4 ms·

I expect this to be a controversial comment. I might just be overreacting. If you identify as a woman and are interested in joining Leap, please sign up f

I expect this to be a controversial comment. I might just be overreacting. If you identify as a woman and are interested in joining Leap, please sign up for our beta here. I'm a trans woman who works in tech. I think it's dangerous to open a community for women to people who "identify as women". For one thing, there are plenty of women who do not "identify as women". For instance, older women may not really know what "identifying" is all about and just think "well, I'm a woman, what's to identify with?". There are also younger women who reject the idea that gender is an identity that you can choose at will. Obviously the invitation is meant to show that trans women are welcome. That's... moving, but I think it will only cause trouble. First you create a place especially for women, which is needed because like the announcement says, many women don't feel welcome, comfortable or even safe in online discussions that tend to escalate to shouting matches, typically among men (since it's the women leaving). Then you invite in to the community people who have been socialised as men, have grown up as men, have spent most of their professional lives as men and who have often contributed to exactly the kind of working environment that makes womens' lives difficult as tech workers. That's defeating the whole point of a "community where the core culture [will be] set by women". I'm not trying to say that trans women are not women (I mean, duh; I'm one. Of both). But it should be kept in mind that most of us carry a great deal of baggage from the time we lived as men. Baggage that's very hard to get rid of and that many of us are not even aware of. In light of this, I think this big-hearted invitation to everyone who identifies as a woman, should be revised to something more cautious. I'd think, if someone "identifies as a woman" and works in technology, they'd respond to an invitation to just "women" anyway. To be perfectly clear, I'm totally not joining and I invite any other trans women who read this to think very carefully before doing so. Just think of all the times you had a civilised and polite debate with other trans women about trans stuff, or about anything.

