Farewell and Welcome Home: Python in Two Genders
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| License | CC Attribution 3.0 Unported: You are free to use, adapt and copy, distribute and transmit the work or content in adapted or unchanged form for any legal purpose as long as the work is attributed to the author in the manner specified by the author or licensor. | |
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Googol
Transcript: English(auto-generated)
00:15
Please welcome Naomi, who will be talking about Python into agendas.
00:27
Okay, I'm going to assume that nobody in this talk has wandered in expecting something about meta classes or something like that. You probably know what this is about, so I'm going to launch into this. I want to start with a disclaimer, or two.
00:42
First disclaimer is that what I'm going to tell you is really based on my experiences, my life, my opinions. I am not particularly trying to speak for everybody else. I realize that there are many, many things that I will tell you that people in different groups will have in common with me,
01:02
but I think it's also good to be aware that when you're dealing with any particular marginalized group, people tend to assume that if one person speaks, they're speaking for all, and that is definitely not true. I can't even claim to speak for all middle-aged trans women in tech from northern Chicago.
01:21
I can't even do that, so that's disclaimer number one. Disclaimer number two is an unusual thing that I have to say. I've been speaking for all of my life. I love it. Time stands still. I can go on all day just to ask my former students, and this is a very difficult talk for me to give.
01:44
I am acutely aware that I am giving a purely personal talk at a technical conference, and I'm probably the only person to be doing that. I can, if I let my imagination go, think of at least a hundred reasons why people would not only not want to hear this, but not want this talk to be given.
02:02
And yet, people encourage me to submit this talk, and I do. And I think part of the reason that people are interested in this, aside from maybe the more sensational side of it, is that it shows the difference that changing one variable in your life can make.
02:23
So to sort of sum up all of this, I use a quote from Laverne Cox, who's a transgender actress, increasingly popular these days. About six months ago, she said, It is revolutionary for any trans person to choose to be seen and visible in a world that tells us we should not exist.
02:46
So this is my story, and welcome to my revolution. When I was born, the doctor took one look at me and said, It's a boy. He was wrong. I was transgender.
03:01
What that means is, sometime before birth, something happened, and honestly, it was probably several somethings, maybe partly genetic, maybe partly epigenetic, that eventually had the result that something fundamental in the way my brain worked was tipped more to the female side than to the male side.
03:25
We may never know. We certainly don't for sure know now why this happens. The point is, when I was growing up, I didn't want to be a girl. Inside, I was a girl. This is a confusion that people sometimes have.
03:45
I mean, perhaps somebody wants to be the other gender because they get X, Y, or Z or whatever. This wasn't the case. It wasn't a matter of want. This was never a choice I made. This was, in fact, for many years, a reality that I fought. So when I was growing up, which is an embarrassingly long time ago,
04:05
I will give you a clue later on how much. There'll be a quiz at the end. I did not know what was going on. I grew up in a very small sort of farming village in the middle of the US, very conservative background. I had no idea what was going on, but I learned by the time that I was four or five
04:24
that not only could I never act on what I thought I was, I could never even speak of it or horrible things would happen. It's funny how kids pick up on kind of the subtle messages that adults deliver, and that was certainly the message that I got.
04:42
Worn out by later experience, I might add. Then when I was 13, we actually got a magazine in the house that had, along with an address to Mr. President, who was actually President Nixon at the time, so that's your clue number one, and Steve McQueen looking on all of his macho glory.
05:03
There was an article on this very weird phenomenon called transsexuals, and I read this as a 13-year-old, and I saw that it was me, and I was terrified. I learned that all transsexuals are deeply troubled people who live extraordinarily complicated lives.
05:21
If I would have read this a bit more objectively, I would have realized that the reason that they were deeply troubled is that they almost always had to struggle to get treatment. Most of the time, they couldn't get treatment, and the reason they lived extraordinarily complicated lives was, if they did get treatment, a precondition of getting that treatment was to abandon their former identities entirely.
05:43
I sort of refer to this as kind of the trans witness protection program. You had to get away from everything or horrible things would happen to you. So, being a 13-year-old who could talk to no one, I think I made what would be a reasonable 13-year-old decision.
