Wagamama has committed to introducing gender-neutral toilets in 40% of its restaurants by September, and says it plans to make all of its bathrooms completely accessible in the near future.

The decision was taken in celebration of London’s inaugural Transgender Pride, which will take place in London on 14 September. Wagamama said it was an attempt to keep inclusivity at the heart of its brand.

“Over the last 26 years, inclusivity has been a bit of a trademark of ours. But we wondered whether we are doing everything we can, to be as inclusive as we can, to every part of the LGBTQ+ community. We decided we could do a bit more,” said the campaigns manager, Ross Farquhar.

“It’s not something that most of us have to think about, whether there will be a toilet we can go to when we want to use the toilet. We wanted to make that process easier for people.”

When the changes are made, bathrooms at Wagamama will be private, rather than shared spaces. Restaurants that can facilitate this change immediately – around 50 across the UK – will have gender-neutral bathrooms in place by 14 September, while those that would require design changes will be refurbished at a later date.

“In making this move, we don’t want to infringe on others – for example by just rebranding the women’s bathroom as gender-neutral. Our plan is not to take spaces away from people,” Farquhar said. “Some restaurants may have only gender-neutral bathrooms; some might have one or two female-only ones in addition.”

The commitment has been welcomed by LGBTQ+ organisations. Stonewall’s director of campaigns, Laura Russell, said: “It’s great Wagamama is introducing gender-neutral facilities across many of their UK restaurants. Having facilities that everyone can use is really welcome. It’s important that businesses take steps to ensure that all their employees and customers are accepted and able to go about their daily lives, whoever they are.”

But others have called it a PR stunt, arguing that the chain should consider paying the London living wage to all its staff if it wants to be truly inclusive.

Harry Gay, who works for the Outside Project, London’s first LGBTQ+ homeless shelter, said: “We have people in our shelter who work in hospitality and aren’t properly paid. Precarious working is often the reason they end up being homeless in the first place.

“If Wagamama want to show true solidarity to our community over this Pride season, they could consider paying all their staff the London living wage. LGBTIQ+ people are overrepresented in hospitality and homelessness statistics and corporations like Wagamama not adopting the London living wage is a key reason for this.”