Download Festival’s Bathroom Policy Sparks Debate — Here’s What They Said
The Download Festival has posted a statement after some controversy arose over the accessibility of bathrooms for transgendered fans and artists at the 2025 music weekend.
The issue started to garner momentum on social media when musician Noah Finnce brought attention to the festival's adoption of government guidelines.
"We will be following the interim guidance issued by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) on 25 April 2025 here," shared the festival. Their guidance states 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."
Finnce posted a screen shot of the guideline shared from an email enquiry and posed the comment, "Hey @DownloadFest what the fuck are you doing inviting trans people to play your festival but not allowing them the simple right of using the correct bathroom. I had a great time playing last year but will not be attending again if I have to queue up for the ladies bathroom and my trans sisters have to risk outing themselves in the men's bathroom. All this does is put trans people in danger."
Finnce also commented, "How have you got the gall to invite trans people like me to play your festival and then ban them from using the toilet? If the only way we can piss is by outing ourselves then you’ve created an unsafe environment…"
That led to other artists speaking out as well. Pinkshift added that the rules were "crazy and so unsafe." Witchfever also commented that it would be "a threat to trans people's safety."
What Download Festival Is Saying About Their Bathroom Policy
After the discussion started to spread across social media, Download Festival issued a statement clarifying their stance on restrooms for the 2025 event. "We stand with all members of our community and want everyone to feel safe, supported and welcome at Download," the festival's social media account commented before sharing a broader statement on the matter.
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The statement reads as follows:
At the heart of Download is acceptance - we stand with all members of our community and want everyone to feel safe, supported and welcome at the festival.
We want to reassure all of our customers that at Download, the majority of toilets will be gender neutral and available to all. There will also be single sex toilets provided. Download Festival has always been and remains for everyone.
We sincerely apologise that a previous communication on this was not clear. We are looking forward to seeing you at Download this year.
In the comments on the Download post, there are commenters stating that the organizers still haven't set aside trans exclusionary policies or state whether or not they are enforcing EHRC guidelines or not, while others felt the statement was clear enough.
The 2025 edition of the Download Festival is set for June 13-15 at Donington Park in the U.K. This year's event features Korn, Sleep Token, Green Day, Weezer, Shinedown, Bullet for My Valentine, Sex Pistols featuring Frank Carter, Spiritbox and more.
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Gallery Credit: Chad Childers, Loudwire
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