06:01
I went into deep, deep, deep denial. This just couldn't be me, that's all. What other choice did I have? So, that left me with dealing with who I was and trying to deny it at the same time. My way out of that, since I was really uncomfortable
06:22
in groups of boys being groups of boys, and I've taught for 25 years, so I know quite well what I'm talking about, and I'm sure most of you do too, I instead gravitated to more geeky things. And this is not to say that there's any necessary connection between being geeky and being transgender.
06:41
Obviously, there isn't. But, in sort of geeky scientific groups, there was far less pressure to perform masculine. And, in fact, we even had girls in the group. And I think the other thing that attracted me was that a lot of the other people in that particular group
07:01
did not fit in with the way the world was where we were at that time. So, I think at least I felt there was that kind of kinship. Okay, so so-and-so, it's not getting along in this world very well either. So, what we did at that time, this was before the personal computer revolution, and so we were into astronomy and telescopes.
07:23
The picture here is me on the right, my best friend Dave on the left. He is still my best friend now, as a matter of fact. When we got our pictures in the paper, we were about 14 for some displays of telescopes and astronomy stuff at a local fair. I will point out my caption at the bottom there.
07:44
There's a lot of curiosity, I think, that people have who are not transgender when they meet transgender people about befores and afters. What did you used to look like? What's your, quote, real name? Lots of things like that. I would say it's pretty generally true that this is very uncomfortable
08:04
for most transgender people. It certainly is for me. So, as I say, we will never speak of this again. So, I was a geeky kid. I went on to be a geeky young adult, and then a geeky adult. I went from a PhD in Greek and Latin literature
08:23
to eventually, it's really a long story, it involves a couple of years in Greece, there are many, many things, to eventually being the technology director and programming teacher at an independent school in the US, where I was for an embarrassingly long time.
08:41
But while I was there, this thing that was open source, Linux, and the GNU system and all of that started to be popular. And so, in the late 90s, I discovered this, and I thought this was wonderful stuff. We started running Linux as for the school servers and things like that.
09:04
It was a small server, nobody else knew what was going on, I just did what I wanted, really. So, we did that, I started a log, I became involved in things like that. I learned Python, which is actually at a Linux world, from Gido. He actually was teaching it himself those days.
09:21
And I got involved in the Python community as well. I taught Python at my school, I taught Python to other teachers, I taught Python at LinuxFests, I taught Python a lot of places. I spoke at the first couple of PyCons that had the name PyCon.
09:41
Jeff Elkner and I had kind of a roadshow where we'd go and speak at the National Computer Teachers thing. We did a lot of things like that. I ended up writing a book, the quick Python book, second edition. My writing career, incidentally, actually started because I was the humor columnist for a dog training magazine.
10:01
I am not making that up. And I also got involved in organizing in the Python community because I was foolish enough to ask Steve Holden one day, if there's anything I can ever do, just let me know. And he immediately said, yes, I would really like to have a poster session at PyCon.
10:21
I think I'd been to one poster session in my life, like just kind of walked through. So I really didn't know what they were, but we figured it out. And I did the poster session for three years at PyCon, and later did the education summit. So I know for a fact that some people sitting in this room know this guy, he's not here anymore.
10:43
So in a lot of ways, things were going well for me. And certainly my involvement in Python and the Python community was a part of what was going well for me. The thing is, even after all of these years of denial, and I tried everything that I could think of,
11:02
I was still transgender. That hadn't changed. And it's really, really hard to explain this to somebody who has not been there. It's like your clothes always itch. It's like your shoes never fit. It's really, to me, like when you're trying to go to sleep because you know you've got a really big day the next day,
11:26
and you're thinking about how much you'd better get to sleep because you've got a really big day the next day, and then you suddenly realize that all of your thinking about how much you need to sleep is keeping you from going to sleep, so you tell yourself you're not going to think about sleep anymore, you're just going to sleep, and then you catch yourself thinking about how much you need to go to sleep again,
11:42
almost immediately. That is really the kind of feeling that you got. And it got to the point where I was telling myself if I could just hang on until I died, it would be okay. There was a problem with this, and that was I was not dying fast enough.
