Trans At Microsoft - 1998
The following is a note I wrote to my wife while we were both working at Microsoft’s Main Campus from 1997 – 2000. Laura was a B2B Manager for MS IT Showcase and I was an Accessibility Writer, Video Producer, and project collaborator for The Gates Foundation.
Laura was also the President of The Hopper Group (MS’s Women’s Organization named for Rear Admiral Grace Hopper) and WebGrrls – an activist group within Microsoft. The night before writing this, Laura held a meeting of WebGrrls at our Kirkland home while I washed our Wofhound on the deck overhearing their squabbling.
I saved my comments in the attached note and left it on her desk the next morning.
03 Mar 98
Laura,
I’m having trouble sleeping tonight, so it’s to the keyboard until weariness pulls me back down to the pillow. The disturbing dream that woke me was far more allegorical than most of my recurrent reality nightmares. In fact, its theme was a rather maudlin cautionary tale of loneliness and loss.
Or, maybe it was the oysters.
But, as usual, once awake, my mind starts sorting out the “brain chits” I habitually collect, overlaying them until I find some common thread, some inner POV that works for me.
Let me say that I found my afternoon amid Sunday’s Webcircle of friends to be a puzzling experience. At hand was the issue of member inclusion / exclusion within your email group and the internal squabbles that are inherent in most disparate affinity organizations. Speaking only for myself, I felt like Sinead O’Connor at an E Vitus Clampus, Wet T-shirt, Barbecue, and Land Scramble.
As I said last evening, I remained silent for good reason. I’m a perennial outsider with limited working knowledge of your group, other than your occasional references to it. Hence, any real-time observation I might add would be engagingly superficial at best, conceptually confrontational at worst.
Wouldn’t want to scare the children, now, would we?
But more importantly, the best response to an a priori argument for developing new prejudices and discrimination is to remove oneself from the cabal and go pet the dog.
I can reconstruct the opinion insults I heard, but it was the overall atmosphere of bald ignorance that was most stultifying.
In their defense, you said, “They’re young.”
Yes, young is a great excuse when referring to a child’s inappropriate behavior, but once past your early twenties it is a code word for simpleminded.
Or a Marilyn Manson devotee.
Sunday’s discourse, and I use that word in its most figurative sense, spoke less of young and more of callow bigotry, wearing the familiar cloak of “empowerment,” “compensatory equality,” and “leveling the playing field.”
It broke the Victimhood Sound Barrier -- Mach Whine.
Here’s a stratagem.
Why not play the honesty card and rename the group, “WebVictims.” After all, it’s a trump for the prejudiced to claim that they are most harmed. You might even use a variant spelling to separate yourselves from the victims of war, disease, accident or nature. “WebViktums” would form a portmanteau that says “like a victim without all the trappings,” while hinting at “Viking” and “Tums”; literally, “Internet users who are fearless, but suffer acid indigestion from the resultant stress.”
Here’s what I heard:
1 – A post-op transsexual should be denied membership because he / she hasn’t had to “go through what women go through.”
This is the current “Snivel du Jour” in the Lesbian world. At its heart is the unilateral hatred of men, not some didactic disquisition on the nature of innate human sexuality. So-called “Transgender Issues” are the litmus test for same-sex and opposite sex dogmatism. If we are not all a mix of both sexes, if we are not empathetic to both sexes, if we do not at least have the capacity to love both sexes, we are worthless, selfish, emptyhearted animals, doomed to shallowminded prejudice. Cheers!
I can’t imagine the kind of identity Hell someone would have to endure before deliberately mutilating their body in a tragic attempt to be what they are not. How insensitive can an organization be to ignore the fact that someone feels such an overpowering kinship with their group, that it becomes the sole expression of his/her life.
Will the organization also exclude the Lesbians who undergo sex change surgery or stroll around gay bars with dildos stuck down the front of their jeans? What about Hermaphrodites who wear silk stockings and Mariner’s Caps? How about a ruling on all the dress-for-success“Men with Vagina’s” who clog up middle management in Corporate America by abusing the hell out of other women? What about the rich bitches who have never struggled for a goddam thing in their lives by virtue of being some boneheaded guy’s sex toy trophy.
Jesus, they let all the Special Olympics Participants wear gold medals for just attending the Games. Lighten up, Ladies, I don’t see a lot of guys lining up for casual castration and membership. At least this transsexual had the honesty to leave his cock at the hospital and not hide it in his Webgrrlfriend’s purse. WebNeuts they shall be dubbed, properly coifed and displayed like the show-weary poodles they resemble.
Poor VicThom/Victoria! He just wants to be a gal like all get out. Undergoing a mental and physical equivalent of John Wayne Bobbit cutting off his own dick to become more like Loreena.
Plus, when this poor guy shows up at work, what kind of prejudice do you think he faces? Hostile sexual environment? Ladies, get out a notebook and a #2 pencil. You have a lot to learn. And try to find some measure of compassion.
2 – There are some men-hating women in the group, but there are only a few and we really have to respect everyone’s opinion.
