6 ms·
It used to be that if you were queer - in any sense of the word - and lived in one of the countless small, conservative, traditional communities in this c
by uniqueid 5y ago
It used to be that if you were queer - in any sense of
the word - and lived in one of the countless small,
conservative, traditional communities in this country,
you were shit out of luck.
As bad as that was, in the past you could move to another of the 380,000 towns on this planet.
Today, if your social media trail renders you unemployable (or the target of persecution) there's no longer any corner of the planet to which you can escape.
Edit: People seem to be misinterpreting my meaning entirely. By 'unemployable' I was thinking of, for example, racy photos. By 'persecution' I mean actual IRL stalking/assault etc. The kind of example I had in mind was, say, a racy photo from Pride Parade following someone around for the rest of their living days, preventing them from working at certain lawfirms, or attracting the attention of some violent psycho.
- danuker 5y agoYou probably wouldn't want to get hired by someone who wouldn't tolerate (if not share) your views.
- jlkuester7 5y agoWait, what? Why should intellectual homogeneity be a requirement (or expectation) for coworkers? That seems like the opposite of encouraging diversity.
- makeworld 5y agoThe key word is "tolerate". If you're gay, you're going to want to be hired by someone who will tolerate you being gay, otherwise you'll have to hide part of yourself and/or be fearful at work.
- tommymachine 5y agoThey used to call keeping your personal life separate from work "being professional". Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong here... don't most companies hire people to do a job, not to flaunt who they are in their private lives in a distracting manner?
- foldr 5y agoYes. I am so sick of hearing straight people talking about their spouses and children in a professional context. Political correctness has reached such extremes that we were expected to make contributions to a gift for one of my straight colleagues after he announced to the whole team that his opposite sex partner was pregnant. I really wish people would keep their sexual predilections to themselves.
- tommymachine 5y agoIs that because you find it irritating that sex can mean something beyond erotic pleasure for straight people (i.e. procreation)?
- foldr 5y agoSorry, I thought the sarcasm would be obvious. I’m not irritated by my straight colleagues talking about their families. You, however, seem to have a problem with your gay colleagues talking about theirs. As a side note, quite a lot of straight people are irritated by the fact that straight sex can mean more than just erotic pleasure (hence the popularity of contraception).
- tommymachine 5y agoIn most workplaces, sexual eroticism of any kind is an inappropriate topic. I don't have any gay colleagues. To your last point, I would also point out the popularity of "abortion", and say that degeneracy takes many forms.
- foldr 5y agoYou seem to find gay relationships more erotic then most actual gay people do :)
- cto_of_antifa 5y agoyour use of the word degeneracy is kinda saying the quiet part out loud
- Reubachi 5y agobut...in a perfect world this isn't a question, "Will my employer tolerate my sexuality at work". Do you have to hide being straight at work? If so, I don't think we have the same idea of what work is. (the royal you, not you specifically. I think a lot of people think this way.)
- dillondoyle 5y agoJust the fact that we're arguing and using terms like 'tolerate' just shows how wildly off base parent comment is to the reality of queerness and discrimination. what about workplaces or spaces that simply 'tolerate' people of color? it puts that word in that context into a different light that more here might understand. that language & context is so tinged it reveals real problems that still exist despite the mainstreaming of queer culture and appropriation that exists now - good or bad.
- noduerme 5y agoIs this a defense of cancel culture, or saying that ruining someone's career is in all cases appropriate since they must have view X which they wouldn't share with an employer? It's actually rather hard to know the views of people who've been mobbed on social media, since millions of other voices drown them out and make assumptions without them having a proper chance to defend themselves. Moreover, an employer may believe such a person to not hold noxious views, and still find them unemployable because of the social media backlash. Are you seriously arguing in favor of mob justice on the basis that the victims of internet mobs should be happy to not be employed by someone they disagree with politically?
- uniqueid 5y agoThat depends on the salary and the caché of the position. Plenty of people will put up with an asshole boss if the price is right, or to fast-track a career.
