this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2025
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I feel for OP. I really do. I want everyone to be treated as equals, honestly.
However, does OP even realize that their anecdotal experience doesn't even remotely satisfy the (heavy) burden of proof for their biased hypothesis?
In a blind study, everyone in a room going silent when a trans person talks is not necessarily experimentally a 1:1 to everyone in the room going silent when a biological male talks. MANY people that have transitioned (whether they want to admit it or not) have a noticeable difference in their vocal timbre than their biological counterparts. Maybe people went silent because they were fascinated by or fixated on the unusual timbre of the OP’s transitioned vocal cords. We will never know… and some of us realize that correlation does not equal causation.
For example, you wouldn’t conduct a scientific study where you’re attempting to show the differences between how males and females are treated and choose to have one of your control subjects be a trans male. It’s just different despite how inconvenient and hotly debated that truth is.
Additionally, OP was in the same department for years and then transitioned. So, naturally people would approach a more experienced person for help or advice regardless of perceived sex if they knew that person was there longer than them.
Obviously there are differences between how men and women are treated…but OP seems to be using the worst possible anecdotes to provide proof for their hypothesis without correcting for these sometimes subtle inconsistencies. Maybe OP thinks they pass as a male a lot more convincingly than they actually do.
I get it gals, I wouldn't want to be around this either. Oof.
The opposite happened to me when I transitioned. When I was perceived as a guy, if I was in a meeting, people didn't instantly fall silent if I spoke, but if they tried to overtalk me and I just kept speaking, they would eventually give way. I transitioned 8 years ago, and from the earliest days of my transition until now, if someone starts overtalking me, they will just keep doing it even if I don't stop talking. The only way to stop them is to vocally call them out and ask them to be quiet until I'm finished.
Similarly, I used to be seen as one of the two "tech guys". The person that people would come up to and ask for tech advice to avoid calling the internal helpdesk. After I transitioned, they started coming up to me and asking me where the other tech guy is.
My career has stalled since I came out. I'm in a trans inclusive country, in a trans inclusive workplace, and I transitioned so long ago, that most people don't know that I'm trans or simply forget. But since coming out, the various shoulder taps in to project opportunities and the like just don't happen anymore.
It's a nice theory, but it's somewhat strange how my own experience as a trans person transitioning from male to female had the opposite impact. Did people start overtalking me because they were fascinated by my timbre?
Again, it's a nice theory, but in my case, they stopped approaching me. And even the ones who don't know that I'm trans don't approach me that way, because I'm not seen as one of the "tech folk" anymore, despite not losing my experience when I transitioned.
Similarly, you are using the least likely possibilities that contradict the first hand experience of folk directly in these scenarios to fit your pre-conceived notion of what is happening.
Yeah, the OPs post and mine are anecdotal, so you shouldn't take either of our experiences as universal truths. But your takes aren't even anecdotal. They're suppositions.
Thanks for sharing. All these experiences are very illuminating regarding the lesser impact of socialization, too. Like, I might have thought my female colleagues had just been told to cede the floor so many times they didn't often speak at meetings. And that could still be adding to it, but here are the same individuals with the same habits getting starkly different treatment.
Even knowing these trends from countless other stories and statistics, hearing each additional experience helps keep it in mind and see more often when it's happening.
That’s true.
Thanks for not immediately dogpiling me and instead actually making some great points. I appreciate the perspective.
Everything they are describing is well supported by solid evidence that you can look up. Further, in conversations of what would drive women out of stem, the welcome harshness and sexism pushing people away is the core of issue.
Ultimately this dismissive attitude towards a well known and understood phenomenon speaks to the arrogance of those that disagree with the well established reality.
You are going out of your way to poke holes in someone describing a very rare and valid view that demonstrates the discrepancy gender presentation gives in lived experience, and how it follows well tested sexist trends by holding their tumblr post to the standard of a scientific paper. You are so desperate to preserve your warped world view that the severity of sexism in STEM isn't as big of a deal as it is made out that you have taken a genuinely ridiculous position.
Do better.
I used a scientific approach in the science memes community. You don’t seem to care about actual science. You’re going out of your way to believe pseudo science in the name of being kind to someone.
Do better.
The issue is that your application of "the scientific approach" is to dismiss the entire field of research up to now, and demand that OP prove their point from first principles. It's not a reasonable response to what they posted.
What we're seeing here is an example of how it's possible to be both right and very wrong at the same time.
...and the second issue is that you're now attacking the integrity of the people calling you out on it, for no clear benefit other than to put them down. Go back and read Rule #1.
Have you ever utilized a case study in your work? The value of research is in having a variety of things to pull from. All you're doing is writing up the considerations page and slapping on the cover.
Whats your agenda in doing so?
My only “agenda” is intellectual honesty and scientific reproducibility.
Drawing from the experiences on trans test subjects to prove a hypothesis about sexism between CIS males and females is the very definition of a biased study.
I’m happy to discuss OP’s hypothesis for a study on sexism against trans people in a study using trans test subjects… but that’s not what this is, is it?
Do better.
My opinion is that including trans people in this sort of study actually reduces the bias, because they're the only people who will have experienced the social impacts of presenting both male and female at different times. All cis-gendered people will be inherently biased towards their own limited experience.