(post deleted by author)
I don’t expect people to say anything they aren’t comfortable with, but I feel lonely not saying anything
6 Likes
(post deleted by author)
4 Likes
(post deleted by author)
Here’s my interpretation of this:
- OP takes a small social risk to identify as a woman
- You reply with something vaguely negative, that leaves enough ambiguity to cover your ass while still producing an emotional effect that pushes OP away
This is an anti social thing to do. I personally want to interact with more women in the tech-related spaces that I inhabit. I’m certain that many people feel the same way I do. And it’s people like you doing shit like this preventing that from happening.
I think you should apologize. I don’t want to hear any excuses. If you can’t read the room then do some self-reflecting, think harder, and try again.
45 Likes
(post deleted by author)
1 Like
Unrelated
[quote="lukeflo, post:2, topic:16088"] However, since IT/coding/“computer nerdy stuff” is a domain very likely (still) to a big amount a domain publicly represented by (white?) cis-men, it would be very understandable if people not belonging to this group don’t want to identify themselves in public. Unfortunately, the web, no most of our societies are still very biased regarding those things. [/quote]Even @andrewrk post wasn’t a reply to my comment, I also thought about what I posted.
It might be totally unnecessary and kind of insensitive that I felt somehow commited to express my awareness regarding those topics. We very likely don’t need more privileged male people to mansplain their awareness for such things. Thus, I want to apologize if anybody felt somehow insulted due to my comment.
4 Likes
Thanks everyone (especially @andrewrk), I appreciate the discussion and people chiming in, but it feels like my initial question is a bit lost here 
16 Likes
Compared to surveys about native language, surveys about gender and sexual orientation do feel a bit strange to me.
I can understand the value of surveying native languages in a programming community. Community communication itself relies on some natural language, and programming is a text-based job, so a worker’s native language can influence their programming style, which makes sense.
Other surveys, like those on culture or politics, used to make me uncomfortable, but ever since Linux excluded Russian developers, even though I don’t agree with it personally, I can somewhat understand that the community might inevitably be influenced by political factors, after all, it’s about supply chain security.
But I’m still not really sure why we need to survey gender and sexual orientation. I don’t believe a person’s gender or sexual orientation has anything to do with programming communication. Although I have heard some not-so-serious jokes, like saying transgender people are better at programming skills. But seriously, I don’t want anyone to think that gender or sexual orientation can positively or negatively affect your abilities. On the other hand, pessimistically speaking, I think the best way to avoid any possible discrimination (whether it’s discrimination against men or women, or against cisgender or transgender people) is to protect yourself and not disclose information that’s unrelated to programming.
I think the discussion environment on the internet is really valuable. In real life, communication between people of different genders and sexual orientations can be blocked at multiple levels because of this known information. Many times, our conversations could have been totally open. But, for example, imagine you’re a woman: can you casually talk with a cisgender man or a transgender woman in real life without any reservations? You might worry about unintentionally giving off extra sexual meanings.
So I think online, hiding these irrelevant personal traits is actually very valuable because it allows us to communicate more freely.
5 Likes
Or maybe we shouldn’t read so much into stuff.
OP says “hey, any other woman / trans around?”. If someone wants to come and say “hey, me too”, what’s the big deal?
If they don’t want to say anything, nobody is forcing them.
16 Likes
What might make me sensitive is that with any kind of gender inequality, we can’t just assume that everyone in the community is friendly. There might be some unfriendly members who silently, because of the gender exposed by this topic, reinforce stereotypes about certain members, and then discuss things later with some bias—and they would never admit that their unfriendly attitude comes from gender. So, no one even realizes that this attitude is just because a member’s gender or sexual orientation was revealed, which could totally have been avoided!
Or, the reverse, just because some members have the same sexual orientation as themselves, they might develop a certain positive bias and end up agreeing with someone on programming topics more because of that rather than the actual ideas. To me, that’s still inappropriate.
People like you are also part of the problem.
It is absolutely absurd to suggest that we hide ourselves because there might be bad people who do bad things, this is just accepting and allowing them into this space, which intern makes this space unsafe. If you want it to be safe for us, like you try to imply, then you would defend us instead of them.
And it is even more mindbogglingly absurd to suggest we would be biased regarding a programming topic because of similar identities. This tells me that you dont know trans people, and are just parroting bigotry!
I get the impression you are just uncomfortable with something you don’t understand, and are both justifying that to your self, and pushing us away so you can be comfortable again.
21 Likes
(post deleted by author)
1 Like
Alternately, we can deal with the unfriendly people when they show up and instead start with a hearty welcome when people introduce themselves!
I was almost going to say that maybe “Meet” would be a better place to put it than “Site Feedback” but then I remembered Meet might be specifically for in-person meetups? Well whatever works.
5 Likes
You don’t have to be comfortable, it has nothing to do with you, stop inserting yourself into this topic.
7 Likes
too late 
I didn’t ask you to go back in time and stop your self,
I asked you to stop yourself now.
8 Likes
adding to this;
This topic is no different from asking if anyone here speaks [language], or is in [area].
This is a place of community, it is normal to look for people you can more easily connect with.
If you are not what they are looking for, and have nothing meaningful to add, dont engage.
And “being uncomfortable” is not a meaningful contribution, you would not behave the same in the aforementioned [language] or [area] topics, at least I sincerely hope you wouldn’t.
14 Likes
Sucks that this has devolved, at the very least it was only a few people, and they were quite tame.
Let’s try to get it back on track!
I am trans nonbinary something, it/she/they <3. I can tell you that there is a sizeable amount of trans and/or women ziguanas, idk about ziggit specifically.
25 Likes
I can understand this desire to show off one’s personal actions, though I think it’s inappropriate for a programming forum overall, but this accusation is a bit too much, and I don’t want to accept it.
Overall, the real-life environment I’m in is a chaotic and toxic society where people of different genders and sexual orientations team up against each other, attacking one another, men and women attack each other, cisgender and transgender people attack each other… I hope programming forums can avoid seeing these things because they have nothing to do with programming… Even though they might seem friendly right now, based on my experiences in society, I’m worried about the hidden malice behind them.
In the society I live in, the reality is the opposite: people actively show off their gender and sexual orientation, and based on that, they form cliques and attack each other… I really wish everyone could just be completely indifferent to their own identity, at least on programming forums, because there’s really no reason for it.
I agree with this point. Exposing your own culture and native language can carry the same risks. The difference with gender issues is just that, in programming discussions on forums, you might not be able to avoid revealing them if you want to clearly express your intentions; it’s a trade-off you have to weigh. But when it comes to gender issues, I think exposing them has only downsides and no benefits.
3 Likes