Tag: society

Gay community at Critical

Last week Daniel and I attended Critical Northwest, the annual Seattle-region Burning Man. This was our second time to go, the first was in 2015, and one of the things that we felt was lacking in 2015 was a sense of gay community.

This year we put a concerted effort into building and fostering queer community before the event. In the spirit of radical inclusion we decided to focus on a larger queer1 community rather than just a gay community. We created a Facebook sub-group for Critical Northwest Queers to create ideas, we contacted theme camps and encouraged them to host queer-centric events, and we collated and displayed all queer events as part of the Queer Agenda with Camp Waystation during the week.

And overall I think our efforts were successful! I heard from numerous people how they felt that the event this year was explicitly, not just implicitly, queer-friendly and welcoming. The spirit of queer-inclusion seemed to bleed over into other camps flying various Pride flags which was fantastic.

But a queer community does not necessarily imply a gay community. Over the course of the week out of ~1200 participants Daniel and I only found 10 other male-identified people that seemed a part of the gay community — that seemed like our people — and very few of those attended the queer events. So while it felt really great knowing that others were finding their community this year, it was frustrating to feel that we still weren’t finding ours after putting a concerted effort into it.

There are a plethora of possibilities as to why so few gay men went to Critical. Perhaps there were well more than 10 other gay men out there that we never met. Perhaps gay men who were there didn’t identify as queer or weren’t looking for a community. Perhaps gay men are less likely to attend a regional burn (I don’t know what percentage of Burning Man participants are gay men). Perhaps this was an off year. Perhaps my expectations and hopes were just too high.

Regardless of the reason we don’t feel like we found our community at Critical.

1 Yes, I used the word queer although I still cringe internally every time. LGBTQ+ is utterly unpronounceable.

#putashirton body shames men

Fruit of the Loom has a new, and rather clever, marketing campaign for their t-shirts: PutAShirtOn.org. Their tongue-in-cheek video1 explains that the real reason for all the shirtless selfies on social media is because the guy’s shirts are poor quality and are getting “ripped” and “shredded”. Their social media campaign suggests that people comment on these photos with a #putashirton hashtag, which ties into Fruit of the Loom’s marketing campaign, and promote their EverSoft shirts.

It’s clever.

It’s also body shaming men.

I spent all of my childhood and most of my adult life hating how I looked and feeling ashamed of my body. I remember in middle school my dad took my brother and I to an after-school basketball program. I had so much shame taking my shirt off for the “skins” team that I refused to go back after the first night.

In college I remember riding my bike one day without a shirt on. Some assholes in a truck pulled up besides me at a stop sign and mocked me to “put a shirt on that ugly body”, laughed, and drove off.

It wasn’t until two years ago that I did enough mental and physical work to like how I looked. After feeling more confident I started posting some pictures to Instagram (warning: I’m often shirtless). Positive reinforcement of those pics by friends and strangers helped reinforce that I’m not ugly. I can easily imagine how shamed I would have felt at the beginning of that journey if someone had posted this marketing hashtag to my shirtless posts. (Today I would just consider them trolls and delete them.)

Feel free to roll your eyes at we narcissists (or want-to-be narcissists) posting shirtless selfies, but please don’t use this marketing hashtag to shame us.

1 A video which includes generally slim guys, most of them white, and all but one of them smooth, thus further perpetuating this as the “right” way that men should look. To their credit, it isn’t all really buff guys, so there’s at least that.

Role models

“Who are my role models?” popped into my head about a week ago, for some reason only my subconscious understands, and it’s been an interesting question to ponder for the past several days. To the best of my memory I’ve never had explicit role models. No one that if asked I could readily respond with.

The more I thought about it, however, the more I realized that I have two implicit role models and I’d wager a pretty penny that until they read this they won’t have realized it either. Those people are John Martin and Jonobie Ford.

 

John Martin and I met while working at IBM on a remote assignment in Irvine, CA over 15 years ago. He’s about 20 years older than I am and yet we are more alike than different. We’re both gay, enjoy country western dancing, are frugal but not cheap, like reading and blogging, and more. We’re so alike in some ways that we affectionately refer to each other as BigMe and MiniMe.

In the gay community we often talk about living our authentic life, being who we are and not who others want us to be. John has always exemplified that. It was John that taught me that it really is OK to be out at work and that bringing your whole self to work is how you do your best work. Good employers recognize this. For me IBM sure did, as did Isilon/EMC, as does Spaceflight Industries. John inspired me to be very visibly out at work, to leverage my privilege to make it a safe place for others to be out as well.

