This must be the new landscape. Before I had to quit, the male-dominated IT landscape I worked in had no apparent cross-dressers. Or furries for that matter. Admittedly, the companies were relatively small so maybe they didn’t hit the threshold for there necessarily being someone who didn’t present as cis male.
A handful of gay dudes, sure, but pretty sure none of them dressed this way. Even if one of them hit some level of stereotype and did drag in their spare time - which I have no evidence of - that’s not the same as whatever this is.
From personal experience, I would say it’s a phenomenon of the last… maybe 10 years, at least in Germany. When a friend of mine started university in about 2010, I think she was the only openly trans person out of 300 first semester computer science students. These days, when you go to a Chaos Computer Club event, it’s full of pride flags and queer people dressed in skirts, striped programmer socks and cat ear headbands. In the opposite direction, free tampons for trans-masc people in the men’s bathrooms are just… normal.
For a while this caused a bit of friction, not because people were outright anti-queer or anti-trans but because they felt it had gotten so extreme that their queer-welcoming computer nerd event had turned into a pride event which just happened to include a few people with laptops. Now everyone seems to get along though.
That being said, there have always been gender-nonconforming people in IT and gaming. As an arbitrary example, Rebecca Heineman is a trans-woman who taught herself how to pirate and reverse-engineer Atari 2600 games in the 1970s, became the first (US) national video gaming champion in 1980, worked at a gaming magazine, co-founded Interplay Productions, worked on many well-known games. It’s just that being trans wasn’t as accepted back then so a lot of them chose not to out themselves, which honestly can’t be good for one’s mental health.
Somewhat ironically, it was about 10 years ago that I had to quit, and that was because of my mental health.
In my case, I’m a vanilla cis-het male, but if you go out along that other axis, the one that’s neurodivergence, well, that’s where years of trying to get by in a world heavily geared to neurotypicals finally took its toll and my brain just couldn’t take it any more.
It’s an internet thing. There’s a lot of people online who code but have no jobs. 4chan’s /dpt/ is full of them. They all code in ANSI C or Lisp or something
Could it be possible that acceptance in a certain community up to the point where it’s just a non-issue that is totally separated from what the community does, bring a lot of people to the public view that exist everywhere else, too, just not that openly?
There was in fact some minor friction on IT events some years ago where people objected to stuff partly looking more like a pride event. Yet the majority didn’t care and there was barely any active pushback. And so it normalised very quickly and now it is just how it is. In my personal view at least for the benefit of all involved.
I believe it’s just people coming out of the closet or discovering their identity.
Personally as a gay dude living in a place where being gay is illegal I believe that computer just attracts people who are outcasts. In the 90s the stereotype of programmers was uncool nerds with no friends. It just looks like computer science and computer engineering is a safe spot for people who feel hated by the world. Like in a Linux forum no one cares about your identity. You get hate for being incompetent not for falling in love with a dude. So they see you as a human. Not a gay human. This what I love about computer community, they care about ideas and solutions that my mind comes up with. They don’t care about my love interests.
I haven’t seen this in maybe 20 years. I printed it out at the time (on a dot matrix printer!) And read it to anyone who would listen to me. Thank you for bringing it up again.
Well I only had one atari console, the one to play pong/tennis/squash on it with the rotating knob controls. Not sure if that qualify for a Atari dump 😅
I believe that computer just attracts people who are outcasts
I think you’re right, but I’ve also read that there might be some correlation between being trans and being on the autism spectrum. If that’s true, then it is reasonable to expect a higher than average percentage of IT people would be trans.
Some are in this field for the money. (Normies)
Some because they like the field and the culture of it. (Nerds, Geeks, etc.)
Anyway man, thanks for letting us queers to be a part of the IT community. Seriously, sometimes I wonder if computers didn’t exist where did I have to go lol. This community is the only place that I am accepted in.
I mean even right now, I know one trans woman. Possibly one crossdresser.
Plenty of LGB, I’m sure there are more trans than I’m not aware of. But we have hundreds of IT workers. Actually we may have more than a thousand.
I’m not against it, but I do worry a bit that the younger folk not in industry yet think this is more common place than it is.
