I work for a large multinational that just removed all of its LGBTQ+ things. Nothing on the website anymore, nothing internally. Just poof, gone like it never existed. It feels like we are going back too medieval times…
I am not part of the LGBTQ+ community but I just wanted to say too anyone who feels let down by these big organizations: I still support you, my colleagues still support you. You are still welcome and accepted by many. We will continue fighting for you.
I don’t know, just wanted to say that.
I appreciate the sentiment. Thank you. We need all the support we can get.
I also want to take advantage of this post to share a bit about what’s going through my mind right now, being a trans person in tech who has been out of work for a long time.
When large companies hide all of their diversity, equity and inclusion advocacy, this is sending a message to their employees. I don’t have the privilege of passing for cis. When I interview with a hiring manager the fact that I’m trans is as visible as the nose on my face. And when it comes to making a hiring decision, that manager is forced to account for my trans-ness in their decision-making.
Hiring a transgender person can be perceived as stepping into a minefield of new problems that this manager may have never dealt with before. What if they slip-up and misgender me? Will I cry, or freak out, or rat them out to HR or the media? What if fellow teammates or coworkers aren’t socially accepting? Or a customer? How will these problems that I face reflect on them as a manager? Business leaders at the highest levels have made a point to memory-hole their LGBTQ+ advocacy, so not only is my presence on their team no longer a boon to my manager for embodying diversity values, they can almost certainly no longer count on any air support from leadership if I were to run into any interpersonal problems. That manager would be on their own.
That’s a lot. Then consider that all of that risk and uncertainty could be avoided if the manager just picked somebody else to hire.
That’s the world I’ve been living in, and it’s only gotten worse.
This problem isn’t unique to folks like me, either. Swap out “trans” for any of the other marginalized groups that diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives sough to protect: disabled people, English-second-language speakers, black and brown folks, single parents. This is going to be a reality for all of them, too.
So thank you for your support, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to put these feelings into words that can live outside my brain for a change. They tend to echo with every “we’ve selected another candidate” email I get.
That’s very well written, thank you for sharing it. Maybe you could start a blog or a tiktok channel about your experience.
It is becoming increasingly clear to me that big organizations will not save us. Governments are corruptible. Corporations follow the money and little else. That does not mean we are lost, though. It means we are going to have to do this ourselves. And we can.
Take care of yourself. Take care of those near you. Network with other good people as much as you can. Give help and receive help. Person to person is how we’re going to get through this.
It always means a lot to hear this. I’m still of the opinion that the majority are supportive of us, but we need to hear it and, more to the point, we need the majority to show it
It means a lot to us.
Also, we really should get back to bashing the fash. Just seems like the thing to do.
Could you cross post this to !ftm@lemmy.blahaj.zone? I thought about doing it myself, but I think having it come from you is more important. People often default to referencing and addressing trans femme folks as the sort of representatives of all trans people, and that often ends up making our siblings feel very unseen.
The sentiment is appreciated, but it does not change the fact that every day you and your colleagues go to that job you are complicit in pushing things back to mideaval times.
You are the engine that gives them them the power and influence that they are currently using to erase and marginalize. It does not matter that “none of you are decision makers and if it was up to you…” No. You have given your tacit approval by continuing to be part of that organization.
If you’re going to “continue fighting” then fight. Get loud, make them change it back or fire you, send company wide emails lambasting the deciding, send client wide emails, yell at your boss, etc.
Do not come into this community looking for approval and assurances that your complicity is acceptable. It is not.
Take your power back.
thank you. decent chance i’m going to call for a boycott of your company, so, apologies in advance.
I need to hear this. Thank you.