12:01
Now you may think that I'm exaggerating for the point of drama here. A recent survey of transgender people indicated that 41% of them had attempted suicide. Okay, now think about that. That's just the ones who survived to take the survey, okay?
12:21
So this is a higher number, and I do know that I have not talked to another transgender person who has transitioned after the age of 10, say, who did not come to this point where thinking that the only way this is going to end is if I die. Okay, that is very definite.
12:44
And as I say, when you're not dying fast enough, that's an embarrassing position to be in. So eventually, I guess I got a dose of sanity or whatever, I realized the other option was to go ahead and transition, that is to stop fighting it
13:00
and actually accept what was my truth rather than the truth that the world had been trying to tell me for all these years. The problem is, I remembered back when I was 13 reading that you had to give up everything in order to transition. And that would mean giving up the Python community, the talks, going to PyCon, the book,
13:24
all of that stuff that was really very important to me. And I had, in fact, reached a point where I was willing to make that trade if that's what it took. But as things went on, I started to, I guess you could say I'm spoiled.
13:43
I've always wanted to have it both ways rather than just one or the other. I always try to think, is there some way we can't manage to make this work out? So I started to think about how it is I might be able to keep those things that I value and still transition. Would this even be possible?
14:03
So one of the first things I thought about, and I think this shows sort of the geek background, the first thing I did was check the paperwork, check the documentation, that sort of thing. I looked and there were codes of conduct. I mean, PyCon had a code of conduct. It was one of the leaders even when I was thinking about this.
14:22
So that was reassuring. And then I talked to some people that I was working with on PyCon and I sort of told them on the slide that this was what I was thinking about, what I was going to be doing, to see their reaction. And they were universally, surprisingly to me, very supportive.
14:46
It did not seem to matter. And in fact, I will tell this story on myself. I had this silly notion that when I was going to give up everything, when I was going to basically go underground or whatever it was,
15:03
I actually came up with the idea and pitched the idea of the Education Summit at PyCon. It was going to be the last thing I did for the Python community before I went underground. Okay, this sounds embarrassing when I tell it now. The problem is, as I started to approach transition, I realized there was no way I was going to last until PyCon and that Education Summit.
15:22
So that was part of my motivation here in thinking, okay, how can I do this? I've really got a dilemma now. I can't give up this thing that I started, but I just can't wait. So as I thought about it, I decided that the way that I would do this, if I was going to do it, I would really have to be as absolutely open as possible.
15:42
Because if I'm keeping everything, obviously we're connecting the two identities. There's no way you can possibly hide. It's got to be completely in the open. This took me some thinking to get my mind around and to come to terms with. But, in fact, I went ahead and that is exactly what I did.
16:04
I think it was even before I formally transitioned, I actually taught at a Python workshop for women. I ended up speaking at some various conferences. We went to PyCon. We did the Education Summit, except it was no longer as a farewell thing.
16:21
I didn't have to give that speech. I didn't have that speech written, so that was just as well. So it was all really went very well. And, in fact, people, again, were surprisingly supportive. And, you know, this is not to say anything against other people. I think I was just in the sort of space in my head where I was really expecting everybody to hate it.
16:44
And, in fact, people didn't. And I was surprised and happy about that. I did discover, in fact, that the more open I was, the easier it seemed to be for myself and for everybody else. I think that was partly because that takes away the questions and the awkwardness if at least it's out there and we don't have to even discuss that anymore.
17:03
This is a given. Let's discuss other things. And I would say that the final conclusion I came to here is that we talk a lot about diversity. I do believe that our commitment to diversity is real.
17:20
Okay. So, this should be the ending, right? Now, I'm talking fast and it's nowhere near the ending. So, in fact, it is not all rainbows and unicorns. As a transgender woman in tech, I can tell you that I am almost always the only openly trans person in the room.
17:45
There are a few exceptions to both of those. We've done some transgender hackathons in the States, which is really a blast because more than half of the people there are trans or genderqueer. And we're actually doing something. This isn't, you know, a complaining session or a whatever session. We're doing stuff.
