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Single-sex toilets must exclude transgender people, says Equality and Human Rights Commission
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 21 May 2026
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That isn't even a reliable indicator, and if it comes up, it is a discussion between the patient and the doctor and no one else. We have the language to be specific. Besides, doctors don't even know what to do with trans people regardless of gender or surgeries because all medical research on the topic has been blocked, erased, or burned by knuckledraggers
(MTF) When I go to doctors I have to explain to them that if they run my bloodwork as Male, every single damn metric on it is going to be flashing bright red. When it's run as Female, I can get actual data out of it. Also guess who you go to if you have titty problems.
the term "biological sex" doesnt make much sense tho
what are all of those complex medical treatments trans people can get, if not biology? far more advanced and interesting biology at that
and "biological sex" isnt a binary either, 1 in 40 people are intersex, mostly with almost no effect, but not in the binary either
"birth-assigned sex" or "assigned sex"
Sure it does, it's the sex you have biologically. The second thing you're talking about is called gender-affirming care and is distinct from biological sex. Both "sex" and "gender" are societal concepts, but sex is descriptive whereas gender is prescriptive. You can read that to mean sex is scientifically determinable, whereas gender is meaninglessly abstract. Sex says, "assuming all your bits work, here's how you would contribute to the reproductive process." Gender says, "regardless of what bits you were born with but dependent on what bits people think you were born with, here's how society will treat you and expect you to behave." "Biological gender" doesn't exist, just like "sociological sex" doesn't exist. So I guess in that sense, "biological sex" doesn't make sense, because there's no other kind.
Edit: got banned from an entire separate community (an unthemed meme community no less lol) for this discussion because they thought I was transphobic 🤣🤦♂️🤷♂️ Sorry for the misunderstanding, I'll just stay out of it next time 👍🤣
Biology is a term used to describe how your body functions. Hormones changing your body is biology, whether they're natural or otherwise. "Biological sex" is a dog whistle. It is not a term used by people who are being honest. It's just sex, or sex assigned at birth. "Biological sex" is a term for bigots to sound like they have science on their side.
Exactly what I said, there's no other kind
Biology is how the body is functioning and growing. This is defined by what hormones are in the body, as hormones tell cells how to function. In this way, biological sex is the sex defined by what hormones are in your body. Sex assigned at birth does not necessarily match this.
Biological sex is not a term that has any meaning. It is a term invented to lend the air of scientific authority to a certain group of people making a bad faith argument. Sex is the term that is more commonly used, or sex assigned at birth to be more specific (which implies it changes and is not just gender).
Iff (if and only if) we're using the words as their definitions imply, biological sex = what hormones are in your body. Hormones define how your body functions, meaning their biological activity. Then it follows that hormone replacement therapy changes biological sex. It isn't the bullshit static thing the people typically using the word to mean, as a replacement for "sex assigned at birth". That term they won't use because it lends credence to the idea it can change, rather than something that makes them sound as if their opinion is based in science.
To be clear though, hormones don't define how your body functions, that'd be DNA. You wouldn't have hormones or the ability to process them into meaningful signals without DNA. Ultimately, "biological sex" is determined by the sex chromosomes, which never change. I'm not arguing whether or not right-wing chuds co-opted the term (I've no clue, I don't listen to right wing chuds), but it does have an objective, scientific, apolitical, societally functional meaning.
Chicken or egg. Hormones don't work without DNA, but also your cells don't function without hormones. The DNA has the instructions, but the hormones tell it what instruction to follow. Your cells don't know to create a leg where your leg is until hormones tell them that they're supposed to be leg cells. The DNA is the same, but the hormones tell them what to do.
Sort of true, but we can now add/change hormones that aren't created in our bodies by design. We also get hormones through our diet too. DNA does have instructions that allow it to produce hormones when the right conditions are met, but that's not the only way to get them, nor does that define sex as we all produce both sex hormones in different quantities.
That's the funny thing; does it? We all think it does, until you try to define it. Give it a shot. If it's XX/XY, intersex people break it. If it's reproduction, sterile people break it. If it's what gonads you posses, people who have had hysterectomies break it.
I've never actually heard a definition that doesn't break down somewhere. It can still be useful, but it's a spectrum. If you define it as a spectrum then it's actually pretty simple, and it's based on how their body is currently functioning.
Intersex people have sex chromosomes, idk what you mean that they "break" anything. We even already have a term for them, it's "intersex". If we need to add terms when distinctt genetic morphologies are established, we can! That's the beauty of science, we're always learning more.
