliminated through inclusive legislation, gender-neutral public toilets, or simply through agreement. It’s enough for us as a society to agree that public spaces, including toilets, are meant for everyone—not just women and men. This is the case in Iceland, for example, where gendered toilets don’t exist, and in a bar there might be one facility simply designated for everyone.

It’s a simple recipe. Unfortunately, we live in a society where trans people face increasing pressure and restriction of rights that share a common denominator—conservative politics. It’s precisely voices on the right side of the political spectrum that call most loudly for restricting trans people’s rights. Lately even with such vehemence that one must ask why the toilet has become a fetish of conservative discourse? Why does right-wing criticism of “gender ideology” so often turn to who’s allowed to piss where?

Toilets are something like relics of the old order for the conservative imagination. They’re the last places where gender order still holds: men left, women right, comprehensible key, order. And that’s precisely why conservatives make such a fuss about it. Hence the fetish. Hence the hysteria. Toilets combine several explosive elements for conservatives: corporeality, sexuality, and supposed “protection of the vulnerable”. The argumentation is laughably predictable: “We must protect women and children!” Yet no serious data proves that trans women in women’s toilets harm anyone. On the contrary, it’s precisely trans people who are most often victims of violence there from heterosexual men. But facts are secondary in culture wars. It’s about controlling space and identities.

The conservative narrative often works with the notion that allowing trans women access to women’s toilets exposes cis women to “danger”—despite no data supporting such claims. On the contrary, studies from the US show that where trans-inclusive measures are implemented, there’s no increase in attacks or abuse. When the Williams Institute analysed more than two hundred cities with inclusive legislation, it found no increase in security incidents. Meanwhile, trans people in hostile legal environments are afraid to use toilets at all—besides anxiety, this leads to serious health problems.

White Man in Crisis

So when conservatives like Ron DeSantis or Czech MPs from SPD fight against “gender ideology”, they’re actually fighting to preserve cultural control over space. The public toilet is a symbol that society still has tools to determine who belongs where. And simultaneously—who doesn’t belong here at all. It’s a form of power that controls not only bodies but also movement, hygiene, and dignity. Trans people who experience mockery, threats, or even just a look full of suspicion in toilets perceive these places as threats. And rightly so.

The question of why trans people specifically arouse such strong hatred relates to deeper cultural dynamics. Trans people challenge the notion that sex is given, stable, and objectively determinable. This threatens not only biological essentialism but also the identities of those who built their world on this construct. This particularly affects some white heterosexual men who feel sidelined in a changing society. Loss of cultural dominance, feminist pressure, economic uncertainty—all this sublimates into attacks on “incomprehensible identities”. Hatred towards trans people is often just a projection of the feeling of loss of control.

For example, in the US there’s a direct correlation between the rise of transphobic legislation and mobilisation of right-wing male voters. In 2022, more than three hundred laws restricting trans people’s rights were proposed—the vast majority initiated by Republicans in traditionally “white” states like Florida, Texas, or Idaho. And thus hatred is born. Between 2022 and 2025, nearly a thousand laws targeting trans people went through the legislative process in the US—from banning hormone therapy to banning access to toilets. Republican legislators say America needs “protection”. From whom? From a child who needs to piss?

This Isn’t About Toilets

Ultimately, though, this isn’t about toilets. The fight over the “right” doors is deceptive. It’s about dignity. About life without humiliation. About the possibility of simply popping out—without it becoming an ideological shootout. So when someone starts whinging again that trans people are “invading their exclusive space”, let’s ask: who’s actually constantly looking under cubicle doors? And who minds that someone else simply wants to piss in peace?

This fight is about who has the right to be visible. Who can be at peace. Who doesn’t have to explain anything. And conversely, who should be afraid that someone will push them out of a world where only the right bodies, right identities, and right doors count. Trans people didn’t choose to become symbols of culture war. They just want to live. To go to the toilet. To be part of the world without constant control, suspicion, and humiliation. Just like in Iceland.

The debate about toilet access that contemporary Anglo-American society is having is proxy. It reflects fear, frustration, and cultural panic. But it also shows us where the real fight for dignity is taking place in contemporary society.

Rad Bandit is a social worker.