Former Dragons’ Den star Duncan Bannatyne has spoken strongly about the need for single-sex changing rooms at sports facilities.
Now he has vowed to take action to remove a non-binary option for people declaring their gender on the app for his own health and fitness clubs.
A new mobile phone app for users of the entrepreneur’s gyms, which are at more than 60 UK locations, have three options: male, female and non-binary.
The existence of the non-binary option was pointed out by women’s rights campaigners.
Mary Howden, a director of the Women’s Rights Network, highlighted the issue via X – formerly known as Twitter.
She asked Bannatyne: ‘Can you answer why Bannatyne’s new app asks for gender rather than sex and has three options you can choose from male, female and non-binary?’
Ms Howden highlighted his previous support for how ‘sex differences matter in fitness’.
Bannatyne, 76, responded: ‘The non binary option will be removed asap. Thank you for pointing this out to me.’
Duncan Bannatyne exercising at a gym, where he says women should have the right to use single-sex changing rooms
Bannatyne responds to challenge on X from women’s rights campaigner Mary Howden
In April, the businessman said ‘no-one should ever allow men into women’s changing rooms’ amid the fallout from the Supreme Court’s ruling on the definition of a woman.
Bannatyne shared a series of gender critical posts in the aftermath of the ruling which saw judges define the meaning of a woman in equality law.
Posting on X at the time, he said: ‘I hope all gym owners will join me now in agreeing that single sex spaces for women means biological women.
No gym should ever allow men into women’s changing rooms.’
The UK Supreme Court was asked to rule against in a case the Scottish government brought by feminist group For Women Scotland over legislation relating to gender parity targets on company boards.
In its ruling, the court said the term ‘women’ when used in the 2010 Equality Act meant biological women, and not transgender women – even if they have undergone sex reassignment surgery.
The multi-millionaire – worth some £280million according to the Sunday Times 2018 Rich List – was joined in speaking out on the issue by other famous gender critics including the Harry Potter author JK Rowling.
In a second tweet he called for the Prime Minister to ‘apologise’ to women after comments Sir Keir Starmer made in a 2023 interview where he said that ‘99.9 percent’ of women ‘of course do not have penises’.
Bannatyne was approached for comment.
