383
Single-sex toilets must exclude transgender people, says Equality and Human Rights Commission
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 21 May 2026
383 points (96.6% liked)
World News
57349 readers
1129 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF OCTOBER 19 2025
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
You directly replied to a post talking about biological essentialism and a misunderstanding of sex as a mechanism for discriminating against trans people, telling them "get a grip" and that caring about that scientific reality is "stupid fucking shit."
Whether you believe it is or not, that is a form of discrimination, as it essentially posits that we should just ignore these facts to appease closed-minded individuals to "win" the culture war, even if that "win" comes at the expense of... being trans not being considered "real" or "biologically accurate" by those who entirely misunderstand what being trans is.
You need to realize that pushing scientific fact to the margins to appease other people fighting the 'culture war' does nothing but harm people so those other people can continue to live in ignorance.
Your mentality is the same as someone arguing that we shouldn't have talked about there being no biological evidence for black people being dumber than white people because that would "lose us the culture war" against white slave owners that think they should get to own slaves because black people are dumber than them. Maybe you win their votes, but you've done nothing but enable the continuation of slavery by not confronting its widely believed yet incorrect ideological backing.
Not talking about things like intersex individuals and the unknowns about the links between sex and gender doesn't win you anything in the long term if it comes at the cost of every single trans and intersex person's (millions of people in just the USA, and that's likely an undercount) rights by backsliding on public understanding of the subject.
Intersex individuals demonstrate variation within the sex binary. They're still male or female.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disorders_of_sex_development
Please stop pushing the idea that reality is "biological essentialism".
Variation within a binary makes it, by definition, not a binary system.
Binary is 1 and 0. If you can have 1.5, or 1.234098723, you don't have a binary system, you have a spectrum.
For example, take this beautifully complicated diagram from Scientific American:
Typical biological males and females are on either end of the spectrum, yet other options exist in between. Hence, not a binary, but a spectrum.
What do you call someone with XY chromosomes but female reproductive structures? How about someone with XX or XY chromosomes but ambiguous genitals, or someone with XXXYY chromosomes? What about someone with mosaicism that causes some cells in their body to have just the X chromosome, and some to have XY, with varying changes in what % each makes up of their body throughout their life?
All of those are real conditions, and that's just a fraction of them.
The reason this essentialism is stupid is because it assumes a spectrum can in fact be boiled down to a binary, and also that the spectrum must specifically begin, end, and be defined by what is "typical", and assuming anyone's sex must solely be determined by its proximity to one of the two options, rather than simply... being allowed to be its own thing that isn't binary, because the reality, obviously, isn't.
2 disjunct spectra form a binary. This is fact.
Those conditions all are male or female DSDs. You can see that here:
https://theparadoxinstitute.org/articles/sex-development-charts
For example, a male DSD:
XY female:
The binary exists. Biologists have observed it.
It's not about "typical". In anisogamous species, there's sperm and there's ova. Zero overlap. That's what sex is. Any other definition is incoherent across species.
Should have figured you'd cite a known anti-trans organization that distorts scientific reality to make a point. (oh boy, I sure do wonder why they have an article titled "8-Step Action Plan to Eliminate Gender Ideology", surely because they actually understand broadly accepted and heavily researched science and not because they just want to make a political point while sounding scientific!)
They think sex can only be determined by gametes. This ignores the fundamental reality that many humans do not produce either of them while retaining wholly ambiguous or non-ambiguous reproductive organs, that some humans can produce both (albeit rarely), or that some humans lose or gain the ability to produce one throughout their lives. (not producing ova until puberty? Tough luck, guess you're not a female! Body hasn't fully developed internal reproductive organs until later in life? Guess you're sex-less until then! Does your body never produce sperm or ova because of a genetic issue? Guess it's impossible to assign you a sex!)
It also ignores the fact that we tend to classify sex based on phenotypic characteristics. If someone has a penis, generally masculine face and fat distribution, but XX chromosomes and is still able to sometimes produce ova while not producing sperm, even if they're missing the rest of the necessary reproductive functions, for all intensive purposes, you would call that person male. If every other part of their body is typically male, there is no reason to continually insist that person is actually a female because somewhere inside their body they can produce ova that don't do anything.
If sex is determined by gametes, there are exceptions to the rule that can't be classified solely as one or the other.
If sex is determined by chromosomes, then any exception from XX or XY disproves the rule.
If sex is determined by phenotypic characteristics, then we see a spectrum in how they present.
This also simply ignores the fundamental reality that even if you can oversimplify a complex condition into one of two more common options, it doesn't mean that is correct or accurate to do so.
