[19guid]

> It’s Googley to stand up for diversity and inclusion, such as protesting against binary gendering on toilets

So if I support binary gendering on toilets, I'm not welcome at Google? Why has it become necessary to subscribe to a particular set of political beliefs in order to work for Silicon Valley firms?

[Veelox]

I don't think 19guid has a problem with using a toilet or being an asshole. I think the question is why is dissent from specific political views looked down upon?

I have been in Silicon Valley for almost a year now after moving from the Midwest. I have been able to talk freely with my coworkers about some of my conservative views. Yet when I have shared what would count as "traditional values" on internal forums I have been on the receiving end of redicual and name calling.

I very much would like to hear a thoughtful response on why Silicon Valley is so unaccepting of political dissent.

[danspencer]

You have a good point. A friend of mine works at Yahoo and he regularly gets emails from management encouraging everyone to show up at the Yahoo booth at Gay Pride Parade. Sure, Yahoo wants to be at Gay Pride Parade because they want to be seen as an open and accepting place. If Yahoo does not participate, it looks bad because every other big company (read: Yahoo's competitors) attends Gay Pride Parade too.

But now we have a problem. What if there are conservative employees who do not support gay marriage rights? Should their opinions and feelings not count? If Yahoo is an open and accepting place, then it should be just as acceptable for a manager to send emails to employees inviting them to Straight Parade, or to "Anti Gay Marriage" Parade. But if that were to happen, the manager would be fired immediately.

Being against Gay Marriage rights is a political opinion, just like being FOR Gay Marriage rights. Isn't it discriminatory that a company like Yahoo is only allowing one opinion to be heard? In fact, isn't it problematic that Yahoo is promoting ANY political opinion in the first place? For Yahoo to remain an accepting and open work place, it should either have no political agenda at all, or it should promote all political opinions equally.

[rincebrain]

There are several things to unpack here, but I'm going to stick to one.

The primary difference, in practice, between something like Gay Pride and something like "Straight Pride", would be the power dynamic between the two.

Historically, and even to some extent currently, the people with more power have been those who would be in the latter parade.

"Punching up" is what it's called when you are challenging a group more powerful than you - "punching down" is more commonly referred to as "bullying".

[Chris2048]

This is the usual story, but power is more complicated than that. "up" and "down" assume a linear dimension.

> Historically, and even to some extent currently

Surely only the current situation matters? Why should the people now care about the power dynamic of the past?

[rincebrain]

Sure, it's not necessarily one dimensional, but it also doesn't just scale in terms of total magnitude summed across all dimensions (e.g. a bit of power in 50 axes is not comparable to the same quantity of power in one axis).

The reason to care about the dynamic of the past is that people are influenced by the past - in particular, people's actions in the present are often based on things that they did or that were done to them in the past.

Specifically, here, the reason to care about the past is that, even if/when we reached a point of equilibrium, where a subset of people were no longer in a minority of power, there would still likely be X Pride events for a while after, because the feeling of needing/wanting such things would not go away overnight.

[Chris2048]

> it's not necessarily one dimensional

Or even multidimensional. a "sum across all dimensions" doesn't make sense to me.

We are talking about something (power) that differs across contexts, locations, times etc. Power is as complex as our (human) social organisation, an is not amenable to linear algebra.

> people are influenced by the past

Unless that is is a result of holding this belief; People are never influenced about the past, only by their subjective, current beliefs about the past. It would make more sense to consider what people believe now.

Marxist historical analysis has fallen out of favor for a good reason.

> would not go away overnight

Desire for power will never go away.

The "subset of people" is biased towards how you do your grouping; For example, that I, a white man, am naturally grouped with white slavers of the past, such that modern black Americans have something to resent me for.

Your narrative here relies on these kind of groupings in order to talk about "a point of equilibrium" and "no longer in a minority of power" - you need to identify a group as the same over a period of time in order to make these distinctions.

[id]

>Being against Gay Marriage rights is a political opinion, just like being FOR Gay Marriage rights.

There is a difference. If you are for gay marriage, you support gays having the same rights as everyone else. If you are against it, you want them to have less rights, just because they are gay, even though it doesn't affect your own rights in any way.

Now, it's still a political opinion, but it's reasonable for other people to not like it. Being in favor of segregation is also a political opinion but would provoke similar backlash.

[Chris2048]

The problem is:

> it looks bad because

where we have these insidious "interpretations" then end up in requiring you to do or say one thing or another to prove your allegiance to some principle other people consider sacred.

[Aeolun]

I think it promotes those opinions that are healthy for the business and the world in general.

I mean, you could theoretically accept any viewpoint, but you don't really want nazis in your company to be an accepted thing.

[Chris2048]

don't accept non-binary gendering == Nazi

nice..

[andrewflnr]

It never looks like a "political" issue when you're convinced it's a human rights issue. For a human rights issue, the other side's feelings don't matter because they're obviously assholes anyway, so you can do whatever you want to them to advance The Cause.

[dancek]

I'd also love to hear an explanation from someone intolerant of dissent.

