- Mrs Badenoch said it was the 'terrible' result of a school not following guidance
- She is asking public for examples of institutions not allowing single-sex spaces
Girls have developed urinary tract infections because they did not want to use their school's gender-neutral toilets, the Equalities Minister said.
Kemi Badenoch said it was 'terrible' to learn that pupils had come down with infections, despite the unnamed school believing they were 'following the guidance'.
Mrs Badenoch revealed the case when making a 'call for input' from the public, inviting submissions to the Government of examples where institutions are potentially breaching the Equality Act by failing to provide single-sex spaces.
In remarks to LBC, she said: 'We are looking for examples where a public institution is either issuing guidance or has a policy that is not in accordance with the Equality Act when it comes to single sex spaces.
Kemi Badenoch is asking for real-world examples of bad guidance on single-sex spaces
The government wants to 'ensure single-sex spaces are maintained' despite the legal minefield
Labour's Bridget Phillipson claimed Mrs Badenoch 'does love nothing more than a culture war'
'If I were to give an example, [it would be] of a school that had gender-neutral toilets and young girls there didn't want to use the same toilets as boys so they weren't going to the toilet at school and got urinary tract infections.
'This is obviously a terrible thing but the school thought they were following the guidance, because they had used some policy analysis that done was by an organisation that wasn't looking at the equality law', she explained.
Speaking to Times Radio she confirmed there was 'a report, and this was confirmed by doctors, that there were girls who were not using the toilet in some schools and getting urinary tract infections because they didn't want to share their toilets with boys'.
She branded that situation 'a scandal', but Labour's Bridget Phillipson said Mrs Badenoch 'does love nothing more than a culture war'.
The shadow education secretary told Times Radio: 'It is so transparent what she is doing.
'She is pitching to Conservative members for the leadership contest to come in the Conservative Party, and frankly our country deserves a lot better than it always being about the Conservative Party.'
The 'call for input' comes a day after the Health Secretary announced plans to overhaul the NHS Constitution to 'ensure that biological sex is respected'.
The Government says that 'confusion' about the law is leading organisations to think that people have a legal right to access single-sex spaces according to their self-identified gender.
However this is not strictly true, as in certain situations, single-sex spaces are able to 'exclude transgender people', even those with a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC), the Govenment's Equality Hub says.
The Equalities Minister did not mention the school by name.
But last year, parents at Walsall Academy, near Wolverhampton, spoke out about the gender-neutral toilets leaving girls refusing to drink throughout the day because they are too scared to use them
Eddie Hughes, Conservative MP for Walsall North, wrote to the school after being contacted by parents and pupils.
And one female student reportedly developed a UTI after she felt uncomfortable using the toilets.
At the time, Walsall Academy said there were still 'other traditional style toilets nearby which students are able to use if they wish'.
In the same round of interviews, Mrs Badenoch accused historians of exaggerating the importance of colonialism and slavery to the growth of Britain as a world power.
She said that UK's economic success was instead the result of 'British ingenuity and industry'.