Aside from the fact that by its very composition, every group of women is mainly comprised of people who hate women, where in the world did this “tolerate the bigots” attitude come from? Is it a subliminal imbedded in some Yanni track? Have people become so Farrakahnized that it now makes perfect sense to keep “a little hate brewing” for those special occasions when we’re “getting’ loose” with our bigoted friends. BTW, check the stats on Gay and Lesbian domestic violence, hate crimes and spousal rape. You may need to sit down and rethink your charter. Hate is hate, folks. If you tolerate it, you commit twice the act by your complicity.
3 – The group is not for men who are looking to be included as members, but if they can get us work; we’ll deal with them, preferably at arm’s length.
So, what does that offer? Access to a pool of attitude-case, problem hires? By doing this you become the very thing you say you are aligned against. You would then appear to be a “CyberGhetto” full of malcontents that is off-limits to men, “Unless you want to pay us some money.” An Online Human Resource Brothel.
4 – Some communications are unwanted and the people making them should be suppressed, punished or expelled.
This shouldn’t even exist in an organization where the members are trying to find economic advantage. Someone sends a business offer and the recipients take umbrage that their little mailbox icon has been violated? On the fucking Internet, for Chrissakes?
“Well, I didn’t know how many people received the email, so I didn’t know if I was special or not.”
Simply put, this is akin to the policy First Grade teachers have regarding birthday party invitations or Valentines. Either invite everyone in the class or distribute these items in the schoolyard where hurt feelings won’t disrupt the lesson.
Except, in this example, the less people who receive the “Valentine” the more acceptable it becomes, the more intrinsic value it denotes, the less chance there is to being “used.”
One of the participants in the discussion Sunday claimed that she receives @ 300 emails a day. What is she, the Secretary General of the fucking U.N.? Three hundred important missives that need attention? “Sandinista Webgrrl in jeopardy! Send lawyers, guns, and money!”
Hardly. Human Beings change so little regardless of the colossal leaps in technology. That’s why we had to call a Web site a “page” for so long. Just to wean the techno-runts off of their print nipple.
The Gutenberg Conundrum.
Given that, I would imagine the bulk of the “300” to contain the same sort of chitchat that has always made up the bulk of human communication. Only now, at the “Electronic Clothesline” or “Global Backfence,” a new protocol seems warranted given the magnitude of the audience and the paucity of content.
It’s not.
It’s just a feeling of helplessness and vulnerability overwhelming the relatively normal desire for anonymity. Take three deep breaths and a few sips of water and get over it.
Because it will only get worse and you will either adapt or die.
Thank you for acting your age.
I love you,
Me.
Laura was also the President of The Hopper Group (MS’s Women’s Organization named for Rear Admiral Grace Hopper) and WebGrrls – an activist group within Microsoft. The night before writing this, Laura held a meeting of WebGrrls at our Kirkland home while I washed our Wofhound on the deck overhearing their squabbling.
I saved my comments in the attached note and left it on her desk the next morning.
03 Mar 98
Laura,
I’m having trouble sleeping tonight, so it’s to the keyboard until weariness pulls me back down to the pillow. The disturbing dream that woke me was far more allegorical than most of my recurrent reality nightmares. In fact, its theme was a rather maudlin cautionary tale of loneliness and loss.
Or, maybe it was the oysters.
But, as usual, once awake, my mind starts sorting out the “brain chits” I habitually collect, overlaying them until I find some common thread, some inner POV that works for me.
Let me say that I found my afternoon amid Sunday’s Webcircle of friends to be a puzzling experience. At hand was the issue of member inclusion / exclusion within your email group and the internal squabbles that are inherent in most disparate affinity organizations. Speaking only for myself, I felt like Sinead O’Connor at an E Vitus Clampus, Wet T-shirt, Barbecue, and Land Scramble.
As I said last evening, I remained silent for good reason. I’m a perennial outsider with limited working knowledge of your group, other than your occasional references to it. Hence, any real-time observation I might add would be engagingly superficial at best, conceptually confrontational at worst.
Wouldn’t want to scare the children, now, would we?
But more importantly, the best response to an a priori argument for developing new prejudices and discrimination is to remove oneself from the cabal and go pet the dog.
I can reconstruct the opinion insults I heard, but it was the overall atmosphere of bald ignorance that was most stultifying.
In their defense, you said, “They’re young.”
Yes, young is a great excuse when referring to a child’s inappropriate behavior, but once past your early twenties it is a code word for simpleminded.
Or a Marilyn Manson devotee.
Sunday’s discourse, and I use that word in its most figurative sense, spoke less of young and more of callow bigotry, wearing the familiar cloak of “empowerment,” “compensatory equality,” and “leveling the playing field.”
It broke the Victimhood Sound Barrier -- Mach Whine.
Here’s a stratagem.