It might be in silicon valley tech firms? I just know healthcare, finance, mil/aero, industrial services, and while gender identity and sexual orientation arent unknowns, any flashy display of, well, anything is generally frowned upon. Most people at work really don’t care if you dress up in drag in your off time. Nobody cares if you transitioned and have a new name, just make sure it’s updated in the HR systems and you have a new badge. And absolutely no one cares who you are sleeping with (unless it’s a coworker or supervisor, then LOTS of people care).
I feel like the number of closeted model railroaders might be declining, though, along with other “older” geek hobbies like ham radio, because they’re being replaced with things like homelabbing and Arduino and 3D printing.
Idk. Model railroads have a particular place in my heart. Garden sized ones are new to me though.
I had a great uncle who had an enormous setup in his basement. As a kid I was always fascinated with it. He died when I was 13 and I wasn’t ready for that.
My parents have an LGB train set that they got to put around the tree each Christmas, and added to it a little bit each year. It was a great memory for me.
IMO it’s a very appropriate scale for that use-case, even if it’s intended to be “garden” sized.
I’m annoyed that they’ve refused to either give it to me or continue displaying it themselves for Christmas, depriving their grandkids of the experience I had.
They’re so expensive. My parents change up what they display for Christmas between the LGB and a lego train. The actual lego train they put up changes too. They live nearby, so it’s a special enough treat for my boy and my nephew.
This must be the new landscape. Before I had to quit, the male-dominated IT landscape I worked in had no apparent cross-dressers. Or furries for that matter. Admittedly, the companies were relatively small so maybe they didn’t hit the threshold for there necessarily being someone who didn’t present as cis male.
A handful of gay dudes, sure, but pretty sure none of them dressed this way. Even if one of them hit some level of stereotype and did drag in their spare time - which I have no evidence of - that’s not the same as whatever this is.
As long as they’re hired for their skills and not to tick a checkbox i don’t care.
Sort of a grave misunderstanding of how DEI initiatives work
You hold the position open until you find someone with the skills that fill that box… by the very definition you aren’t just ticking a box
You mean meanwhile dropping people with the skills who don’t fill that box?
You mean what every company already does when they don’t hire you?
Gotta hit the mandatory puppygirl quota \s
Yeah I hate it when companies checks notes hire furries and femboys because dei
can’t even wear a tie these days because of woke, it’s a collar or nothing
In fairness the collar compliments my skirt quite well
Yeah, I find it discriminative that the HR intake form was asking for a fursona
From personal experience, I would say it’s a phenomenon of the last… maybe 10 years, at least in Germany. When a friend of mine started university in about 2010, I think she was the only openly trans person out of 300 first semester computer science students. These days, when you go to a Chaos Computer Club event, it’s full of pride flags and queer people dressed in skirts, striped programmer socks and cat ear headbands. In the opposite direction, free tampons for trans-masc people in the men’s bathrooms are just… normal.
For a while this caused a bit of friction, not because people were outright anti-queer or anti-trans but because they felt it had gotten so extreme that their queer-welcoming computer nerd event had turned into a pride event which just happened to include a few people with laptops. Now everyone seems to get along though.
That being said, there have always been gender-nonconforming people in IT and gaming. As an arbitrary example, Rebecca Heineman is a trans-woman who taught herself how to pirate and reverse-engineer Atari 2600 games in the 1970s, became the first (US) national video gaming champion in 1980, worked at a gaming magazine, co-founded Interplay Productions, worked on many well-known games. It’s just that being trans wasn’t as accepted back then so a lot of them chose not to out themselves, which honestly can’t be good for one’s mental health.
Somewhat ironically, it was about 10 years ago that I had to quit, and that was because of my mental health.
In my case, I’m a vanilla cis-het male, but if you go out along that other axis, the one that’s neurodivergence, well, that’s where years of trying to get by in a world heavily geared to neurotypicals finally took its toll and my brain just couldn’t take it any more.
It’s an internet thing. There’s a lot of people online who code but have no jobs. 4chan’s /dpt/ is full of them. They all code in ANSI C or Lisp or something
No, it’s just a meme. Most devs are just normal guys. No cross dressing , no furries. The most flamboyant is the guy who turns on his camera.
