She was sold as a “mini Merkel”, a centrist in the same liberal mould as her predecessor as leader of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union. But Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer has worked hard to court the conservative wing of her party since taking the top job, leading to controversy over comments she made about gender-neutral bathrooms.

Entertaining an audience at a carnival event in Baden-Württemberg last Thursday, Kramp-Karrenbauer – who was voted “Miss Homophobia 2018” by an LGBT group last year – said such bathrooms were “for the men who don’t know if they are still allowed to stand or already have to sit down when they pee”.

The CDU leader, who is favourite to succeed Merkel as Germany’s chancellor, made the comments at the High Favourable Court of Fools, a traditional carnival event in Stockach where a prominent guest is put on trial in front of a jury in jester hats.

Remarking on the fact she was facing an all-male jury, Kramp-Karrenbauer said women had been forced to become more emancipated because modern men were too feeble, especially the “latte macchiato delegation” in the liberal German capital.

Kramp-Karrenbauer, a Catholic from the Saarland region in the south-west, appears to relish comic turns in beer halls in contrast to Merkel, a Protestant from northern Germany, who has made little effort to hide her bewilderment when forced to attend events during carnival season, which southern Germans traditionally celebrate from 11 November until Ash Wednesday.

Asked on Monday about the chancellor’s reaction to the comments, Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, pointed out that the government had recently strengthened the rights of intersex people by allowing the inclusion of a third gender, “diverse”, on birth registers.

Kramp-Karrenbauer’s comments have garnered a more explicit backlash from elsewhere in her party. Alexander Vogt, the chair of the CDU’s gay and lesbian association, told the broadcaster SWR: “Of course we are owed an apology. If it [her comments] happened without thinking, then it’s a sign of how common this kind of thinking is across the country.”

Lars Klingbeil, the general secretary of the Social Democrats, a junior coalition partner in Merkel’s government, said: “Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer shows what kind of arch-conservative views once again prevail in the [Christian Democratic] Union. Such comments – even during carnival – are utterly disrespectful.”

Sven Lehmann, a Green politician, tweeted: “After a period of modernisation through Angela Merkel, I am sorry to see that the leader of CDU … cannot do without cheap gags at the cost of minorities in our society.”

Like her predecessor, Kramp-Karrenbauer has previously voiced moral objections to same-sex marriage. But while Merkel repeatedly said she had “difficulties” with the concept, she also enabled a free vote in the Bundestag that led to the legalisation of same-sex marriages in October 2017.

Kramp-Karrenbauer recently reiterated her belief that the concept of marriage should be tied to the ability to conceive a child, and she refused to modify a 2015 statement in which she linked same-sex marriages to incest and polygamy. Last December she was voted Miss Homophobia 2018 by the LGBT organisation Enough is Enough.

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Such awards and the backlash to her carnival appearance are likely to boost her standing among German conservatives. Since narrowly beating two notionally more conservative candidates for the party leadership last December, Kramp-Karrenbauer has launched a successful charm offensive in regions where the party base had distanced itself from Merkel over her handling of the refugee crisis.

The CDU agriculture minister, Julia Klöckner, tweeted in defence of her party leader: “We make jokes about men, we make jokes about women. Those who don’t make jokes about the third gender just because it’s the third gender discriminate against it.”

In the big debates that have gripped German media in recent weeks – whether over speed limits on the autobahn or stripping former Isis fighters of their citizenship – Kramp-Karrenbauer has adopted hardline conservative positions.

“More and more CDU politicians who last autumn were in favour of [her rivals] Friedrich Merz or Jens Spahn are pivoting to the new leader,” said a report in Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.