I’ve learned other lessons from John too, like it’s OK to make big changes in your career, that it’s absolutely OK to have not just friendly but loving relationships with your ex-spouse, that living well below your means now opens up many doors in the future, that there’s no shame in trying something bold and changing paths when it wasn’t the right decision. But the one word that I keep coming back to with John, and what makes him a role model to me, is his authenticity.

 

I’ve known Jonobie Ford for almost 18 years now. We met at Tivoli, our first jobs after college. She was one of the very first people I came out to at work. One Friday afternoon, before the weekly beer bash, I asked her to take a stroll around the pond with me. I was a nervous wreck, terrified of being rejected. Jonobie accepted me with open arms and an hour later was ready to punch a guy on my behalf after he said some homophobic comment at the beer bash.

It isn’t her fierce friendship that makes her a role model to me, although she is my best friend, it’s her creativity and refusal to fit into anyone’s box.

I can’t even keep track of all the different kinds of creative endeavors Jonobie has done in her life so far. Drawing, pottery, dancing, brewing, aerial silks, knitting, and bartending just to name a few off the top of my head. At her encouragement I took my first pottery class 15 years ago and have been hooked ever since. We’ve brewed ginger beer and even taken a bellydance class together (yup, I’ve done bellydancing). Her stories of sketching encouraged me to take a chance on being a model myself. I might never have tried partner acrobatics and glassblowing were it not for catching a part of her adventurous spirit a decade ago. Being creative is just who Jonobie is, it isn’t something that gets tacked onto her life. She’s shown me that it’s more than OK to try some new creative endeavor, it’s part and parcel of living.

Jonobie doesn’t fit into any one, or anyone’s, box. She’s a woman in tech with bright pink hair. She’s insanely creative (see above) and runs races (we ran a marathon together!). She loves to travel internationally and quiet board game afternoons. She’s a feminist and very vocal LGBTQ+ ally. She’s done rock climbing, drawn models, done bow-and-arrow and gun target practice. She’s gone to Burning Man and a yoga retreat in Mexico. I’ve never known her to let anyone or anything dictate what she could and couldn’t do based on some stupid societal norm — and that’s inspiring.

So who cares if I want to present as a masculine gay man and also take bellydancing classes? Nothing’s going to stop me from helping the receptionist empty and reload the dishwasher at work even though some may see it as “beneath me”. Why should anyone care that I don’t drink alcohol or coffee because I can’t stand the taste? I workout 6 days a week, have 14.75″ biceps, and yet ugly cry while watching Moulin Rouge every. single. time. I don’t have to fit into anyone’s box either.

 

I suspect that neither John or Jonobie realize that I view them as role models, so clearly it’s possible to be a role model and not know it. That leads to the extremely scary possibility that I may be a role model for someone. If so, heaven help us all.

Seattle-area Employee Donation Matching

In the past I have been terrible when comparing job opportunities in how the different companies match employee donations to charitable organizations. As someone who believes strongly in charitable giving and donates 10% of his income to charities every year, there’s a big difference in an employer who will match $15k of that or one who won’t match anything.

So while I’m not looking for a job right now, I was curious how major Seattle-area tech employers compared with regard to their employee charity matching programs. The results were enlightening.

Employer Matching Refs
Adobe $10,000 DoubleTheDonation
Amazon none DoubleTheDonation
Apple $10,000 DoubleTheDonation
Dell $10,000 DoubleTheDonation
Dropbox $1,000 DoubleTheDonation
Expedia $4,000 DoubleTheDonation
Facebook none Facebook employee
Google $12,000 DoubleTheDonation
IBM $5,000 DoubleTheDonation
Microsoft $15,000 Microsoft
Oracle $300 DoubleTheDonation
Tableau $500 DoubleTheDonation

It’s clear which of those stand out:

  • Microsoft for their very generous $15k matching program. Way to go Microsoft!
  • Amazon, one of the biggest tech employers in the region, for matching absolutely nothing. Ditto Facebook.
  • Oracle for their almost-embarassing $300 match. Yes, Tableau is only $500 but I expect more from a company with a $200b market cap than one with $7b market cap.