This is just a theory but maybe worth a thought:
Could it be possible that acceptance in a certain community up to the point where it’s just a non-issue that is totally separated from what the community does, bring a lot of people to the public view that exist everywhere else, too, just not that openly?
There was in fact some minor friction on IT events some years ago where people objected to stuff partly looking more like a pride event. Yet the majority didn’t care and there was barely any active pushback. And so it normalised very quickly and now it is just how it is. In my personal view at least for the benefit of all involved.
We’re talking about the same event, aren’t we?
I believe it’s just people coming out of the closet or discovering their identity. Personally as a gay dude living in a place where being gay is illegal I believe that computer just attracts people who are outcasts. In the 90s the stereotype of programmers was uncool nerds with no friends. It just looks like computer science and computer engineering is a safe spot for people who feel hated by the world. Like in a Linux forum no one cares about your identity. You get hate for being incompetent not for falling in love with a dude. So they see you as a human. Not a gay human. This what I love about computer community, they care about ideas and solutions that my mind comes up with. They don’t care about my love interests.
On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog
We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias… and you call us criminals.
Dude I loved the text. Thanks.
I haven’t seen this in maybe 20 years. I printed it out at the time (on a dot matrix printer!) And read it to anyone who would listen to me. Thank you for bringing it up again.
Are you me?
Well I only had one atari console, the one to play pong/tennis/squash on it with the rotating knob controls. Not sure if that qualify for a Atari dump 😅
I think you’re right, but I’ve also read that there might be some correlation between being trans and being on the autism spectrum. If that’s true, then it is reasonable to expect a higher than average percentage of IT people would be trans.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9014767/#%3A~%3Atext=(2020)+found+that+that+transgender%2Cand+sex+assigned+at+birth).
Interesting. I am not autistic but I am diagnosed with other neurological conditions making me a neurodivergent.
I mean… I’m cis white male, and that’s 100% why i went into computer engineering.
But the reality is so many people I work for and with aren’t weird outcasts and it’s… Not fun.
Some are in this field for the money. (Normies) Some because they like the field and the culture of it. (Nerds, Geeks, etc.) Anyway man, thanks for letting us queers to be a part of the IT community. Seriously, sometimes I wonder if computers didn’t exist where did I have to go lol. This community is the only place that I am accepted in.
I’ve always just been excited when other people are excited about it.
I mean even right now, I know one trans woman. Possibly one crossdresser.
Plenty of LGB, I’m sure there are more trans than I’m not aware of. But we have hundreds of IT workers. Actually we may have more than a thousand.
I’m not against it, but I do worry a bit that the younger folk not in industry yet think this is more common place than it is.
It might be in silicon valley tech firms? I just know healthcare, finance, mil/aero, industrial services, and while gender identity and sexual orientation arent unknowns, any flashy display of, well, anything is generally frowned upon. Most people at work really don’t care if you dress up in drag in your off time. Nobody cares if you transitioned and have a new name, just make sure it’s updated in the HR systems and you have a new badge. And absolutely no one cares who you are sleeping with (unless it’s a coworker or supervisor, then LOTS of people care).
I feel like the number of closeted model railroaders might be declining, though, along with other “older” geek hobbies like ham radio, because they’re being replaced with things like homelabbing and Arduino and 3D printing.
Idk. Model railroads have a particular place in my heart. Garden sized ones are new to me though.
I had a great uncle who had an enormous setup in his basement. As a kid I was always fascinated with it. He died when I was 13 and I wasn’t ready for that.
My parents have an LGB train set that they got to put around the tree each Christmas, and added to it a little bit each year. It was a great memory for me.
IMO it’s a very appropriate scale for that use-case, even if it’s intended to be “garden” sized.
I’m annoyed that they’ve refused to either give it to me or continue displaying it themselves for Christmas, depriving their grandkids of the experience I had.
They’re so expensive. My parents change up what they display for Christmas between the LGB and a lego train. The actual lego train they put up changes too. They live nearby, so it’s a special enough treat for my boy and my nephew.