18:01
And as the other part of it, the only openly trans person in the room, statistics would indicate that I am not the only trans person in this room. Let me put it that way. Whether or not that person is out or not. So, there's that element sort of isolation. I am not real anymore.
18:21
I guess not that I ever was. I never felt I was a real man now that you can find people on both the left and the right who will say I am not a real woman. In fact, in some people's minds, I have become a thing, a curiosity, or the punchline of a joke. I promise you that any joke that ends with, and she used to be a man, is not funny to me, okay? Don't even try.
18:47
People are sometimes embarrassed to be seen with me. I mean, more so than before, right? I think they sort of think, oh, she's trans. If people realize that, what are they going to think of me?
19:01
They might think you have diverse friends. Just guess. In many, many places, I don't have rights. I happen to be very carefully picking where I have rights, but many states in the U.S., many countries, I can even think of a continent that I really don't want to visit right now. I don't have rights.
19:23
I have a much higher risk of violence and death than I did five years ago. Now, the bulk of the violence against trans people happens to be against trans women of color. So I have the privilege of not being subject to that.
19:42
But still, if I get in a situation where violence is involved, it's probably going to go badly. I have lost friends. As it happens, tomorrow is the 40th reunion. Here's your big clue, all right?
20:00
I'm the 40th reunion of my high school class. Out of 75 people, two people are not invited. One of them is serving life in prison for murder. The other one is me. Most of my family no longer speaks to me.
20:21
I gave up 25 years in teaching to move to a different career in order to transition. If you think there that I am being extreme, I would invite you to think about what would happen if one of the teachers in the school that your children are attending decided to transition and how your community would take them.
20:44
All of that is the price I pay to be who I am. I am now at a place where I would not change that if I could. It took me a while to get here, I have to admit. But now if you offered me the chance to go back in time to before I was born and to fix things,
21:07
not only would I not take it, I'm not sure I could tell you what fixing things would mean at this point. So all of that means, and this is part of the reason why I don't think I would change at this point,
21:21
is that I have managed to see things that other people haven't been able to, as both male and female, as both privileged and both more marginalized. This gives you a perspective that I think many people just can never have.
21:40
For one thing, as I transitioned, I got to know other women in tech, and this was an interesting experience because I had thought about this question quite a lot before I transitioned. Things are different, how is this going to be different? Will you be able to handle this? And I had really thought about it and I thought that I had seen some of the differences.
22:03
It is amazing how much I did not see until I actually got here, as it was. So I met some very, very smart women whose ability did not seem to be recognized. It was really shocking to me how much that was passed over.
22:22
Also, and again, I mentioned that they did not always feel welcome, they did not always feel safe. One of the first times that I was in this situation, I remember thinking, wow, these people are getting a bad deal, and then almost immediately after that I thought,
22:40
yeah, and I am one of these people. So it was a different world, even though it was the same place that I thought I knew, and that was actually quite a shock. So I am now often the only woman in the room. It happened yesterday, as a matter of fact.
23:00
I can no longer assume personal security as I did as a male. Gentlemen, you don't understand what exactly that is like. I mean, as a guy, you can pretty much go wherever you want, whenever you want. It's not the case for me anymore. I am now invisible. This one was one that I was not expecting. Out of all of my thinking about what was going to happen, I did not expect to be invisible,
23:23
and I'll tell you what I mean by this. When I went to my first Python, as a woman, I was worried about harassment for being a trans woman. Not that I really thought anybody would do it, but that was my concern. In fact, I was invisible in that every woman that I even knew slightly recognized me instantly,
23:44
and pretty much all of the guys looked right through me. And it was really kind of a weird phenomenon. I would have to like, hi, and then it would jump as though I had materialized out of thin air. I am not making this up. I did it several times, and honestly, I'm pretty sure they're not here,
24:03
but there are a couple of guys that I probably took advantage of this invisibility with more than I should have, but it was weird. But this was my introduction to the fact that in general, in our society, men are socialized not to pay attention to women in professional settings.
24:23
And actually, afterwards, I looked around. There are many stories of this. This was not my discovery. I just hadn't known about it. Paradoxically, though, even though I'm invisible, I'm now in the class of people that is always judged by appearance, and this is just the truth.
