14 ms·

I’m trans and disabled, and I’d rather work with someone who thinks people like me shouldn’t exist but keeps their mouth shut about it at work than someone who

I’m trans and disabled, and I’d rather work with someone who thinks people like me shouldn’t exist but keeps their mouth shut about it at work than someone who thinks work is a great place to debate hot-button trans issues. Of course, other marginalized people may feel differently.

deanCommie 5y ago
Do you think your opinion is the common one in others like you? Or do you think you're an outlier?
- ideal_stingray 5y ago
  I think it’s hard to tell; people like me tend to not be heard a lot in these kinds of conversations. But I feel like there are enough of us that it’s better to exercise caution and specifically carve out opt-in spaces for political discussion if you really want them to exist — marginalized people often have a lot of trauma related to their marginalization and it’s easy to inadvertently hurt people with careless political discussion.
- icelancer 5y ago
  It's a very common opinion amongst Asians, speaking as one who knows many who agree. Work is work.
hellomyguys 5y ago
What if your company built a feature or product that inadvertently discriminated against trans or disabled people? Would you want someone to advocate for those groups? Would that discussion be deemed political?
- FFRefresh 5y ago
  What's an example of a product that would inadvertently discriminate against trans people? What does it mean to inadvertently discriminate? As an example, a lot of websites drop support for IE. If the makeup of IE users affected by it over-indexed on any particular type of race/gender/class/sexual orientation, would you classify that as inadvertent discrimination? If a first version of a new website/product wasn't built to be perfectly compatible with accessibility standards, are they inadvertently discriminating against those with disabilities? Are software bugs that may not be equally felt by all users an example of inadvertent discrimination? Is the only way to not inadvertently discriminate to ensure products are built to be optimized for every single human and use case? Every edge case needs to be solved for before launch?
  - scarface74 5y ago
    Not necessarily trans people. But there are plenty of tech products that inadvertently discriminated against Black people because of bad training data. The best known case is Google’s AI recognizing Black people as “gorillas”. To this day, our home security system sometimes recognizes my big Black stepson as an “animal.” Facial recognition that was used by law enforcement, mis recognized minorities far more than Whites.
    - FFRefresh 5y ago
      If we're using that example of inadvertent discrimination, I think it's certainly feasible to have non-political discussion around improving it. What you described sounds like a product flaw. Customers/users won't want to use a product that delivers sub-optimal results. Any internal employee saying "hey, we have an error rate of X% for this Y segment, and they represent Z% of the user base" isn't engaging in controversial political discussion (in my opinion). However, if an individual chose to describe this flaw in more loaded language, it could easily turn political and combative for the team.
      - evan_ 5y ago
        > What you described sounds like a product flaw. It would never have shipped with a product flaw that frequently caused it to classify white people as something insulting.
        FFRefresh 5y ago
        'Never' is a strong word and doing a lot of work here, and I don't think the counterfactual can be proved one way or another. I do think your comment here, with an unprovable statement about an immutable characteristic, stated with absolute certainty, would invite toxic political discussions. Speaking with humility, and honestly trying to improve processes to yield better results, is the type of communication that I advocate for on teams I'm involved with.
        5y ago
- ideal_stingray 5y ago
  When I can, I try to point out “hey, we need to caption this” or “hey, I’m not sure this is accessible to visually impaired users” or “uh, these gender options suck”. Probably wouldn’t bring up my personal identity unless it was somehow relevant, which it rarely is in these kinds of discussions. I think it would be inappropriate to have a discussion about broader politics (“hey, what do you guys think of the bathroom bill?”) in this context — the thing that personally drives me up the wall is water-cooler conversation about politics like it’s a sport, when it’s unrelated to the product or the company.
yazaddaruvala 5y ago
What about the risk that, if they are/become your manager or senior manager, then you might "inexplicably" never get the promotion you deserved? Would you rather have known about that risk early, or after a few years of not getting promoted?
- exolymph 5y ago
  No policy in the world can make up for bad management.
- ideal_stingray 5y ago
  I think you’re right that this is one of the biggest downsides. It’s possible to feel people out by how they react if I point out discrimination in the product, and if that goes badly I might consider leaving the company before discrimination against me becomes a problem. But I would also say that most of the discrimination I’ve experienced is not really overt enough to be a good early warning system. At some point it becomes irrelevant to wonder “am I not getting promoted because I have X marginalization, or is my work actually not great, or does this person just dislike me specifically for no reason”; better, in my experience, to consider it one of life’s mysteries and try to find a new job.
- zdragnar 5y ago
  This (among other reasons) is why I quit a previous job. The head of the department would often use politics as small talk leading up to meetings while waiting for everyone to show up. There was literally no safe way to engage in the conversation- disagree, and you paint a target on your back today, agree and have a target painted on your back tomorrow when someone else is in charge (not to mention alienating people who might currently be on your team).
jtdev 5y ago
Do you insist that your coworkers adhere to gender etiquette rules imposed by the trans community? Bathroom assignments? Etc.?
- ideal_stingray 5y ago
  No, mostly because I’m fairly conflict-averse :) If my coworkers misgender me and aren’t amenable to correction, or otherwise overtly discriminate against me, I’m much more likely to quit and go elsewhere than to fight it.
- Kye 5y ago
  "Gender etiquette rules imposed by the trans community" sure is a way to frame basic respect for other human beings' dignity.
  - jtdev 5y ago
    I prefer to be addressed as “your holiness” and not doing so is to disrespect and violate my dignity.
heavyset_go 5y ago
I'm a minority who has worked with people like that in the past, and I'll never do it again.
wakeupbakeup 5y ago
I'm gay and feel the same. I honestly wish these people would just fuck off and mind their own business. Completely fed up of their stupid woke shit.