It’s interesting to compare these to other major Seattle-area employers, all of which are rather generous:

Employer Matching Refs
Alaska Airlines $4,000 DoubleTheDonation
Boeing $6,000 DoubleTheDonation
Nordstrom $5,000 DoubleTheDonation

Clearly there are a lot of factors in play when you choose where to work, but next time I’m looking for a job I need to factor in employer matching to ensure I’m not leaving thousands of dollars of Doing Good sitting on the table.

2018, more and less

I’m not one for making New Year resolutions, but I see value in taking a moment to reflect on the prior year and brainstorming ideas on how to make the new year better. I’m approaching 2018 with a “more and less” philosophy.

More content creation; less passive media consumption.

I want to create more content than I consume. There are times I find myself mindlessly scrolling through Facebook or Instagram. Instead I want to put more energy in blogging, working on code for Distributed Proofreaders, working on VoteSTEM.org, and yes even posting more selfies on my Instagram.

More reading; more science fiction & fantasy.

Reading, particularly science fiction and fantasy, has always been my way to escape and decompress. I’ve found that reading also frees up my mind from hyper-focusing on whatever problem I’m working on and lets my subconscious piece things together, ultimately helping me work through the problem.

For the past couple of years I’ve been terrible about making time to read and I intend to change that. The year is off to a good start with discovering the Expanse series (thanks Josh!) and the Bobiverse books (thanks Samantha!).

Less soda, sweets, and carbs; more vegetables and bacon.

I’m already pretty good about not eating hollow calories like soda and sweets, but I’m still a sucker for carbs in all forms. Heaven is bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I want to pare that down and eat more vegetables. And bacon, because: bacon.

More cooking; less eating out.

Daniel does most all of the cooking in our household and I do the dishes. This is primarily because he really enjoys cooking and also because when we started dating he was working from home and could start dinner early. (There is nothing as awesome as coming home from work to a house that smells of delicious food and immediately sitting down to eat.)

Our work schedules have shifted and I get home between half an hour to a full hour before he does but he still does most of the cooking. This makes for late meals, eats into our evenings together, and risks a hangry Casey. I want to start doing more of the cooking before he gets home so that we are eating earlier and have more time together.

In addition to this, I want to eat lunch out less. This will require better meal planning and, frankly, making enough dinner that there are leftovers to take with me to the office.

More consistent workouts, including leg days and weekend running with the gang.

I’ve been remarkably consistent about working out in the mornings over the past 17 years, but not so consistent with having high-quality workouts. This year I want to be more focused on the workouts themselves and stop skimping on leg days, which I hate.

I also want to run more with my weekend running gang. Getting together and running once a week with that cadre of friends that I’ve known for more than 15 years is so good for me, body and soul.

Actually, just more running in general. I always forget how fantastic I feel after a run.

More haircuts.

I want to get more haircuts in 2018. I really like the way I look after a fresh haircut, but with ~4 weeks between haircuts my hair looks like crap there towards the end and I hate it. Sadly, my barber is no longer convenient to my office so there’s a huge time overhead in getting a haircut. I’m loath to change barbers, so I will have to get creative in making time to get my haircut more frequently.

More time with chosen family.

I want to spend more time with my chosen family in 2018. As time goes on I realize how important they are to me and how much their company improves all aspects of my life.

More good; less bad.

This year I want to do more good and fight more bad. Working to positively influence the 2018 midterm elections is a big part of that, primarily through VoteSTEM.org, but also through donations to candidate campaigns across the nation. Less dwelling on our shithole President and his cronies and more working to right the ship and empowering those people who will make that possible.

 

2018 is going to be a great year, more and less.

Doing Good; Fighting Bad

Last year Daniel and I gave a lot of thought into how we can do some good in the world with our charitable donations. We found some great local and national organizations that we really believed were making an impact in the world by supporting women, people of color, immigrants, LGBTQ+, youth, and other minorities. This year we are excited to support those same organizations again.

Sometimes, however, it’s not enough to just Do Good, you have to also Fight Bad.

Accordingly, next year in addition to supporting local and national organizations at the same financial level we have been, we are giving an equal amount of money to local and national political campaigns.

This isn’t something we’re venturing into lightly. Both of us strongly believe that local communities should be the ones electing their representatives without outside influence. And in a perfect world people would have equal representation within that community to elect those officials. But we don’t live in a perfect world. We live in a world where Republicans have used gerrymandering to stack the deck in their favor, denying minorities equal representation in states across the nation. Not to mention re-enacting Jim Crow laws in 9 states and disenfranchising minority voters with voter ID laws.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on how the midterm races unfold over the next year and where we can put our money to good use. And I’m not above funding Republican campaigns to get the lesser of two Republican evils if it comes down to that. I’m not about to let perfect be the enemy of good enough.

