this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2024
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    Modern Linux workflow (lemmy.world)
    submitted 9 months ago by nifty to c/linuxmemes
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    [–] Vub 39 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    I don't get it, can someone explain?

    [–] [email protected] 100 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    There seems to be an over representation of visible trans women among independent open source programers.

    [–] Metz 30 points 8 months ago (7 children)

    I have not seen a single piece of reliable evidence to show that this is true. There may be a louder minority in that specific area, but so far nothing indicates it is an actual overrepresentation.

    [–] [email protected] 37 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

    Minority, yes, but not louder if you want to see loud trans women they're there on Instagram with the rest of all the oversensitive-vulnerable narcissist personality types (subclinical but quite annoying indeed).

    As I see it trans folks gravitate towards general nerddom precisely because it doesn't have to do anything with sex or gender, is a refuge for people who don't really feel like they fit in with the majority. Not to dismiss the existence of sexist etc. asshats calling themselves nerds, by and large noone bats an eye if you'r AMAB but play a flirty female elf rogue in AD&D. And as far as contributing to an open source project is concerned you could be a literal cat and people would barely notice.

    [–] MigratingtoLemmy 19 points 8 months ago

    If it was a literal cat contributing to FOSS I'd like to cuddle it and buy it old Thinkpads

    [–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Yea, n I unintentionally fked it up here too for one such person. So I was discussing solutions for a problem that I had encountered with my project on Matrix. I didn't know it then, but I was talking to a trans woman then. Now, I had a habit of "yessirrr"-ing when I was excited. So I found the solution, and in my excited state, I said "yessirrr" somewhere. She immediately corrected me by saying that it was "yes ma'am". I apologized and explained the situation. I then looked at her bio, and it had the flag and all that. She unfortunately ghosted me after that incident :(.

    So yeah... I've tried to have inclusive language n whatnot after that. Cuz uk... U never realise how heteronormative our language is and how not inclusive it is for many many people.

    [–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

    Happens to the best of us. But you improved because of that so there's a silver lining.

    [–] Shardikprime -1 points 8 months ago

    An overreaction to a honest 'mistake' wow.

    [–] FrankTheHealer 19 points 8 months ago (1 children)

    I don't mean to be disrespectful, but the main dev of Elementary OS is trans. And I think one of the devs behind Asahi Linux.

    There is a slight association. Not a bad thing, there are probably more examples too. But those are the ones that immediately came to mind.

    [–] Metz 10 points 8 months ago

    I am aware. But that makes 2 out of how many?

    Look, i'm not trying to attack a group here. I'm just having the habit of calling out bullshit when i see it. That there is a larger proportion of trans people in FOSS is a myth. It's based on memes that have gotten out of control.

    In FOSS specifically, the opposite has been true for a long time and there has been a severe lack of diversity. That has thankfully improved a lot and the environment has now become much more colorful and has adapted to the reality of the general population. But that's all there is to it. There is no significant overrepresentation, at least I haven't found anything that would prove that.

    [–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago

    I've observed this over representation in graphics programming and games development as well. Now that I type it out, I wonder if it's perhaps less over representation and more, just, seeing those people, now.

    [–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

    have you been to an open source convention?

    [–] Metz 22 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    Yes, multiple. I'm also in multiple FOSS user and developer groups.

    But there is no need to believe me. You can ask Github. https://opensourcesurvey.org/2017/

    Along other dimensions, representation is stronger: 1% of respondents identify as transgender (including 9% of women in open source), and 7% identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, or another minority sexual orientation.

    The proportion of the general population is 0.5 to 0.7%. So yes, it is very slightly higher, but not in the way that all the memes have been trying to portray it lately.

    [–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

    I would say programmer circles tend to be progressive as well, so some over-representation makes sense. I mean, where do we expect trans women to want to work?

    [–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

    It's probably more of where one can be expected to be open about not being 'normative'

    [–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

    It seems to have become fashionable to over-hype it among younger more casual Linux users. Hence things like "Linux/Unix socks".

    It's quite heavily pushed in Discord servers where you'll be asked to choose whether you're a "catboy" or "femboy".

    It's quite irritating. Some of those 'femboys' can be quite homophobic funnily enough which is infuriating.

    [–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

    9% of women in open source is a massive over representaion

    [–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

    While I doubt there are like scientific papers on it or anything, the reverse correlation seems to be pretty strong. I know a lot of trans women who work in tech (IT support, programming, electronics, etc). There are also plenty of memes in trans communities about how we all work in tech, especially programming. If you search for “programming socks” or “Unix socks” you’ll get stripped thigh highs for instance.

    Now whether trans people are more likely to work in tech, or if people in tech jobs are more accepting of trans people or something else, it certainly seems like trans people have a slight affinity for tech jobs.

    [–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

    Overrepresention means it's in relation to something else. Compared to the rest of the internet there is for sure more trans folk in FOSS.

    [–] Metz 1 points 8 months ago

    Why do you compare it to the rest of the internet and not to the rest of the tech sector or more specifically closed source development?

    following your logic i could just pick a random group of people and say e.g. "look, there are more trans people in FOSS than in Deep-sea fishing crews". Makes no sense. You have to compare it to something that is actually comparable.

    [–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago (1 children)

    Compared to the invisible women

    [–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

    Yeah, it's not something you see everyday.

    [–] Vub 2 points 8 months ago

    Oh, OK, I've never noticed that, thanks. Sounds logical, there is probably much more societal stigma in the corporate office world.

    [–] jerrythegenius 23 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

    There seems to be an oddly large overlap (tbh I'm not sure if just in memes or in real life) between linux users (particularly arch and nixos), foss devs, and lgbt+ people (also rust, nim, and go devs lol).

    [–] cynar 43 points 8 months ago (1 children)

    The various "neurodiverse" communities seem to be meshing together more and more. A good chunk of them are autistic, or ADHD dominated interest groups, like FOSS, or various hobbies. It also includes the LGBT+ crowd.

    This mixing allows for a lot of cross pollination of ideas. The trans community hears a lot more about FOSS etc than "normals" and so are more likely to get involved. Conversely, the techies have more exposure to alternative lifestyles. Some, who would traditionally do all they could to fit in, now are willing to show off/become who they really are.

    The community meshing also helps by its supportive nature. Most NDs have experienced being the outsider to society. The nature of the cause is often very different, but the effects are similar. This makes the community particularly accepting of differences, as well as people experimenting with change.

    Basically, all the weirdos got together and realised "Apes together, Strong!". We are now running with it more and more.