deanCommie 5y ago

Do you think your opinion is the common one in others like you? Or do you think you're an outlier?

ideal_stingray 5y ago
I think it’s hard to tell; people like me tend to not be heard a lot in these kinds of conversations. But I feel like there are enough of us that it’s better to exercise caution and specifically carve out opt-in spaces for political discussion if you really want them to exist — marginalized people often have a lot of trauma related to their marginalization and it’s easy to inadvertently hurt people with careless political discussion.
icelancer 5y ago
It's a very common opinion amongst Asians, speaking as one who knows many who agree. Work is work.

hellomyguys 5y ago

What if your company built a feature or product that inadvertently discriminated against trans or disabled people? Would you want someone to advocate for those groups? Would that discussion be deemed political?

FFRefresh 5y ago
What's an example of a product that would inadvertently discriminate against trans people? What does it mean to inadvertently discriminate? As an example, a lot of websites drop support for IE. If the makeup of IE users affected by it over-indexed on any particular type of race/gender/class/sexual orientation, would you classify that as inadvertent discrimination? If a first version of a new website/product wasn't built to be perfectly compatible with accessibility standards, are they inadvertently discriminating against those with disabilities? Are software bugs that may not be equally felt by all users an example of inadvertent discrimination? Is the only way to not inadvertently discriminate to ensure products are built to be optimized for every single human and use case? Every edge case needs to be solved for before launch?
- scarface74 5y ago
  Not necessarily trans people. But there are plenty of tech products that inadvertently discriminated against Black people because of bad training data. The best known case is Google’s AI recognizing Black people as “gorillas”. To this day, our home security system sometimes recognizes my big Black stepson as an “animal.” Facial recognition that was used by law enforcement, mis recognized minorities far more than Whites.
  - FFRefresh 5y ago
    If we're using that example of inadvertent discrimination, I think it's certainly feasible to have non-political discussion around improving it. What you described sounds like a product flaw. Customers/users won't want to use a product that delivers sub-optimal results. Any internal employee saying "hey, we have an error rate of X% for this Y segment, and they represent Z% of the user base" isn't engaging in controversial political discussion (in my opinion). However, if an individual chose to describe this flaw in more loaded language, it could easily turn political and combative for the team.
    - evan_ 5y ago
      > What you described sounds like a product flaw. It would never have shipped with a product flaw that frequently caused it to classify white people as something insulting.
      - FFRefresh 5y ago
        'Never' is a strong word and doing a lot of work here, and I don't think the counterfactual can be proved one way or another. I do think your comment here, with an unprovable statement about an immutable characteristic, stated with absolute certainty, would invite toxic political discussions. Speaking with humility, and honestly trying to improve processes to yield better results, is the type of communication that I advocate for on teams I'm involved with.
        5y ago
ideal_stingray 5y ago
When I can, I try to point out “hey, we need to caption this” or “hey, I’m not sure this is accessible to visually impaired users” or “uh, these gender options suck”. Probably wouldn’t bring up my personal identity unless it was somehow relevant, which it rarely is in these kinds of discussions. I think it would be inappropriate to have a discussion about broader politics (“hey, what do you guys think of the bathroom bill?”) in this context — the thing that personally drives me up the wall is water-cooler conversation about politics like it’s a sport, when it’s unrelated to the product or the company.

yazaddaruvala 5y ago

What about the risk that, if they are/become your manager or senior manager, then you might "inexplicably" never get the promotion you deserved? Would you rather have known about that risk early, or after a few years of not getting promoted?

exolymph 5y ago
No policy in the world can make up for bad management.
ideal_stingray 5y ago
I think you’re right that this is one of the biggest downsides. It’s possible to feel people out by how they react if I point out discrimination in the product, and if that goes badly I might consider leaving the company before discrimination against me becomes a problem. But I would also say that most of the discrimination I’ve experienced is not really overt enough to be a good early warning system. At some point it becomes irrelevant to wonder “am I not getting promoted because I have X marginalization, or is my work actually not great, or does this person just dislike me specifically for no reason”; better, in my experience, to consider it one of life’s mysteries and try to find a new job.
zdragnar 5y ago
This (among other reasons) is why I quit a previous job. The head of the department would often use politics as small talk leading up to meetings while waiting for everyone to show up. There was literally no safe way to engage in the conversation- disagree, and you paint a target on your back today, agree and have a target painted on your back tomorrow when someone else is in charge (not to mention alienating people who might currently be on your team).

jtdev 5y ago

Do you insist that your coworkers adhere to gender etiquette rules imposed by the trans community? Bathroom assignments? Etc.?

ideal_stingray 5y ago
No, mostly because I’m fairly conflict-averse :) If my coworkers misgender me and aren’t amenable to correction, or otherwise overtly discriminate against me, I’m much more likely to quit and go elsewhere than to fight it.
Kye 5y ago
"Gender etiquette rules imposed by the trans community" sure is a way to frame basic respect for other human beings' dignity.
- jtdev 5y ago
  I prefer to be addressed as “your holiness” and not doing so is to disrespect and violate my dignity.

heavyset_go 5y ago

I'm a minority who has worked with people like that in the past, and I'll never do it again.

wakeupbakeup 5y ago

I'm gay and feel the same. I honestly wish these people would just fuck off and mind their own business. Completely fed up of their stupid woke shit.