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Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 26, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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It's so interesting that you and JulianRota say that this person is unlikely to work with a trans person. Perhaps it depends on what industry you are in, but in tech I've worked with quite a few trans women. Go to a "women in tech" conference and it will be half the crowd (ok, not really, but it sometimes feels like it).

I have not worked with any trans men, so it's likely they are all in non-profits somewhere.

To fill in some more details, I'm working in tech too, at a medium-large company. Not super hip and not one of the tech majors, but in the business, maybe like 1-1.5k developers total. The department I'm in has maybe like 10 or so female engineers, i.e. whose job is primarily writing code, and another few dozen in testing, product, and project management roles. Near as I can tell, all of them are ordinary straight biological women. I mean, I haven't like had sex with any of them or done medical exams or whatever, but all the ones I've seen certainly look like ordinary women, and most of them have normal-looking husbands or boyfriends and quite a few have been pregnant at some point. If any are secretly trans, I would be quite surprised. We have had a few gay men, but not any gay women that I know of.

There is exactly one person total at the company I am aware of who I suspect might be a trans woman. This person works in a completely different department and lives in another state, and I have never seen her in person or had any professional contact with her. I'm only guessing due to her face looking kind of masculine in a Slack profile pic and being oddly interested in pronoun declarations and other such woke things.

I've met a few (not that many, like 4-5 in total) of either at university, and in my experience trans individuals interests predominantly match their birth sex - so FtMs are mostly in psychology, social science and such.

That's a good point, it depends on the industry. I had no idea what field Silverdawn was looking for work in, so my reply was based on the proportion of trans people in the general population. If I'd known Silverdawn was looking for work as a software engineer or something, I would've adjusted my response accordingly.

I have not worked with any trans men, so it's likely they are all in non-profits somewhere.

Or their parents’ basements/the service industry- this is a spectacularly unsuccessful crowd that skews young.