I attribute it to the history of feminism. First-wave feminism genuinely dealt with human rights issues where dissent was based on a twisted view of humanity (e.g. women are property of men, not autonomous subjects). The late third and fourth waves have kept the same assumption about the nature of their views. But the views themselves are very much more extreme and unintuitive.

Again, I'd love to hear someone explain it better from their own feminist point of view.

[poink]

The easiest way to start answering that question would be for you to share a traditional value with us.

[Veelox]

I would say the values that marriage is between a man and a women and that ones gender should match their sex. Something worth noting is that since the election I have seen support of Trump receive similar treatment.

[CydeWeys]

The toilets in question are individual room style toilets. You really can't handle that? Is that really a political belief? How do you go to the bathroom in smaller restaurants that have had toilets like that for decades?

[HelloNurse]

Supporting "binary gendering" on toilets means deliberately troubling one's transsexual, queer etc. colleagues; not only hurting their feelings with a constant reminder that they are misfits, but concretely allowing obnoxious people to attack them because they are guilty of using the "wrong" restroom.

Such an attitude, although less harmful than many more common workplace problems, is so high on the jerk scale that I cannot imagine how it could be considered a political issue. It's as absurd as asserting one's right to drive while drunk.

[Chris2048]

I'll add another thing; Policy needn't automatically be inferred/interpreted to a philosophy, or vice-versa.

For example, I don't believe there is a fixed age where a person magically develops the facilities to make sexual choices. However, I do support a fixed, explicit age of consent - A legal parameter only needs to be practical.

[Veelox]

I want to start this by saying I think it is wrong for a person to be attacked in any manner for their citizenship in a protected class. At the same time, I think all protected classes should be fair game for critical discussion on the pros and cons of belonging to that specific class.

With my opening comment in mind, what if I reject your premise and believe that ones gender should match their sex? Is it not a political issue when a portion of the population believe transgenderism is alright and another portion believe differently?

I feel like the standard for what counts as "diversity and inclusion" is skewed. There is no problem with an atheist opening being critical of religion. Yet I cannot openly critique the merits of anything in the LGBTQQIP2SAA community.

Is the end goal that everyone has the "right" answer to specific questions and no one has hurt feelings or is the end goal that an open honest dialog between radically different viewpoints can happen where all parties are respected regardless of the topic being discussed or who is involved in the discussion? Someone please chime in if they disagree but I see a lot of former happening and only lip service being paid to the later.

[HelloNurse]

My "premise" is that going out of one's way to make someone feel miserable is evil, and therefore unisex toilets in the workplace are nice. Where the transsexual, queer etc. employees who care are abundant rather than hypothetical, as appears to be the case at Google, unisex toilets are practically important rather than a symbolic gesture.

I don't see not being evil as a controversial issue, with "radically different viewpoints" deserving "open honest dialog".

Unisex toilets are just a simple and inexpensive way to be not evil; unfortunately touching the subject of gender is a strong temptation for many people to divert the discussion towards the most toxic and horrible politically correct or intolerant ideas.

If your premise is considering "protected classes" rather than people and discussing "transgenderism" as if it were abstract you are clearly not thinking about the comfort and well-being of your coworkers.

[Veelox]

One of your premises is that there is nothing wrong with being transgender. I disagree. Does that make me evil? Does voicing that cause my coworkers so much misery that I cannot say it?

[Chris2048]

> Such an attitude

But you just made it up? Don't you mean "such an interpretation" - you can fashion a narrative around any belief.

[gefh]

My goog office has many trans engineers. They're very good at their jobs. I guess they might not want to work in an office designed by you, either now or at some stage in their transition. You'd be missing out on their talent.

[Chris2048]

trans engineers who refuse to work at a place with binary toilets?

If a population of conservative engineers existed who refused to work at a place with non-binary toilets, would you make the same statement? Or would they not be good at their jobs?

[warmblood]

Having a conservative politic is a choice. That person probably has a lot of intersecting workplace difficulties that go along with being the type of person who wants to police which bathrooms people use.

[Chris2048]

> the type of person who

I could speculate the same about the trans engineers, I'm sure it wouldn't be welcome.

> Having a conservative politic is a choice

Please expand on this; what specifically is not a choice in contrast, and how does this relate to this situation?

There are situations in which I feel "uncomfortable", and not by choice; but this is unrelated to whether I am receiving unfair treatment.

[kartan]

> such as protesting against binary gendering on toilets > So if I support binary gendering on toilets, I'm not welcome at Google?

Why do you think that allowing employees to protest male and female only toilets means that you are not welcome? Should all dissenting voices be silenced? I'm for unisex toilets, it is just more convenient. But that doesn't means that I HATE people that has a different view. It is my preference, and I think that at least I should be able to express it.

[lostboys67]

Because its a dog whistle its like saying oh its just a childs toy when referring to a Goliwog.

[Chris2048]

What is it a dog whistle for?

[lostboys67]

Your being disingenuous you know perfectly well what I mean.

[Chris2048]

An insinuation on top of an insinuation. I'm asking you be more specific about "what you mean".

[bobdole1234]

Because assholes who care about things that aren't really their business are difficult to deal with.