Why not play the honesty card and rename the group, “WebVictims.” After all, it’s a trump for the prejudiced to claim that they are most harmed. You might even use a variant spelling to separate yourselves from the victims of war, disease, accident or nature. “WebViktums” would form a portmanteau that says “like a victim without all the trappings,” while hinting at “Viking” and “Tums”; literally, “Internet users who are fearless, but suffer acid indigestion from the resultant stress.”
Here’s what I heard:
1 – A post-op transsexual should be denied membership because he / she hasn’t had to “go through what women go through.”
This is the current “Snivel du Jour” in the Lesbian world. At its heart is the unilateral hatred of men, not some didactic disquisition on the nature of innate human sexuality. So-called “Transgender Issues” are the litmus test for same-sex and opposite sex dogmatism. If we are not all a mix of both sexes, if we are not empathetic to both sexes, if we do not at least have the capacity to love both sexes, we are worthless, selfish, emptyhearted animals, doomed to shallowminded prejudice. Cheers!
I can’t imagine the kind of identity Hell someone would have to endure before deliberately mutilating their body in a tragic attempt to be what they are not. How insensitive can an organization be to ignore the fact that someone feels such an overpowering kinship with their group, that it becomes the sole expression of his/her life.
Will the organization also exclude the Lesbians who undergo sex change surgery or stroll around gay bars with dildos stuck down the front of their jeans? What about Hermaphrodites who wear silk stockings and Mariner’s Caps? How about a ruling on all the dress-for-success“Men with Vagina’s” who clog up middle management in Corporate America by abusing the hell out of other women? What about the rich bitches who have never struggled for a goddam thing in their lives by virtue of being some boneheaded guy’s sex toy trophy.
Jesus, they let all the Special Olympics Participants wear gold medals for just attending the Games. Lighten up, Ladies, I don’t see a lot of guys lining up for casual castration and membership. At least this transsexual had the honesty to leave his cock at the hospital and not hide it in his Webgrrlfriend’s purse. WebNeuts they shall be dubbed, properly coifed and displayed like the show-weary poodles they resemble.
Poor VicThom/Victoria! He just wants to be a gal like all get out. Undergoing a mental and physical equivalent of John Wayne Bobbit cutting off his own dick to become more like Loreena.
Plus, when this poor guy shows up at work, what kind of prejudice do you think he faces? Hostile sexual environment? Ladies, get out a notebook and a #2 pencil. You have a lot to learn. And try to find some measure of compassion.
2 – There are some men-hating women in the group, but there are only a few and we really have to respect everyone’s opinion.
Aside from the fact that by its very composition, every group of women is mainly comprised of people who hate women, where in the world did this “tolerate the bigots” attitude come from? Is it a subliminal imbedded in some Yanni track? Have people become so Farrakahnized that it now makes perfect sense to keep “a little hate brewing” for those special occasions when we’re “getting’ loose” with our bigoted friends. BTW, check the stats on Gay and Lesbian domestic violence, hate crimes and spousal rape. You may need to sit down and rethink your charter. Hate is hate, folks. If you tolerate it, you commit twice the act by your complicity.
3 – The group is not for men who are looking to be included as members, but if they can get us work; we’ll deal with them, preferably at arm’s length.
So, what does that offer? Access to a pool of attitude-case, problem hires? By doing this you become the very thing you say you are aligned against. You would then appear to be a “CyberGhetto” full of malcontents that is off-limits to men, “Unless you want to pay us some money.” An Online Human Resource Brothel.
4 – Some communications are unwanted and the people making them should be suppressed, punished or expelled.
This shouldn’t even exist in an organization where the members are trying to find economic advantage. Someone sends a business offer and the recipients take umbrage that their little mailbox icon has been violated? On the fucking Internet, for Chrissakes?
“Well, I didn’t know how many people received the email, so I didn’t know if I was special or not.”
Simply put, this is akin to the policy First Grade teachers have regarding birthday party invitations or Valentines. Either invite everyone in the class or distribute these items in the schoolyard where hurt feelings won’t disrupt the lesson.
Except, in this example, the less people who receive the “Valentine” the more acceptable it becomes, the more intrinsic value it denotes, the less chance there is to being “used.”
One of the participants in the discussion Sunday claimed that she receives @ 300 emails a day. What is she, the Secretary General of the fucking U.N.? Three hundred important missives that need attention? “Sandinista Webgrrl in jeopardy! Send lawyers, guns, and money!”
Hardly. Human Beings change so little regardless of the colossal leaps in technology. That’s why we had to call a Web site a “page” for so long. Just to wean the techno-runts off of their print nipple.
The Gutenberg Conundrum.
Given that, I would imagine the bulk of the “300” to contain the same sort of chitchat that has always made up the bulk of human communication. Only now, at the “Electronic Clothesline” or “Global Backfence,” a new protocol seems warranted given the magnitude of the audience and the paucity of content.
It’s not.
It’s just a feeling of helplessness and vulnerability overwhelming the relatively normal desire for anonymity. Take three deep breaths and a few sips of water and get over it.
Because it will only get worse and you will either adapt or die.
Thank you for acting your age.
I love you,
Me.