In the project ‘People Like You’ we are interested in the creation and use of categories: from the making of natural kinds to what has been called dynamic nominalism, that is, the process in which the naming of categories gives opportunities for new kinds of people to emerge. And while the making of categories is often the prerogative of specialised experts, the last few years have seen a proliferation of categories associated with social, political and medical moves to go beyond the binaries of male/female and men/women. Emerging categories include: transgender, gender-neutral, intersex, gender-queer and non-binary.

The question of who gets included, who gets excluded and who belongs in categories is complicated, and depends in part on where the category has come from, who created it, who maintains it, who is conscripted into it, who needs to be included and who can avoid being categorised at all. Categories are rarely simply accepted; they need to be communicated, are frequently contested and may be rejected. There is a politics of representation in the acceptance – or not – of categories.

The case of toilet signs provides an everyday – sometimes humorous – example of this politics.