Pride Month

My Friday Thought: In the tech world binary is great, however we need to remember not everything is.

Ones and zeros aside, not everything is black or white, him or her.  Gender is a spectrum and I am likely not able to cover all viewpoints, however, during pride month and especially during a period of (in my view) fear and hate within society, I thought it important to mention pronouns.

Why I feel it is important to highlight your pronouns?

1.  Names don't equal gender

2. Show you understand gender is more complex that a 1 or 0 and you are an ally to those who might have been born to an incorrectly assigned gender (trans), are non-binary, are gender fluid, are intersex or love someone who is any of these.

I am biased and think it easy to add a she/her (in my case) on my Linked-In profile, in my email etc, however, for some it can be harder than I think.  If for you it is easy, then help someone who might be struggling to put across the respectful way to acknowledge them.  Make it the normal and remove the need for them to consider how they can ensure they are respected.

Also many people aren't aware of all the amazing differences that exist in our world across the gender spectrum, especially true for those like me who never had anything like this even considered to be taught in schools (aka old ;-)).  So if your interested, here are somethings I have learnt along my journey (credit also given to the GayBC's book we read to our daughter) highlighting we don't always know just by looking how someone feels inside.

Trans: Someone who lives their life as the gender they know is innate 

Intersex: Someone who is born with the genitals of what society deems 'male' and 'female'

Non-Binary: Someone who doesn't identify as just a man or just a women

Queer (gender-queer): Meant to be an inclusive term to show pride and unite as a group, however, there are some people who dislike the term.

Ally - Someone who is there to stand up for you with strength, love and care.  You?