24:42
In fact, there are all kinds of double standards that didn't used to exist. This is more in the work world, as a matter of fact, I got this. I was told, I think it was referring even to the same brief period of time or day or incident or whatever, I was told simultaneously I was too nice
25:03
and I was too unapproachable. I honestly don't know how to do that. What does that mean? And a friend of mine has actually observed, whenever you get double binds like this, you probably have a discriminatory system going on. This is not a fair situation.
25:25
So what I take away from all of that is, in general, I have learned what it means to be marginalized. When I started out a few years ago, I was assumed to be a cisgender white male. That is not marginalized.
25:40
That's what the system is designed for. I am no longer that, and it is a very different thing. And this is really what I learned. If you are a marginalized group, and these are some examples, what you need or what you want is special or extra. I just pick a random example, t-shirts that fit, just saying.
26:04
You are never quite sure if you're welcome, at least that's the feeling that I have. And if you object or even just sort of point out something in the system, whatever that system might be, that is not doing you any good,
26:22
you are quite likely to get sort of a lecture telling you not to be so angry because that's just hurting your cause. I see somebody nodding back there. You should stop bullying people. Don't start a witch hunt. Or you're just asking for it. All of these things actually have come out of mailing list exchanges
26:44
that I have been a part of. And honestly, I'm none of those things. I really doubt that we've ever had a witch hunt in the Python community. Whenever I hear that, I rather suspect that it's somebody who doesn't want to change their ways.
27:00
So it's a very different place. And the thing is, this is really an important point. This is painfully clear if you're on the one side, and it is almost invisible if you're on the other side. I was interested in the keynote yesterday.
27:22
There was a little bit of reference to diversity and its benefits, and I don't think that he took that nearly far enough. I work for a very old conservative industrial supply company. They are completely on board with the idea that diversity, including me,
27:41
I'm the only out trans employee, 16,000 people, but including me, that diversity is very important to the company. They are very committed to this because they believe that diverse people solve problems better, even if that diversity is not necessarily just limited to, say,
28:00
one specific area. And they also know that if you are looking for skilled team members that they are precious. If you have them, you don't want to lose them. If you're interviewing them, you don't want them to go away. So all of that is the business case for diversity,
28:21
and this is something that they will spew at you without even thinking about it. This is something they have internalized. So I would argue, and as I say, it was touched on yesterday, although I don't think he went for it, that in the open source Python community, the same business case should hold.
28:41
And beyond that, philosophically, since we are talking about being open all the time, I think that also must necessarily imply inclusion and diversity. So, just about to wrap up here. I asked the question, what do we want or need? Again, I cannot speak for everybody,
29:00
so that's why that we is in quotes, but in general, to get us to shut up, I have one more slide after this. I knew this was going to happen. We need to understand that everybody is different in a whole bunch of unrelated ways. So the fact that I am transgender does not mean anything about the other pieces of me.
29:23
The fact that it means no more about me essentially than that I'm American, that I'm this tall, those are all unrelated things. If we have that in our mind rather than trying to chunk people, I think that would help. Listen, when people who are marginalized tell you what it's like, take their word for it.
29:44
They're not making it up. You have to listen the harder, the more you think they're making it up. Codes of conduct matter. If you have a code of conduct that says, trust us, we're all nice guys, that is worthless, that's an insult to the idea of code of conduct. I have seen codes of conduct like that.
30:01
That would make me go the other way. Outreach matters. Just saying we're open to everyone does not bring in those people who think that you have been ignoring them all this time. They're not going to believe you if you just tell them you need personal conduct to get people going. Allies matter. I have been undercover as a straight cisgender male
30:23
for a long, long time. I have never heard people stand up against sexism, transphobia, things like that while I was in that period. Not if it was all just, let's say, a group of straight men calling somebody out for homophobia, transphobia, sexism, never heard it happen.
30:42
We need that to happen. And we need places where people feel safe and secure. So, this is my final thing. Let's mean it when we talk about open and fair and inclusive. We have still a ways to go. Okay, well thank you. I don't have an encore, but I will hang around if anybody has questions.