temp-dude-87844 9y ago
Ultimately, all in-groups are decided by the consent of the majority of members, since everyone will self-select in the end: those who disagree will leave, those who begin to feel excluded will leave, those who feel unwelcome won't join. You can factor in leadership change and continuity as an additional complication, and the names and labels attached to the group will change, but the phenomenon remains the same. Societally, we have recently gotten to the point of being able to talk about the importance of having spaces where historically marginalized groups can forge a shared sense of belonging and build up the social support structures that historically less marginalized groups have long enjoyed, but I don't believe we've gotten to the point of being able to have a reasoned debate about edge cases where different groups overlap in some ways, yet diverge in others, along axes some might find incompatible. I also don't necessarily think that this is for the group leader to solve: this is a process that will take years of successes and blunders, and cause everyone involved to tackle an additional layer of delicate subjects that they may not be ready for. It appears that the group leader has laid out their vision, so for now, the points you raise will likely be addressed in a distributed fashion, in the minds of every member or prospective member, as time goes on.
- konogasa 9y ago
  I guess you're right, in fact I think my comment above should be seen in the context of those "successes and blunders" that help decide the direction a group is going to (I mean trans women, not Leap). It took me a long time to start thinking of the effect of my being trans on others around me. For example, when I get hired in a job, is the fact that I'm perceived as a woman giving me a tiny advantage? Is the interviewer thinking it's cool to have a female SE on the team? And does that mean I'm taking some other woman's place? Or is the fact that I'm trans (which is never discussed in interviews) a convenient compromise between a development team that's 100% men and actually going out and hiring more women? In trans circles, it was my experience that such questions were brushed aside and never given any consideration. Of course I'm a woman, of course I deserve everything a woman deserves and as a woman I'm subject to discrimination in tech anyway (maybe all the companies that didn't even reply to my applications didn't think it's "cool to have a female SE on the team"). That was the general reaction. Or I was just overthinking things (but I do that for a living). Currently the only people who even broach the subject of how trans womens' rights could affect cis womens' rights are extremely unpleasant transphobic trolls and that's very unfortunate. We've left the conversation about what claiming our rights does to othes entirely up to the very people who want to take our rights away from us. My comment here is in the context of a half-hearted attempt on my part to reclaim this conversation.
codinghorror 9y ago
> Then you invite in to the community people who have been socialised as men, have grown up as men, have spent most of their professional lives as men and who have often contributed to exactly the kind of working environment that makes womens' lives difficult as tech workers. That's defeating the whole point of a "community where the core culture [will be] set by women". Thank you for bringing this up, I had many of the same thoughts but it was not my place to say it. I think it is important, though.
annabellish 9y ago
>have spent most of their professional lives as men and who have often contributed to exactly the kind of working environment that makes womens' lives difficult as tech workers This is certainly not the case for all trans women. You may not feel like you need to join a community like this, but I don't think it's fair to then speak for/to the trans community saying that none of us should. I've heard things similar to what you're saying in the past, but I don't think it holds water. Trans women typically aren't welcome in male-only spaces, because we aren't. Often we aren't welcome in women-only spaces because of opinions like these. Usually there aren't trans-only spaces. It ends up with us being excluded _everywhere_ because of some dubious concept of "socialisation", as if every trans woman has the same experiences such that you can discriminate based on it. >Just think of all the times you had a civilised and polite debate with other trans women about trans stuff, or about anything. Often! I've also had civilised and polite debates with men, and been shouted down by cis women. People are people, not just their gender, and while there are trends that's all they are.
- konogasa 9y ago
  >> This is certainly not the case for all trans women. You may not feel like you need to join a community like this, but I don't think it's fair to then speak for/to the trans community saying that none of us should. I accept that there are differences between trans women, but I believe my description covers a strong majority. I don't speak "for" anyone, of course. >> It ends up with us being excluded _everywhere_ because of some dubious concept of "socialisation", as if every trans woman has the same experiences such that you can discriminate based on it. I agree that the concept of "socialisation" is vague and hard to define. The problem is that there are differences in the way men and women behave in a social context and because these differences end up harming women (usually) they need to be addressed. It's easy to see that boys and girls are brought up differently (different toys, different advise, being told off for different things etc) so that's a likely explanation. The alternative is usually a biological explanation about male and female brains generating male and female behaviours. We don't really understand how brains generate any behaviours so I find the biological explanation to be very suspicious. The "socialisation" explanation sounds a lot more straightforward. Of course there are differences between trans women, in behaviour as well as upbringing. There are differences between men, and between women. Yet, here we are with a tech indudstry that is, in aggregate, unfair or hostile to women, but not to men. You can't predict the behaviour of individuals, but you can make fairly accurate predictions for the kind of behaviours that arise in groups. That's why a community like Leap is needed in the first place. My concern is that in the case of women-only spaces where trans women are welcome, many trans women will join, responding to their need to belong, which you express and which I feel myself. And that given enough trans women joining, a few of them will eventually display those behavioural traits you can expect from people who grew up like men and that are the traits the community seems to want to keep out. I agree that feeling excluded from everywhere is harsh and feels extremely unfair. But we can't fix unfair by making more unfair. We can't make the world fair for ourselves by making it more unfair for others. At the end of the day, the way forward is true equality. If trans women are accepted as women, and women are accepted as equal to men (in technology, or anywhere), trans women will not need to feel excluded from anywhere. But this is not yet the case and I really think that trans women need to give some space to cis women until it is and in order to help make it so. >> Often! And thanks for letting me have one, too. My experience is that it happens, but rarely.

temp-dude-87844 9y ago

Ultimately, all in-groups are decided by the consent of the majority of members, since everyone will self-select in the end: those who disagree will leave, those who begin to feel excluded will leave, those who feel unwelcome won't join. You can factor in leadership change and continuity as an additional complication, and the names and labels attached to the group will change, but the phenomenon remains the same. Societally, we have recently gotten to the point of being able to talk about the importance of having spaces where historically marginalized groups can forge a shared sense of belonging and build up the social support structures that historically less marginalized groups have long enjoyed, but I don't believe we've gotten to the point of being able to have a reasoned debate about edge cases where different groups overlap in some ways, yet diverge in others, along axes some might find incompatible. I also don't necessarily think that this is for the group leader to solve: this is a process that will take years of successes and blunders, and cause everyone involved to tackle an additional layer of delicate subjects that they may not be ready for. It appears that the group leader has laid out their vision, so for now, the points you raise will likely be addressed in a distributed fashion, in the minds of every member or prospective member, as time goes on.