To use the analogy I used before, you could say that all numbers for simplicity, should be rounded to either 1 or 0, even if it's 0.9, 0.2, or 0.2398547293875. That could be useful shorthand, and it could generally describe semi-closely how those numbers would operate within a broadly binary system, but at the end of the day those numbers are not 0 or 1.
Claiming that "0.9 = 1" would be stupid.
Claiming "0.9 is basically 1 so why bother ever giving it a different label" would be stupid.
Claiming "0.9 is close enough to 1 to not make a huge difference in outward perception and day-to-day use, so we can rely on it for shorthand while understanding 0.9 is not 1" would be very reasonable.
You cannot look at a spectrum, say "they're still within the other 2, therefore there's only 2", and call it a day.
It's true these conditions can present similarly to one of the two typical male or female sets of characteristics, or that they can derive from what are often the typical chromosomes of either group. It's not true that they are male or female and there is only a binary and nothing else.
To borrow your analogy, gametes range from 0 - 1 and 100 - 101. That's a binary.
What makes the rest of their body "typically male"? What does "male" mean? How can you define it in a way that make sense for humans, chickens, bees, and plants?
When you're done thinking very hard, you'll realize the answer.
Gametes.
Welcome to the scientific consensus. We'll be here when you're ready to accept the truth. And yes, someone that produces ova is female (or hermaphroditic in other species), regardless of secondary sex characteristics.
As detailed in many other comments, not being able to produce gametes does not mean one is sexless. Everyone is born with sexed structures in their bodies. No human is capable of producing fully functional gametes of both types. Even in the extreme case of ovotestes, they will have a semi-/non- functional gonad of one type, and nonfunctional bits of tissue of the other type.
Trying to introduce this argument displays your ignorance. Please stop embarrassing yourself.
Other animals do have hermaphrodites and other reproductive systems, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androdioecy. Humans don't. Those other species are a good example of what humans aren't.
Oh, and good thing those charts included sources which you ignored. Here, I'll zoom in on them for you.
There is also the absence of gametes entirely. Hence, you can't just rely on gametes to determine sex unless you also think humans can be sex-less.
You're also presupposing, again, that gametes must be the sole way we determine sex, therefore if they are a binary, sex is a binary. You can have something that is a binary that is also irrelevant or not the sole determiner of what something is as part of another category.
This is broadly considered by most people for most purposes to be the phenotypic characteristics we most often associate with people considered male. We determined that a group of people commonly had a similar set of phenotypic characteristics, and applied the term "male" to it. This is subjectively determined by society. We could have additionally defined sex based on skin colors, the size or shape of reproductive organs, eye color, etc. We just decided we wanted a category to broadly define people's phenotypic characteristics, so we looked at the two most distinct, broad groups, and didn't bother splitting up further. The category does not have a sole, objective determiner, as I've demonstrated to you multiple times now. You can have one gamete, both gametes, neither gametes, or only have or stop having a particular gamete at a different point in your life. They do not make for a bulletproof framework underlying sex determination.
It is like asking me to define what a "chair" is. I could say something with a flat surface, back, and 4 legs, but that could accommodate a bench or a bed, for example. it has objectively measurable characteristics, most chairs will be readily identified as a chair and not a bench or a bed by most people, but you will also find some pieces of furniture that are just close enough for people to have differing opinions on. There is no objective measurement. This is annoying to our human brains that love to have a more concrete understanding of things, which is why the outdated idea of the sex binary persists in spite of all evidence of those who don't land neatly on either side.
Later, as science has progressed, we have found that many people do not solely have this similar set of phenotypic or genotypic characteristics, or have the same phenotypic characteristics with different genotypic ones. Thus, we have expanded our understanding of what sex is to clarify that we know it is not a binary, since we can see that individuals exist without fitting neatly into these groups. This is why the term intersex exists. Science changes when we learn more about the natural world, you are just refusing to acknowledge the advancements we have made in our understanding of human sex over time.
I could say the same to you, but you seem intent on rejecting what we've learned because it's not as neat and simple as you want it to be. Sex is messy, sex is a spectrum, nearly all scientists agree on this fact.
I can tell this isn't a productive conversation, and you seem to be dead set on staying exactly where you are, comfortably holding the same beliefs irrespective of all evidence, so I'm going to mute this thread for myself now. Feel free to respond, but you won't get another response from me, it'd be a waste of my time.
You really, truly don't understand what you're talking about.
What is common between a male human and a male bumblebee?
Think about it hard.
I'll wait.
And no, the overwhelming consensus in biology is that sex is binary. That is truth. You're spreading misinformation
I have no idea what you were trying to say, but this is nonsense.
A binary of binaries! A two of twos! A double double! Definitely don't call it four!
You recognise that you listed the numbers 0, 1, 4 and 5 and called it binary as aa result?! You do know the difference between two and four, no? You do know that literally every number can be written in binary? 101110=46, for example.
