This editorial was written by Sheena Magenya and Smita V. of the Association for Progressive Communications Women’s Rights Programme (APC WRP). It is part of Global Voices’ June 2026 Spotlight series, “Gender Diversity” and was originally posted on the Global Voices website. This series offers insight into gender diversity and how it is being threatened, protected, and preserved around the world. You can support this coverage by donating here. When NASA was preparing for the launch of Space Shuttle Challenger in 1983, the engineers asked Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, if 100 tampons were enough for a six-day flight. In November 2025, the US Transportation Department unveiled THOR-05F, the first crash test dummy specifically based on a woman’s body, and not just a scaled-down version of the crash test dummy based on men’s bodies. Several new model cars today, by default, unlock all doors as soon as the car is put into “park’ or when the ignition is turned off, which can be particularly unsafe for women and LGBTQ+ people. This setting has to be manually changed. Closer to home, in various social justice spaces and conferences, there are often panels and conversations taking place that only have men speaking and moderating. Colloquially called “manels,” they are a visible indicator and reminder of how the lack of gender diversity in a conversation is not seen as a problem or even as something unusual. The literal absence of women and gender diverse people across all levels of design and decision-making can be, and is often, dangerous and life-threatening to over half the global population. Inversely, in many contexts where non-heteronormative sexuality and gender expression are legally and socially criminalized, LGBTQ+ people and women are often scapegoats for moral social decay and are positioned as the reason for failed