drafting "Scattered ..."

[Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git] / content / drafts / scattered-personal-reflections-after-a-tech-conference-or-smile-more.md

diff --git a/content/drafts/scattered-personal-reflections-after-a-tech-conference-or-smile-more.md b/content/drafts/scattered-personal-reflections-after-a-tech-conference-or-smile-more.md
index 540b7ea..cb48e16 100644 (file)
--- a/content/drafts/scattered-personal-reflections-after-a-tech-conference-or-smile-more.md
+++ b/content/drafts/scattered-personal-reflections-after-a-tech-conference-or-smile-more.md
@@ -12,18 +12,25 @@ Status: draft
 > What we think, how we feel?  
 > Must there be a secret me I'm forced to hide?_
 >
 > What we think, how we feel?  
 > Must there be a secret me I'm forced to hide?_
 >

-> —"Reflection", from _Mulan_
+> —"Reflection", _Mulan_ (as performed by Christina Aguilera)

 
 

-I took half a week of vacation from my dayjob recently to crash with a friend in another city and attend the conference associated with an open-source technology I've been pretty involved with lately! It was really fun and inspiring, getting to hear all the talks and putting faces to usernames! I thought I'd write a blog post about all the exciting technical things I learned.
+_(Attention conservation notice: rambling Diary-like post that I felt like writing anyway for psychological reasons; likely not worth your time.)_
+
+I took half a week of vacation from my dayjob recently to crash with a friend in another city and attend the conference associated with an open-source technology I've been pretty involved with lately! It was really fun and inspiring, getting to hear all the talks and putting faces to usernames! I thought I might write a blog post about the experience and all the exciting technical things I learned!

 
 This is not that post. By cowardice and convention, this is someone else's story on someone else's blog, about "Taylor Saotome-Westlake" visiting his friend "Jerrica" in "San Francisco" to attend the conference about this software called "[Blerp](https://xkcd.com/1692/)-d9aa89fd".
 
 
 This is not that post. By cowardice and convention, this is someone else's story on someone else's blog, about "Taylor Saotome-Westlake" visiting his friend "Jerrica" in "San Francisco" to attend the conference about this software called "[Blerp](https://xkcd.com/1692/)-d9aa89fd".
 

-Again, the conference was great, and I had a lot of fun, but—I don't know. Some aspects of it induced me to feel a bit stressed and a little bit sad, even though that's entirely my own fault and entirely my own problem.
+Again, the conference was great, and I had a lot of fun, but—I don't know. Some aspects of it induced me to feel a little bit stressed and a little bit sad, even though that's entirely my own fault and entirely my own problem.

 
 <a href="/images/blerp-d9aa89fd_pronoun_stickers.jpg"><img src="/images/blerp-d9aa89fd_pronoun_stickers.jpg" width="300" style="float: right;"></a>
 
 It started with the pronoun stickers.
 
 
 <a href="/images/blerp-d9aa89fd_pronoun_stickers.jpg"><img src="/images/blerp-d9aa89fd_pronoun_stickers.jpg" width="300" style="float: right;"></a>
 
 It started with the pronoun stickers.
 

+This year, there were pronoun stickers in everyone's conference swag bags ("[...] so we can all help each other get things right. Wear them in solidarity with others too. Help us make [the conference] welcoming and inclusive for all"). Leaving aside [philosophical objections](/2018/Feb/the-categories-were-made-for-man-to-make-predictions/#anchor-pronoun-sticker-discourse) for a moment, I want you to consider [the stress and awkwardness this inflicts](https://theunitofcaring.tumblr.com/post/172800552516/so-i-havent-posted-about-this-since-college) on people who have [_some_ form](https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/05/using-gender-neutral-pronouns-could-actually-misgender-people.html) of gender-related problems but who have chosen some [set of mitigating interventions](/2017/Jan/the-line-in-the-sand-or-my-slippery-slope-anchoring-action-plan/) other than transitioning.
+
+Which sticker am I supposed to put on if I am to show solidarity? The _he/him/his_ sticker would be the obvious, straightforward choice. After all, that is, in fact, the third-person pronoun people use for me. But in a context where I'm being offered a _choice_, I _don't want_ to choose the male option, because that makes it look like I "identify" with my maleness—as if I were _cis_ in the strong sense of having a "gender identity" matching one's "assigned sex at birth", rather than in the [weaker sense](https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2015/01/28/cis-by-default/) of being a reactionary coward whose pathological need for a backwards-compatible social identity is preventing her from becoming her best self. 
+
+

 [...]
 
 <br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>
 [...]
 
 <br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>


@@ -33,10 +40,22 @@ Rod Vagg linked to Quillette
 Opal guy said trans people are delusional
 
 
 Opal guy said trans people are delusional
 
 

-
+"It's just that the people listening think you're an asshole and they're showing you the door"

 think I'm an asshole and are showing me the door https://xkcd.com/1357/
 
 
 the Uber driver who picked me up from the airport was named Omar and was from Mexico
 
 he did not know any nonbinary people
 think I'm an asshole and are showing me the door https://xkcd.com/1357/
 
 
 the Uber driver who picked me up from the airport was named Omar and was from Mexico
 
 he did not know any nonbinary people

+
+"peering through reverent fingers"
+"but the situation is fraught"
+
+My Little Pony convention was more ideologically tolerant
+
+https://meteuphoric.com/2017/08/30/what-you-cant-say-to-a-sympathetic-ear/
+
+
+"There are views we have decided are unacceptable and we will ostracize you for having them." https://twitter.com/seldo/status/714272018976284672
+
+find the contributor covenant PR where someone wanted to carve out a personal Twitter exemption, and the counterargument mentioned naming the project in the profile