Everything in your body comes from DNA first. The first bits of you that ever existed were chromosomes, everything else comes as a result of how your dad's DNA combined with your mom's DNA to make your DNA. You can add all the outside hormones to your body that you want, without DNA telling your body how to respond to them, all you'd have is dead meat filled with chemicals.
Yes, and they don't always match what you'd expect. There are XX "men" and XY "women".
Again, chicken or egg. They don't exist in a vacuum. There are hormones in their environment when the egg is fertilized that tell the DNA how to express itself. Without hormones all you'd have is dead meat. Your body can not function or form without hormones. DNA is a set of rules, and hormones tell it which rules to follow. They work together. Neither is more important than the other. DNA with "female" hormones develop a female body, no matter what DNA they have, and vice versa. The DNA usually (but not always) is an indicator of what hormones they'll produce, but the expression is also dictated by hormones.
Well we hit the reply limit so I won't be able to respond to the proper comments and quoting is far too tedious. As such, you'll just have to use context clues to figure out which parts of your most recent comment I'm referring to.
Obviously there's no first chicken but they all came out of eggs. And I was only half-trolling about the plant DNA, I'm also pointing out the importance of DNA. You said it didn't matter what the DNA was, I pointed out the flaw in that reasoning. It has to be the right DNA, estradiol is estradiol no matter where it occurs, it can't turn anything female.
And sorry if you feel you've wasted time, personally that's the only reason I'm on this platform. 🤷♂️
Personally, I have no expectations. Like I said, if we need more accurate language, all else we need is the data for it to describe.
The chicken-egg thing is easy though, the egg came first. All chickens came out of eggs, including the first one. Two non-chickens combined their DNA to make a chicken, which came out of an egg.
Where did the hormones that control DNA expression come from? DNA. DNA is more than 3 billion years older than hormones, DNA can replicate itself without hormones. Hormones can't combine themselves to make new hormones, and they certainly can't turn themselves into DNA.
Not true. Add human estrogen to sex-undetermined plant DNA, you certainly won't make a female human and you have no guarantees what sex the plant will be. Add it to asexual organisms, they're not going to suddenly develop hitherto non-existent sex morphologies. DNA is king, it's straight-up GOATed. The only way to break it down further is to start categorizing people by their A-T to G-C ratio, and I don't think that's an efficient use of time, technology, or resources.
I don't know if you're trolling or not. There is no sudden point where chicken evolution became a chicken. They just get more and more chicken like traits. It's a spectrum of evolution, which is still ongoing.
No? It was in the environment first. Then evolution selected DNA that responded to the environment in ways that helped it reproduce. This then evolved into cells that produce their own hormones that act on DNA in existing pathways. Without DNA already being effected by hormones in the environment there likely wouldn't have been evolutionary pressure to manufacture them.
You're obviously trolling. Clearly I'm talking about humans. Wtf. Cut out your bad faith shit. You're wasting both of our time.
Thanks for continuously restating what I originally said!
"Biological sex" is poor language because it doesn't actually provide any useful information. It says nothing about my hormone levels, it says nothing about my fat distribution, it says nothing about my (in)ability to have kids, it says nothing about my dose requirements, it says nothing about my genitals, it says nothing about my medical history, it says nothing about my BMI, it masks certain cancer risks, it has never actually achieved anything useful at the doctor's office. All it does is placate transphobes and cause bureaucratic headaches.
If a medical form needs to know if I can get pregnant, the correct language is "are you able to get pregnant". It's not transphobic to ask that in a medical context, if anything it's expected. It is transphobic to assume a trans person can't answer that truthfully. Besides, the question also covers cis women who can't get pregnant and trans men who can.
Yes, they literally do seemingly get amnesia. One of the main complaints we have about doctors is that they dismiss every concern by blaming it on us being trans. I've heard it described as "trans broken leg syndrome". It's a similar issue to what cis women face, almost like it's a systematic issue that affects anyone who isn't a cis man.
This is contradictory. Trans people already face discrimination and confusion from doctors on the norm. Eg: I've even had issues with my ophthalmologist, as if being trans has any effect whatsoever on my eyes. A single binary "biological sex" marker erases all the nuance involved and strips us of the language needed to properly convey it.
Individual physical characteristics. Call it "Sex" and leave it open ended for all I care. It's the enforcement of a strict binary, removal of agency, and purposeful ignorance of modern science that I take issue with - all while hiding under the term "biological". It is for those reasons that it is often used as a dogwhistle.