It’s time for liberals to stop pretending we live in an ideal world and playing by idealist rules. It’s time to take the gloves off and buy our own congresspeople, even if that means setting aside some of our principles, because the Republicans have abandoned their principles years ago.

Smile more and donate to a charity

If you shop at Amazon and are not using AmazonSmile, your favorite non-profit is missing out on money!

For the past 4 years, Amazon has donated millions of dollars to charities by having shoppers go through the AmazonSmile website. You, the buyer, shop just as you normally would and Amazon gives 0.5% of your purchase to the non-profit of your choice. It costs you, the buyer, absolutely nothing. The only catch is that you have to purchase through the AmazonSmile website.

Remembering to go to the AmazonSmile website is the hardest part of the whole endeavor. Luckily there are some browser plugins that will do that redirection for you:

If you shop at Amazon I encourage you to install a plugin to make sure you are buying through AmazonSmile and helping, even if it’s just a little, a non-profit you love.

My donations go to Distributed Proofreaders, you can select them for your charity on AmazonSmile using this link.

To be clear, I’m not encouraging anyone to shop at Amazon who isn’t already (shop at local merchants whenever possible!) but if you are shopping there, I encourage you to use AmazonSmile.

Celebrating 16 Years of Gayness

Today is National Coming Out Day and I’m celebrating 16 years of gayness.

I came out of the closet in 2001 at the age of 22 after being mired in self-loathing for years due to my fundamentalist religious upbringing. When I came out I was very fortunate to be living in a progressive city (keep Austin weird, y’all), have a solid job with an LGBT-friendly company (thank you IBM!), not be financially dependent upon my parents in any way, and have friends who accepted me with love1.

Coming out of the closet and admitting to myself, and my friends, that I am gay was a turning point in my life. It’s not been perfect, but I’ve never been happier to be able to live my authentic life at home and at work.

There those among us who think we don’t need National Coming Out Day, that by intentionally coming out and celebrating it we are preventing gayness from being fully normalized and accepted in society. To that I reply: check your privilege.2

Coming out risks rejection from loved ones and peers. Many LGBTQ-folks are financially dependent upon their parents and risk being kicked out of their homes; a disproportionate number of homeless youth are LGBTQ. In numerous states, if you come out to your employer they can fire you. For many people there are real, tangible risks to living an authentic life.

For those of us who have a preponderance of privilege, I believe we have a moral responsibility to come out. Coming out establishes an expectation of acceptance, similar to our expectations of justice and liberty. Coming out, and being out, help creates that normalcy of gayness that will ultimately reduce National Coming Out Day to a mere Hallmark Holiday, with as much emotional and life-changing consequences as getting a greeting card.

Until then, if you can, I encourage you to be very visibly out. Let’s help create those places for fellow LGBTQ-folks to be safe and help blaze the trail of acceptance that those before us started.

Thanks to my friend Jason Lucas for helping me coalesce my thoughts on this.

1 The second person I came out to was a woman I had worked with for just a few short months: Jonobie Ford. Seventeen years later she remains my best friend.

2 Alternatively: “you try growing up in a small town in the south in a state where it’s legal to be fired for being gay in a fundamentalist conservative Republican family knowing you are going to hell and then tell me we don’t need this”, but “check your privilege” is more succinct.

Get your anti-NRA membership now!

Tired of the NRA buying politicians and stifling discussion about reasonable gun laws? Me too! Wish you could join an organization to help fight them? You can!

Everytown for Gun Safety and the Brady Campaign are two great organizations fighting back against the NRA and trying to enact sane, sensible laws to reduce gun violence in the US. Join them by making a yearly donation as an anti-NRA membership – $40/year is a great place to start.

The NRA boasts a membership of 5 million people with current annual dues of $40/year generating $165 million in dues in 2015. Money they then use to buy politicians. It’s worth noting that not all gun owners are NRA members (roughly 1 in 5 are), but many gun owners support the NRA’s policies.

NRA members are also vocal to their elected officials and we must be too. Contact your state and federal representatives and demand reasonable gun laws – Everytown and the Brady Campaign can help with that.

Imagine what a difference it would make if the 78% of the people in the US who didn’t own a gun got a “membership” in Everytown and demanded sensible gun laws.