Being Me

As a software engineer, and a leader of software engineers, I often think about the user experience. Almost every piece of software I have worked on, or been responsible for, has had a connection to the average consumer. Awareness of the consumer is critical.

I've seen this countless times in my life, I can't even tell you how often any more. It's been a constant presence in my life as far as I can remember: the notion that you can shame men using imagery of them as a women and girls.

There is something to be said for an unexpected cry that you had no idea you really needed, but actually did. It's deeply healing and something that was absent from my life before.

It seems like a neverending stream of hate is directed towards us in the LGBTQ+ community and time and again we're told that it's just a fringe, that the majority supports us. Where is that majority? They feel very absent to me. 

So, I recently decided that I would dip my toe back into a Q&A site, Stack Exchange's Photography site, where I was once a moderator... turns out, the stove was hot and I got burned by it. Content warning: transphobic slurs in an image.

I want to talk about gender questing as a bit of a follow-on from my recent post about using "identifies as" with respect to gender.

It is often revealing to watch the ebb and flow of Twitter, you can learn a lot about the ugly side of humanity on the site as bigotry runs rampant, but you can also see the many allies that are stepping up. However, there are some disconcerting trends with allies too...