Poll: Sexual orientation
There have been a few polls here to see what kind of gender distribution there is, the ongoing one here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5520342 but I'm curious to see whether our sexual orientations fall in line with the general population, or are somehow skewed.
Edit: This is a serious poll and something I'm very curious about. It wasn't created as backlash to the gender poll!
Also, I'm not sure why it's been killed.
39 comments
[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 85.7 ms ] threadI know we could poll the hell out of the community and drill down to all kinds of details, but the one thing I've never, ever heard anybody discuss is the distribution of sexual orientations in tech, or at least as is represented by the HN userbase.
Other - Gay
Other - Bisexual
Other - Straight
Other - Unknown
> Who decides if I'm a woman?
> A spat between feminist Suzanne Moore and transgender rights activists played out on social networking sites, and then hit the headlines when journalist Julie Burchill joined in too.
> Jo Fidgen explores the underlying ideas which cause so much tension between radical feminists and transgender campaigners, and discovers why recent changes in the law and advances in science are fuelling debate.
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rbrtd)
I am "female -- none of the above" because I know what I am, I just don't know of a word for it. On psych exams, I test high for bisexual traits. From age 11 to 16, I had a string of girlfriends. I began menstruating, "discovered" boys and have been a practicing heterosexual ever since. But my wiring isn't entirely hetero. I don't think we have good language at this time which clearly distinguishes wiring from lifestyle. I imagine most bisexuals would be offended if I claimed to be bi and it would also send out the wrong social message. I already get hit on sometimes by women. I don't want more of that. I strongly prefer men.
I hope that clears that up for you.
My experience has been the same; I've always found it amusing.
> I've also wondered if it's just a coincidence that the US's tech center is also a historically gay-friendly place. I think it probably is just a coincidence.
I think it is largely coincidence. The reasons that SV is a tech center are completely independent of the reasons that SF is a gay mecca (and both have pretty traceable causes).
Furthermore, I have a lot of gay friends in SF, and I have a lot of tech friends in SF, but the intersection between those two circles is very small - not only do I not have many gay tech friends in SF, but my gay friends in the Bay Area are very disconnected from tech circles (or at least, as much as you can be in the Bay Area).
Despite this, I know there are a number of gay engineers; in an attempt to connect this community, a friend and I started an NYC meetup for LGBT engineers: http://www.meetup.com/Identity-Hackers/ (yes, shameless plug!)
Also, it seems that sexual orientation has different spreads across genders (judging by other studies), which is why I added in gender.
Fun fact: I personally found it helped me to be queer when you're a woman in IT. I've generally found creepy guy control much easier by being A. butch, and B. generally stating I'm not interested in guys [2]. I was able to handle awkward interview questions along the lines of "But you're a GIRL" [3] by claiming to be "one of the boys". This doesn't mean that all of this wasn't a painful compromise, and I know I was ultimately confirming to heteronormativity rather than smashing it. But we do what we must, not because we can, but to survive.
I'm currently working on getting an LGBT+ organisation started in the office. If you have any experience of running one, or are generally LGBT+ in the UK, feel free to get in touch :)
[1] http://www.bicon.org.uk/ [2] 80/20 in favour of women, to briefly adhere to a binary system [3] Actual interview question. And people wonder why I'm a feminist hacker....