Cognitive Dissonance
An email I received yesterday evening:
Hey Maia,
Just wanted to say, don’t be a stranger to #ubuntu-women channel :) Us girls gotta stick together.
Uh-oh. I was struck completely unprepared, and my first thought was “Oh crap”. I recognize this kind of cognitive dissonance: the same kind of “it’s wrong!” inner scream. “Not with this body! Not even on the Internet!”
The mail was sent using the Launchpad web interface, which means she saw my userpage, which doesn’t didn’t have the name Maia on it (it’s only in package changelogs) but prominently displays a link to this very site… Now the question is, does she know what I really am? If not, what will she do if she finds out? Should I tell the truth, or roll with it? Will I be branded a G.I.R.L. if exposed? A chaotic, counterproductive train of thought.
At least I know that transgender Debian contributors do exist—not sure about Ubuntu—although it seems the topic has not been raised publicly (duh). I chatted with one of them, Rhonda, whose blog is an interesting read in that it contains descriptions I can identify with:
I washed my face like always with cold water to refresh myself, and when I removed my hands… I was sure I was looking into a female face. It quite a lot bewildered me; it was the first time this happened. And I wasn’t even properly shaved…
Her poem Mermaids is an interesting read as well, and insightful.
Edit: turns out she does know. This wave of online acceptance really creeps me out.
<...> and a decent chunk of the people in there are also in #linuxchix, which is like 5% trans
o_O
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