4 ms·

Not just disability — basically everyone in every marginalized group is doing better working from home. My queer friends are thriving in this environment. You d

Not just disability — basically everyone in every marginalized group is doing better working from home. My queer friends are thriving in this environment. You don’t have to code switch online to the same degree you do in real life, and it gave people time to consider the cognitive and emotional toll that code switching takes. Like, I’m trans and have kept it hidden most of my career. It’s always been hard on me, because I have to carefully curate my image because if I don’t I opened myself to discrimination if people could tell. I started a new job during the pandemic and went full-on “fuck it” mode and I couldn’t be happier. Joined the LGBT ERG and helped organize some of the younger trans people at my company into pushing for expanded healthcare benefits (I don’t need them personally, but they will). I don’t think I would have found the energy to do any of this if I was also worried about how I was being perceived by others — all that energy would have gone into creating an illusion that’s acceptable to the people who do my reviews and sign my paychecks.

anonu 5y ago
What is code switching? I know what it means in the context of being bilingual. But I don't think I understand what you're saying here...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- handrous 5y ago
  It's also applied to switching dialect, word choice, and even accent. Lots of people in the US who grow up with any kind of regional or ethnic accent or English-variant end up being capable of code-switching to Standard American English, especially if they move around much and/or attend school somewhere outside the area where their dialect is normal, though even regional schools will provide some social pressure to avoid non-standard accents or dialects that are common in their areas. AAVE (African-American Vernacular English) is a commonly-cited variant from which one may wish (or feel strong pressure) to code-switch to SAE, but similar (if less race-fraught, so perhaps not directly comparable) pressure exists for people with strong Bostonian or Appalachian or rural-midwestern accents, or most anything other than SAE. The positive reason for this, is that it allows potentially extreme variants and dialects to co-exist while letting everyone still communicate clearly with others (by code-switching to whatever's considered standard). The down-side is that it often exists alongside negative stereotypes about those who can't, or choose not to, code-switch to SAE (but, of course, refusing to becomes its own counter-signal for very high status—Fussell, for instance, observes that adhering to SAE is a middle-class and up tendency, but not among "old money" or his "top-out-of-sight" rich, since they don't need, at any point in their life, to give a damn whether some employer or other gate-keeper judges them worthy or intelligent or whatever).
  - Breza 5y ago
    I didn't get what code switching meant until my first job out of college. I had a coworker who would copyedit what I wrote to a level that would impress an English professor. It was great, he made me sound so much smarter to the rest of the company. When we became Facebook friends, I was surprised to see that he had a totally different manner of speaking to his friends.
- jreese 5y ago
  I can't speak for the GP commenter, but from my own experience being non-binary, I have to expend cognitive energy every morning thinking about what I'll be doing that day (what meetings, any errands, etc), before deciding what clothes I can wear. If I'm staying home all day, with no meetings, or only meeting with trusted colleagues, I will dress differently than a day where I need to go to a store, or if I need to meet with coworkers I've never met before. For trans people, just existing without conflict or judgement from others is a constant struggle between society's normative expectations and the desire to express who you really are.
  - wayoutthere 5y ago
    Yeah that’s basically it. Working from home I can be in a t-shirt with no bra and a days worth of stubble and nobody is the wiser. It helps that I pass without makeup though.

anonu 5y ago

What is code switching? I know what it means in the context of being bilingual. But I don't think I understand what you're saying here...

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
handrous 5y ago
It's also applied to switching dialect, word choice, and even accent. Lots of people in the US who grow up with any kind of regional or ethnic accent or English-variant end up being capable of code-switching to Standard American English, especially if they move around much and/or attend school somewhere outside the area where their dialect is normal, though even regional schools will provide some social pressure to avoid non-standard accents or dialects that are common in their areas. AAVE (African-American Vernacular English) is a commonly-cited variant from which one may wish (or feel strong pressure) to code-switch to SAE, but similar (if less race-fraught, so perhaps not directly comparable) pressure exists for people with strong Bostonian or Appalachian or rural-midwestern accents, or most anything other than SAE. The positive reason for this, is that it allows potentially extreme variants and dialects to co-exist while letting everyone still communicate clearly with others (by code-switching to whatever's considered standard). The down-side is that it often exists alongside negative stereotypes about those who can't, or choose not to, code-switch to SAE (but, of course, refusing to becomes its own counter-signal for very high status—Fussell, for instance, observes that adhering to SAE is a middle-class and up tendency, but not among "old money" or his "top-out-of-sight" rich, since they don't need, at any point in their life, to give a damn whether some employer or other gate-keeper judges them worthy or intelligent or whatever).
- Breza 5y ago
  I didn't get what code switching meant until my first job out of college. I had a coworker who would copyedit what I wrote to a level that would impress an English professor. It was great, he made me sound so much smarter to the rest of the company. When we became Facebook friends, I was surprised to see that he had a totally different manner of speaking to his friends.
jreese 5y ago
I can't speak for the GP commenter, but from my own experience being non-binary, I have to expend cognitive energy every morning thinking about what I'll be doing that day (what meetings, any errands, etc), before deciding what clothes I can wear. If I'm staying home all day, with no meetings, or only meeting with trusted colleagues, I will dress differently than a day where I need to go to a store, or if I need to meet with coworkers I've never met before. For trans people, just existing without conflict or judgement from others is a constant struggle between society's normative expectations and the desire to express who you really are.
- wayoutthere 5y ago
  Yeah that’s basically it. Working from home I can be in a t-shirt with no bra and a days worth of stubble and nobody is the wiser. It helps that I pass without makeup though.