Finally, your persistent sealioning only contributes to the problem that no one ever fucking listens to trans people. We are a tiny and very vulnerable minority who are constantly being drowned out in a sea of cis voices that think they know the trans experience better than us (eg: when was the last time you saw NYT quote a trans person?) You have easily typed out more than any trans person in the conversation but have seemingly learned absolutely nothing from it.
You don't realize that's actually more reason to ask about biological sex? If a cis woman can't get pregnant, but she still has ovaries, and all the form asks is "can you get pregnant," then that leaves out important information, such as "I have ovaries and should be screened for ovarian cancer."
A field for "sex" (whether "biological" or "birth" or "assigned" or anything else) very much does provide relevant information, and just because there's additional information that may be relevant (such as hormones and surgeries) doesn't negate that.
And I never said it should be binary. That's an assumption you're making about what point I'm trying to make. I've never denied the existence of intersex people, and in fact I even mentioned how a person being intersex is relevant information for their doctor to know that isn't covered by gender or "can you get pregnant?"
Medical professionals dismissing people's concerns is a completely separate issue from needing to know basic information about their bodies.
And by the way, even as an ostensibly cis man, I've regularly had my concerns dismissed by doctors too. It's almost like when you never stop to ask someone what kinds of issues they face, you don't realize that some of the issues you face, they face too.
This assumption that "cis men just automatically get all the medical treatment they need" is based in the fact that nobody ever stopped to ask cis men if they ever feel dismissed by their doctors. (Oh, and by the way, the cultural stigma that cis men are supposed to avoid the doctor because they need to be manly and strong might also have something to do with it, since most men avoid going to the doctor until there's no doubt that something is absolutely wrong. As someone who finds that to be bullshit, and has gone to the doctor with a variety of concerns that get dismissed, I can tell you that dismissive doctors is endemic to the medical profession, and that cis men aren't just magically immune to it).
I never said anything about sex being binary, so your fixation on making this about binaries is a strawman.
I'm not sealioning. I've listened to what people are saying, but just because I've listened to something doesn't mean I can't disagree with it. And since nobody has actually come up with a response to what I've said and have chosen instead to rely on thought-stopping accusations of transphobia and strawman arguments such as misrepresenting this as being about binaries or about toilets, then it seems I'm the one not being listened to. Do you realize how difficult it is to maintain a good-faith discussion with someone who wilfully misses the point?
Why should I have to learn from anyone who's responding to points I didn't make? People make assumptions about me and mischaracterize what I'm saying. What is there to learn from that?
I've asked what terminology you prefer. I've asked what a medical form should ask instead of "biological sex." But nobody responds to that because they want to dismiss it all as transphobia. There's not much to learn from that.
And just because I'm on the spectrum and don't know how to be concise while still getting my point across doesn't mean a thing.
Just FYI, I've never been asked about my "biological sex" from a doctor, and I'm pretty sure you haven't either. You've been asked about your sex. That's it. "Biological sex" is a right-wing dog whistle.
It's not redundant. I'd say it's wrong. If biology is how the body is working, biological sex should be the same as hormonal sex, which would be the same as someone's sex confirmation therapy is making it, not sex assigned at birth.
It is not implied to mean "biological sex" because that's not a term anyone used until anti-trans people made it up. It is only used rhetorically to imply their view is the one supported by science. It isn't.
Dog whistles can become mainstream. It doesn't change the origin. Just because you hear it on TV sometimes doesn't mean that's the correct term. It was made up as a rhetorical argument to imply superiority. That's it.
You are sealioning. You don't speak to your doctor in order to use the loos. In this context, "biological sex" is a transphobic dog whistle.
You don’t speak to your doctor in order to use the loos. In this context, “biological sex” is a transphobic dog whistle.
No, they said "it's a transphobic dog whistle" and you invented all that extra stuff to start your irrelevant argument. It's called a straw man.
Really?
This you?
If you can't see the strawmanning here, you're one or more of unselfaware, unable to back down when you're wrong, disingenuous or malicious.
And there you go pretending context doesn’t exist. Amazing.
You and I clearly use the word literally very differently. I use it considerably more honestly and literally than you do.
I'm leaning towards options (b) and (c) here.
Like I say, you and I use the word "literally" very, very differently.
When I say something like "they literally said it", I mean that they actually said it. You know, that that was what they said. Literally.
When you use that phrase, you mean "that's how I interpreted it because I wanted to argue about it. All day."
I didn't see that in this thread. Oh, unless you're meaning it "literally" with your version of the word "literally" which doesn't man literally literally and for some reason includes absurd straw man content.