- SavantIdiot 5y ago> As bad as that was, in the past you could move to another of the 380,000 towns on this planet. 1. That assumes you have the money to move, can land in a new city and find housing, and then find a job. Pre-internet this was absolutely nontrivial. 2. It's not 380,000 towns on this planet, in the 80's/90's it was just a handful of cities that were more evolved, like San Francisco or P Town. There's a reason those cities are so LGBTQ heavy.
- Darmody 5y agoI just want to point out that people moved without any money back in the day. Now we play it safe. We save money. We find an apartment, a job and then we move. We live comfortably now and we don't want to lose that when moving. You can even see it today with people from certain parts of the world. They leave with nothing else than maybe a 20 dollar phone hoping they'll be able to call their family once they get somewhere.
- dillondoyle 5y agoBut queer people don't always have families, especially back in the day. So many were kicked out, ostracized, cut off. RuPaul is correct when she says queer people create their own family. Even today.
- Darmody 5y agoI was purely talking about moving to another place.
- dillondoyle 5y agoyou specifically said 'hoping they'll be able to call their family once they get somewhere.'
- seneca 5y agoAnd that has almost nothing to do with the actual point they were making.
- ssully 5y agoKind of wild to say gay people actually didn't have it that bad, and that getting cancelled today is actually worse.
- uniqueid 5y agoThat is not, in any way whatsoever, what I meant. I'm apparently inarticulate, but I like to think I'm not an asshole.
- standardUser 5y agoHumiliation, bullying, shame, abuse.... these things have been inflicted upon millions of young people generation after generation just because they didn't fit a very narrow mold. But you want me to shed a tear for who exactly? People who wrote hateful things and chose to share them with the public? Those are the very people dishing out the humiliation and shame and abuse. I for one am very happy that those behaviors are no longer tolerated like they were for so many generations.
- geebee 5y agoPeople you care about will regularly experience this, if it hasn't happened already. You'll be shocked and depressed when you discover who is doling out the shame and abuse, you will not recognize who you thought they were, and you will discover that if you stand up for them, you will also become a target. I find it bewildering and worrisome, the way people think that this little monster won't grow and will stay on their leash.
- standardUser 5y agoI find it confusing that people fail to to see the obvious switcharoo. It used to be unacceptable to be queer, non-white, non-Christian, non-male and it was OK to mock people for those traits. Now, it's all backwards, and it's OK to be queer, non-white, non-Christian etc. What is no longer OK is mocking people for these traits. So, now the people who are getting the pointy end of the stick are the people who used to do the poking. I for one prefer the new paradigm to the old. The anti-cancel-culture people make it sound like they are being horribly oppressed. But for what? The color of their skin? Their gender or sexuality? No, simply for the dumb words they insist on uttering. Say what you what, when you want, to whomever you want, but don't tell me you realistically expect there to be no consequences.
- uselesscynicism 5y ago> The anti-cancel-culture people make it sound like they are being horribly oppressed. But for what? The color of their skin? At work last week, our "diversity and equity" team announced that our company is "obviously" not diverse enough. This is a company in the US with employees across North America and Europe, with some employees in South America, Australia, India, and even Africa, and not just South Africa, either. The company does have more employees in Europe and North America than elsewhere, and those employees share one thing in common: skin color. They do not share a nationality, a language, a cuisine, or a mindset. The only possible interpretation of the D&I&E officer is that there is too much white skin at our company. Is that horrible oppression? No, but it is racist and prejudiced AF and I would 100% lose my job of I said a single word.
- chrononaut 5y ago> .. if your social media trail renders you unemployable... > > Edit: People seem to be misinterpreting my meaning entirely ... I had a nice chuckle of that edit; In some instances your social media profile/trail may be "fine" in your eyes, but this edit demonstrates that a lot is left up to the interpretation of readers, further demonstrating the plausible risk one faces.