As some of you may know, I am trans! Sadly, as the current social/political climate mandates, a portion of the time since I knew has been spent in the closet. But luckily that time has been over for a good second! I’m happy with my gender, my body, and the amazing people around me who have supported and stuck with me through a lot of it.
Now, a couple of days ago I was talking to one of my partners. One of their colleagues had discovered they were trans by accident.
I don't exactly hide it, but I also don't want to have to get up in front of my co-workers and do an announcement of "hey, I'm trans!"
[...]
And, well, [the co-worker who knows] still calls me [by the incorrect pronouns]. But it's something I guess.
The fact that coming out would require a draw of attention and thus possible scrutiny, sucks. It’s a fact that most queer people begrudgingly accept. Unless the place has measures of protection and/or accomodation in place, the results are up in the air. And losing your source of food and a roof above your head is less of a detriment of the exhaustion and dysphoria of being spoken to and often treated as the gender that isn’t yours. But that’s a gigantic conversation about a topic that will only better with increased understanding and acceptation of non-traditional gender stuff. My silly little blog post is not exactly the activistic masterpiece that’s gonna change that. I might do a writeup sometime of my personal POV on how it could be improved, but that’s currently out of scope.
But I guess I wanted to talk about what it’s been like in my professional career, specifically with Open Summer Of Code and of course the OSOC collaborator and my current employer, Redpencil!
Open Summer Of Code
I entered Open Summer Of Code as an anxious little goofball.
I signed up, and near-immmediately asked the organisational staff “hey, all my paperwork will be under beep, but if you could like not address me not as a guy and also not using beep that would rule”.
And they did?!
The only goof was a powerpoint with some automatic text having my old name in it. Which they as soon as I texted them about it, they immediately changed.
This was the first time I’ve ever professionally used my chosen name and presented alternatively. But luckily my nerves were able to crystallise into me being very hyperactive and all over the place. A lot of people did their remote group photo using a screenshot of a videocall, but I photoshopped our team into Voltron. I posted music and then we (especially Chris, our coach who I adore and if you are reading this HI!) started a fake cult about the audio recording software that wouldn’t remove the audio watermark even though a legit license was bough- I’m getting off track.
If I remember correctly, I used my Discord nickname to write my pronouns: she/they. And noone made a single issue out of it. I was Cat! And I even heard that Julia was actively coming out during OSOC and ended up coming forward to the organisers to have her name changed in OSOC itself. And then the following year she came back, super open and also with an amazing alternative style and I was screaming.
Oh yeah, the next year!
The next year was also incredible. Getting to see a lot of people again, walking in with a monster energy so I could stay afloat. But this year, the new communications person (Lotte, who I also adore and if she is here HI TOO!) had her pronouns in her e-mail signature, which is amazing. I even ended up getting interviewed by one of my colleague-teams about diversity/gender for their project! I think the application form also had some improvements in terms of accomodation, but it’s been a second. Honestly, if it wasn’t for that year in OSOC, I would have quit programming. But that’s a story for a different time!
Thank you, everyone at OSOC. A special shoutout to the following people: Chris, Miet, Lotte and Julia! OH and my teammates. And Indi and Niels. You all dealt with my chaos and were incredible to work with and/or be around.
Redpencil & ABB
And then I got hired! The people at Redpencil took that goofball. I had to do the same song and dance as before. “My papers say a name but that name is evil”, etc. But this time with a neat addition (well, for me mainly) that it would change down the road! I said this as both clarification and a heads-up. They have made not a single problem of it, even mentioning that they had already done the name-change paperwork before, and that I could just give the word once I was changing it. In the Rocket.Chat instance, I added (she/they) to the top of my profile description, and every Microsoft Teams meeting would have my name decorated with the same brackets for those that did not know me. With the exception of one conversation of someone not understanding what the they was about, I don’t think I can recall a single problem. (Note: the conversation I had with that person seemed very much in good faith, and seemed more akin to some inexperience with non-binary/trans people as opposed to malice!)
We work closely with ABB, a Flanders government instance thing. I walked in with two of my friends/colleagues (hi Lenny and Senne!) and we got greeted with (loosely translated) “gentlemen and lady” which felt amazing.
I’ve been able to go to Redpencil and ABB events in alternative clothing (albeit sometimes a little toned down as to not pop out more than I usually do) and that has not been a problem either! As far as I’m aware.
GitHub added the pronouns field for profiles as well, and Senne listed his and hey, that bangs.
And now I’ve been working here for oh gods almost a year, one of my colleagues has added pronouns to their profile too! Which absolutely overjoyed me to see. It’s also two sets of pronouns and lets be real, people with multiple pronoun sets are super cool and what do you mean “I’m biased”
So, thank you, everyone at Redpencil & ABB! And once more a special shoutout to Aad, Claire, Lenny, Senne, Jodi, Johan and Laurent.
Conclusion-ish
I’ve been lucky. Both in in the people I got surrounded with, and the working conditions that allowed me to unmistakingly have my pronouns visible. Here’s to hoping other workplaces and industries grow in this aspect.
And finally, a note from one of my partners looking at the short-thought-on-being-trans filename:
Rename it to short-to-medium thoughts on being trans