Transgender People and Women’s Safety

The debate focuses on the extent to which sex-specific facilities — intended to protect women — should be accessible to transgender women, and how this should be balanced against transgender people’s right to equal treatment.

The debate

The debate focuses on the extent to which sex-specific facilities — intended to protect women — should be accessible to transgender women, and how this should be balanced against transgender people’s right to equal treatment. Information on what single-sex spaces are and the legal basis on which they exist can be found at vrouwenruimtes.nl.

Different perspectives

Supporters of automatic access based on self-identified gender point to principles of equality and the vulnerability of transgender people. Supporters of a more cautious approach point to the original purpose of sex-specific facilities and to cases in which problems arose.

Policy

In the Netherlands, changing rooms, shelters for abused women and hospital care are not governed by a uniform national policy; institutions make their own assessments, sometimes with attention to case management. In other countries, such as the United Kingdom, regulations were tightened following a 2025 ruling by the UK Supreme Court. In the US state of Idaho, a judge suspended a law that makes toilet use by transgender people a criminal offence. Higher education is also becoming involved in the discussion: a report by CriticalRace.org mapped how many American universities offer mixed-sex toilet facilities with multiple stalls, and on 4 May 2026 the US Department of Education opened an investigation into women’s college Smith over its admission of transgender women.

The 2025 British ruling

On 16 April 2025, in the case of For Women Scotland, the UK Supreme Court ruled that the terms woman and sex in equality law refer to biological sex. An Gender Recognition Certificate does not change this for the purposes of this law. Facilities that the law makes available for women, such as shelters, changing rooms and hospital wards, may therefore be organised on the basis of biological sex. Since 2026, a British code of practice for women’s spaces has been in force. The court stressed that transgender people remain protected against discrimination on the grounds of gender reassignment.

What is at stake

The facilities at the centre of the debate have one thing in common: women are vulnerable or undressed there, or stay there because they have fled violence by men. Critics are not claiming that transgender women as a group are dangerous. Their concern is that a rule granting access on the basis of self-declaration would also be open to men with malicious intentions, leaving staff unable to refuse anyone. At the same time, transgender women themselves may face risks in men’s facilities. Reliable figures on incidents are scarce, making the debate heavily dependent on individual cases.

Sport

In sport, the issues are fairness and safety. The international governing bodies for swimming and athletics excluded athletes who have undergone male puberty from the women’s category at elite level in 2022 and 2023. An overview of performance advantage, safety and policy can be found at gendersport.nl. See gender and sport and the IOC and women’s sport. For more on detention and shelters, see gender and prisons and women’s shelters and self-identification. In the US state of Oregon, a court of appeals suspended an order in 2026 requiring transgender women to be placed in women’s prisons as a standard practice.