LGBTQ acts have threatened to boycott the Download Festival after organisers followed the Supreme Court’s ruling and said trans men and women should use toilets according to their biological sex – not the gender they identify as.
Trans pop-punk artist Noahfinnce says the decision will be put people ‘in danger’, declaring the decision means: ‘My trans sisters have to risk outing themselves in the men’s [toilets]’.
The row has come to the attention of Harry Potter author and women’s rights campaigner JK Rowling, who said of the complaints by trans artists and campaigners: ‘Nothing short of women’s total capitulation will be good enough for them’.
The rock and metal festival held in Donington Park, Leicestershire, between June 13 and 15 will be attended by up to 130,000 people and will feature performances from Green Day, McFly, Korn and Weezer.
And six weeks on since the Supreme Court ruled trans women are legally male and trans men are legally female for the purposes of the Equality Act, Download applied it to its portaloo policy.
It said this year it would be following the guidance issued by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission that ‘trans women (biological men) should not be permitted to use the women’s facilities and trans men (biological women) should not be permitted to use the men’s facilities.’
The vast majority of the portaloos on site will still be gender neutral.
Yet Noahfinnce threatened to quit claiming the decision is ‘unsafe’ – with some trans men and women vowing to defy the rules and use whatever toilet they want.
‘I had a great time playing last year but will not be attending again if I have to queue up for the ladies’ and my trans sisters have to risk outing themselves in the men’s. All this does is put trans people in danger’, the singer said.
Trans pop-punk artist Noahfinnce says the decision will be put trans people ‘in danger’ and threatened not to attend this year. JK Rowling has defended Download
Manchester band Witch Fever called the Download policy a ‘complete f***ing tragedy’ – even though the majority of toilets will be gender neutral
JK Rowling has had her say on the row
In a post on Twitter, Noahfinnce wrote: ‘Hey @DownloadFest what the f**k are you doing? How have you got the gall to invite trans people like me to play your festival, then ban them from using the toilet? If the only way we can p*ss is by outing ourselves, then you’ve created an unsafe environment’.
Manchester band Witch Fever said: ‘The threat to trans people’s safety by forcing them to enter toilets that are assigned to a gender that they don’t associate with is a complete f***ing tragedy. We are hoping this decision gets changed’.
American rock band Pinkshift then said on Instagram: ‘Playing @downloadfest was fun last year but what f***ing music festival policies gendered bathrooms?
‘Thanks Noahfinnce for being the only artist [we’ve] seen talk about this. If Download is part of your life, speak up. They think they can get away with discrimination in the year of 2025’.
Download then issued a statement declaring that the ‘Festival has always been and remains for everyone’, adding: ‘We want to reassure all of our customers that the majority of the toilets across the site are gender neutral’.
Artist and campaigner Birdy Rose said that Download had done the right thing to offer single sex toilet facilities and gender neutral toilet facilities to be available to those who want to use them.
But she added: ‘This should have been a good and reasonable way to make everybody happy whilst also abiding by the law. Instead ‘trans’ activists seem to be having an absolute meltdown, claiming that this is ‘immoral’ and men should just ignore the law and enter the female spaces anyway.
‘So what have we learned here? Nothing is ever good enough for the woke lunatics’.
Download has said it would be following the guidance issued by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission that ‘trans women (biological men) should not be permitted to use the women’s facilities and trans men (biological women) should not be permitted to use the men’s facilities’
Noahfinnce tweeted this angry response to Download
Equalities Minister Bridget Phillipson said last month that ‘services should be accessed on the basis of biological sex’, meaning trans women should usually use male toilets if there is no alternative provision, despite last year saying that a man who had legally changed gender ‘would be using female toilets’.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission has now issued guidance stating unequivocally that in workplaces and places open to the public ‘trans women (biological men) should not be permitted to use the women’s facilities and trans men (biological women) should not be permitted to use the men’s facilities’.
But Labour has been accused of being in chaos over the Supreme Court’s April ruling.
Guidance for schools on pupils who identify as the opposite sex may not be published before the summer holidays, for example.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has demanded Keir Starmer apologise to women after the Supreme Court’s biological sex ruling.
The Leader of the Opposition told the Mail that the Prime Minister – who has now dropped his belief that transgender women are women – should say sorry to those who lost jobs or were harassed in the row over equality law.
In Parliament she also urged him to apologise to MP Rosie Duffield who was hounded out of Labour after she spoke up for female-only spaces – and told him to crack down on the trans activists who defaced Westminster statues in angry protests against the landmark judgment.
Her comments came after Sir Keir belatedly spoke out on the declaration by Britain’s top court that the legal definition of a woman should be based on biological sex, saying: ‘A woman is an adult female, and the court has made that absolutely clear.’
He declined to repeat his previous statement that ‘trans women are women’ but his official spokesman later confirmed he no longer believes it.