I see you're not exactly into constructive conversation. Maybe chill out instead of getting so angry at comments online that it sends you into a fit of swearing rage?
Sure. Any time, any day. I doubt you'll even read past the first sentence given how irrationally angry you seem to be, but maybe you'll prove me wrong.
Every part of their statement was either reaffirmed or backed up with additional supporting statements in what I wrote. Either you didn't read what I typed, or you simply don't have the greatest reading comprehension and can't see how my statements back up what they originally posted.
Those 'random facts' are directly reaffirming the other person's statements, which you called "the stupidest fucking shit I have seen today." Is it safe to say that you calling something stupid probably means you disagree with it?
Keep telling yourself that, I'm sure you gotta fuel that anger somehow. It's not you who is wrong, it must be everyone else!
Jesus fucking christ dude biological sex is everything you have describe what are you even disagreeing with because I am disagreeing with the sentiment of a fucking idiot I am not talking about gender.
Someone said, at least to summarize, that it's stupid to think there's only two sexes, and that people are intentionally ignorant of that fact.
You called that statement "stupid fucking shit", then in another comment said "I disagreed with this fucking idiot that’s the extent of it." as if that changed the fact that what you were disagreeing with was their statement.
Thus, the understanding is that you think those ideas are stupid, and thus incorrect.
Even now, you just said "I am not talking about gender." Guess what? I'm not either. I'm talking about societal understanding of sex characteristics and how they get classified, just like the original comment you said was stupid was doing.
Of course I'm talking about biological sex, that's the primary component of the thing you called stupid. What else am I supposed to be addressing here? You literally re-stated your point again, saying "This is the stupidest fucking shit I have seen today" while specifically quoting the part of the original comment addressing biological sex. Do you need a refresher on what you yourself quoted? Here it is:
Does that statement not literally begin by addressing biological sex?
Do you even know the topic of the argument you're having right now? Are you just blindly disagreeing with people without reading the words you're quoting? I'm not sure if you're simply angry for the sake of it and ignorant of what you're talking about, or if you're just trolling on purpose, but regardless I'm done with this comment chain. You clearly aren't acting in good faith, and you clearly don't have a grasp on what it is you even started arguing about.
This just goes to show transphobes and bigots refuse to learn about the reality we live in and instead lash out because something doesn’t fit their worldview.
That's what OP is doing.
I only see you lashing out. Op is 100% correct and you are refusing to learn anything. Instead you call people a putrid rotting dog. Honestly I bet a putrid rotting dog smells better than you do.
Why? Because it fits your worldview?
I am not being taught anything I don't already know.
Because science and peer reviewed data helped to inform me of reality. As well as living with non-binary and trans people, not to mention dating a trans man.
I think you need to take a logic class or read logic primer. Let’s remove the negatives, “I am being taught everything I already know” hmmm yeah that makes sense. You should try learning things you don’t already know. This is what I ment by refusing to learn. Not challenging your own beliefs doesn’t lead to growth, it leads to ignorance.
Uhm this is the new stupidest thing I have seen today.
The information provided to me in these posts is not new to me. I am aware of this information already.
You invented something to disagree with good job buddy you are so smart.
Oh so you haven’t looked in a mirror today then.
Sure… I taught you about logic and you promptly dismissed it because you don’t understand it. I gave you the negated form of the statement you said. It’s still the same logical meaning, I just removed the double negative to make it easy for you to understand why that is an illogical statement. Take my statement “not challenging your own beliefs doesn’t lead to growth” now the negated version “challenging your beliefs leads to growth.” It’s seriously not that difficult. I didn’t invent something just to disagree with it. That’s called the strawman fallacy, instead I used logic to prove your statement illogical. If you understood logic you could have used much better reasons to argue with the original statement you had issues with to begin with. Instead you name call and demean everyone, an ad hominem fallacy.
But your logic was flawed this is doubling down on stupid. ???
In no way is it logical to refactor a sentence so you can disagree with it. Just disagree with it with double negatives you dumbass.
You taught me about logic? That is almost a delusion of grandeur.
Here I will remove the double negative, again:
I am not being taught new information.
Dumbass
Well i guess you are correct on one thing then, trying to teach you is definitely a delusion of grandeur. I feel so so sorry for any teachers you’ve had or have currently. If they made a go fund me to pay for the mental damage you’ve caused them, I’ll be sure to pitch in.
I’d love to see the logic behind my “flawed logic” but at this point you’re either too ignorant to learn or a troll. So I’m done engaging with your low effort. Come at me with real arguments and logic or fuck off.
Real simple if you want to remove a double negative you remove one of the negatives you don't remove both negatives.
I am not being taught new information.
It's right there buddy.