Michael Agostini, a member of the Democratic Party (DP) leadership committee, has addressed an open letter to RTL criticising the Christian Social People’s Party’s (CSV) recent outrage over unisex toilets. The letter, titled ‘When party tactics become more important than fundamental rights’, backs ministers Claude Meisch and Yuriko Backes and stresses that the national LGBTIQ+ action plan was adopted by the full government council, including CSV ministers.
The plan, which will seek to introduce unisex toilets in new secondary schools from the summer, has attracted mixed reviews, with the CSV’s parliamentary group coming out in opposition to the project on Friday morning.
Agostini, former chairman of the Young Democrats, writes that “the issue is now being exploited for partisan political gain”, claiming that the CSV’s latest reaction is calculated to score points with a conservative audience following poor polling numbers and survey results. This “risky double game” would only damage the government’s work, he adds.
“Luxembourg needs a debate based on facts, everyday experiences, and fundamental rights – not on artificially generated cycles of outrage. In many places on social media, the wave of indignation appears to be a cry for attention from a few actors – not a genuine commitment to protecting minorities,” Agostini writes.
In the letter, Agostini emphasised the reasons fuelling the arguments in favour of unisex toilets. Separate toilets date back to Victorian times, and result in long queues for women, an “everyday manifestation of inequality”. He added that unisex toilets also benefit from more inclusivity to those who do not align with a binary gender system.