konogasa 9y ago
I guess you're right, in fact I think my comment above should be seen in the context of those "successes and blunders" that help decide the direction a group is going to (I mean trans women, not Leap). It took me a long time to start thinking of the effect of my being trans on others around me. For example, when I get hired in a job, is the fact that I'm perceived as a woman giving me a tiny advantage? Is the interviewer thinking it's cool to have a female SE on the team? And does that mean I'm taking some other woman's place? Or is the fact that I'm trans (which is never discussed in interviews) a convenient compromise between a development team that's 100% men and actually going out and hiring more women? In trans circles, it was my experience that such questions were brushed aside and never given any consideration. Of course I'm a woman, of course I deserve everything a woman deserves and as a woman I'm subject to discrimination in tech anyway (maybe all the companies that didn't even reply to my applications didn't think it's "cool to have a female SE on the team"). That was the general reaction. Or I was just overthinking things (but I do that for a living). Currently the only people who even broach the subject of how trans womens' rights could affect cis womens' rights are extremely unpleasant transphobic trolls and that's very unfortunate. We've left the conversation about what claiming our rights does to othes entirely up to the very people who want to take our rights away from us. My comment here is in the context of a half-hearted attempt on my part to reclaim this conversation.

codinghorror 9y ago

> Then you invite in to the community people who have been socialised as men, have grown up as men, have spent most of their professional lives as men and who have often contributed to exactly the kind of working environment that makes womens' lives difficult as tech workers. That's defeating the whole point of a "community where the core culture [will be] set by women". Thank you for bringing this up, I had many of the same thoughts but it was not my place to say it. I think it is important, though.

annabellish 9y ago

>have spent most of their professional lives as men and who have often contributed to exactly the kind of working environment that makes womens' lives difficult as tech workers This is certainly not the case for all trans women. You may not feel like you need to join a community like this, but I don't think it's fair to then speak for/to the trans community saying that none of us should. I've heard things similar to what you're saying in the past, but I don't think it holds water. Trans women typically aren't welcome in male-only spaces, because we aren't. Often we aren't welcome in women-only spaces because of opinions like these. Usually there aren't trans-only spaces. It ends up with us being excluded _everywhere_ because of some dubious concept of "socialisation", as if every trans woman has the same experiences such that you can discriminate based on it. >Just think of all the times you had a civilised and polite debate with other trans women about trans stuff, or about anything. Often! I've also had civilised and polite debates with men, and been shouted down by cis women. People are people, not just their gender, and while there are trends that's all they are.

konogasa 9y ago
>> This is certainly not the case for all trans women. You may not feel like you need to join a community like this, but I don't think it's fair to then speak for/to the trans community saying that none of us should. I accept that there are differences between trans women, but I believe my description covers a strong majority. I don't speak "for" anyone, of course. >> It ends up with us being excluded _everywhere_ because of some dubious concept of "socialisation", as if every trans woman has the same experiences such that you can discriminate based on it. I agree that the concept of "socialisation" is vague and hard to define. The problem is that there are differences in the way men and women behave in a social context and because these differences end up harming women (usually) they need to be addressed. It's easy to see that boys and girls are brought up differently (different toys, different advise, being told off for different things etc) so that's a likely explanation. The alternative is usually a biological explanation about male and female brains generating male and female behaviours. We don't really understand how brains generate any behaviours so I find the biological explanation to be very suspicious. The "socialisation" explanation sounds a lot more straightforward. Of course there are differences between trans women, in behaviour as well as upbringing. There are differences between men, and between women. Yet, here we are with a tech indudstry that is, in aggregate, unfair or hostile to women, but not to men. You can't predict the behaviour of individuals, but you can make fairly accurate predictions for the kind of behaviours that arise in groups. That's why a community like Leap is needed in the first place. My concern is that in the case of women-only spaces where trans women are welcome, many trans women will join, responding to their need to belong, which you express and which I feel myself. And that given enough trans women joining, a few of them will eventually display those behavioural traits you can expect from people who grew up like men and that are the traits the community seems to want to keep out. I agree that feeling excluded from everywhere is harsh and feels extremely unfair. But we can't fix unfair by making more unfair. We can't make the world fair for ourselves by making it more unfair for others. At the end of the day, the way forward is true equality. If trans women are accepted as women, and women are accepted as equal to men (in technology, or anywhere), trans women will not need to feel excluded from anywhere. But this is not yet the case and I really think that trans women need to give some space to cis women until it is and in order to help make it so. >> Often! And thanks for letting me have one, too. My experience is that it happens, but rarely.