Lush terminates partnership with Download over trans toilet controversy

Lush appears to have cut ties with Download Festival over its controversy relating to trans fans’ use of its toilets.

The rock and metal festival is set to return to its home of Donington Park, Leicestershire, next month – running between June 13-15. Green Day, Sleep Token and KoRn will all be first-time headliners, and other names on the bill include Weezer, Sex Pistols featuring Frank Carter, Jimmy Eat World, Poppy, Loathe, Jerry Cantrell and more.

Last month, the festival announced a collaboration with the cruelty-free beauty brand, with Lush producing a “revival” kit containing a bath bomb and an ‘Ace Of Sprays’ body spray and soap packaged in a reusable roadie’s box. It was available to purchase online and was intended to be sold at the Download megastore during the festival itself.

This week, Download was at the centre of controversy after screenshots of an email query relating to the festival’s policy on what toilets trans attendees should use circulated online.

“We will be following the interim guidance issued by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) on 25 April 2025 here,” the email read. “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’”.

Numerous artists including NOAHFINNCE, Zand and Pinkshift called the festival out online, as did Witch Fever, who called the policy “a complete fuckin’ tragedy”.

In response, Download issued a statement in which they clarified that the majority of their toilets would be gender neutral.

We stand with all members of our community and want everyone to feel safe, supported and welcome at Download pic.twitter.com/TSMIhZFLJZ

— Download Festival (@DownloadFest) May 28, 2025

“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,” the statement began. “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.”

However, Witch Fever and Zand responded by arguing the statement didn’t go far enough by not establishing whether EHRC guidelines would still be followed for single-sex facilities. Although it later emerged from others who had been working with the festival to rectify the issue that the toilets weren’t going to be policed, Download was criticised for not making this clearer.

Now, in response to fans alerting Lush to the controversy, a user on X/Twitter revealed that they asked the brand’s customer service about the issue and posted a screenshot of the response.

The email read: “We are terminating our collaboration with this event so will no longer be participating.”

thank you @LushLtd for taking a stand !! #downloadfestival pic.twitter.com/w977rqMqWj

— stream RIP YOU TO SHREDS! (@htmljones) May 29, 2025

Added to this, the links on both Lush’s and Download’s websites to the pages announcing the collaboration are no longer working.

Lush recently partnered with trans-led groups TransActual and My Genderation to show their support for the trans community. They produced a free 24-page booklet created by TransActual and released a special edition Liberation bath bomb to raise money for those organisations.

NME has contacted Lush and Download Festival for comment.

Last November, festival organiser Andy Copping spoke to NME about the mindset of Download organisers going into 2025, and outlined the ways that the event wants to keep evolving.

“We’ve always made a conscious decision to make Download accessible to the general populace,” he said. “That involves pushing the boundaries musically and giving the newer acts a chance. Because of that, we’ve seen the fans coming through getting younger too, year on year. There’ll always be a certain expectation of what people want to see at Download, so it’s about navigating that and delivering the best we can.”

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