Editorial Update: On July 20th, 2022, we donated $1,000 USD to the Marsha P Johnson Institute in honor of our LGBTQIA+ community members, their allies, and those who participated in this year's celebration. Thank you for joining us!
Happy Pride Month! π
Many countries around the world recognize June as LGBTQIA+ Pride Month β a celebration of the LGBTQIA+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, +) community. As many of you know, Pride Month is a time to celebrate those who have been historically marginalized for loving outside the bounds of heterosexual monogamy or for their position on the gender spectrum. Pride Month is a time of joy, togetherness, and reflection on the history of the LGBTQIA+ community.
Pride Month + DEV
At DEV, we feel it's important to publicly recognize and celebrate Pride Month for a variety of reasons, especially because we are a diverse community of individuals with regards to sexuality and gender identity, and we believe that all of you have the fundamental right to love who you love and be who you are without fear. This month and always, we stand with our LGBTQIA+ team members, mentors, teachers, family members, and friends.
While DEV is globally distributed and Pride Month takes place during other times of the year for some countries, our team celebrates Pride Month in June due to an important anniversary that we feel is crucial to honor: The Stonewall uprising in the United States.
On June 28, 1969, in Greenwich Village, New York City, police raided a popular gay bar in the area called The Stonewall Inn, which was a sadly common practice in the US at the time. In response, many members of the LGBTQIA+ community demonstrated and fought back against the hatred and bigotry of law enforcement and the larger system behind it. This series of protests led to the formation of many activist groups and organizations. While "Stonewall" was far from the beginning of the gay rights movement, it is widely considered a pivotal moment for LGBTQIA+ rights and resistance.
Join our Pride Month Celebration & Donation Drive!
Like in previous years on DEV, we'll be celebrating Pride Month by collecting and amplifying posts from our LGBTQIA+ members who wish to share their story and experience of being technologists.
However, this year, DEV is making an important change to our Pride celebration: We will be donating $10 to the Marsha P. Johnson Institute for every #devpride story received from now through June 30, 2022 @ 11:59 PM UTC
If you are a member of the LGBTQIA+ community who is able to share publicly about your identity, we invite you to write a post about your experience at the intersection of LGBTQIA+ issues and tech using this template or my simply tagging your post with #devpride. Our team will be reviewing all posts received and marking posts authored by our LGBTQIA+ members as "valid" so they appear on the #devpride tag page.
We also invite allies to write a #devpride post about how they will recommit to standing behind their LGBTQIA+ colleagues, mentors/mentees, family, and friends. We will not "validate" #devpride ally posts because we would like to keep the tag page filled with first-account stories, however we will be looking out for your posts in the main feed!
For each first-account #devpride and #devpride ally post, DEV will donate $10 to the Marsha P. Johnson Institute.
Additionally, we will donate $10 for every #devpride post that is cross-posted to CodeNewbie Community in June and/or for every original #devpride post shared there.
PS: If youβre not able or ready to share your identity with the world right now, or youβre not sure what your identity is, we see you! Your identity is real, your survival matters, and we are proud of you regardless. π
About Marsha P. Johnson and the MPJ Institute
Marsha P. Johnson (1945β1992) was an important Black transgender activist, self-identified drag queen, and one of the key leaders of the Stonewall uprising.
In their own words, The Marsha P. Johnson Institute exists to "elevate, support, and nourish the voices of BLACK trans people" and "seeks to eradicate systemic, community, and physical violence that silences our community from actualizing freedom, joy, and safety."
At DEV, we believe it's imperative not only to celebrate people of all identities, but also to work together to shed light on white supremacy, hatred, and the abuse of our most vulnerable, which includes the Black trans community. For us, part of this work means donating money to organizations doing the work like the Marsha P. Johnson Institute. We hope you'll consider joining us in raising money for this wonderful organization.
You can also donate to the Marsha P. Johnson Institute on your own by clicking here.
Note: The Marsha P. Johnson Institute has no involvement in the organization of #devpride. This is an independent donation drive benefitting an organization our team cares about.
A very happy Pride Month to all! In the comments below, we invite you to share...
- Links to your Pride stories (β donβt forget to use the DEV post embed tag!)
- Other LGBTQIA+ organizations we should know about
- Links to Pride Month/LGBTQIA+ events/initiatives you or your company/organization are hosting
- Any other thoughts you have about this celebration
Here's to LGBTQIA+ Pride β before, during, and long after June. π
Top comments (41)
lmao what about white queer trans lives?
Reach out if you would like to share your #DevPride story on the This is Learning publication for increased discoverability.
This is Learning
EDIT: The community member to wich I'm replying has left the community.
This is a weird hill to die on.
Thank you all for actively working to make DEV such a welcoming and inclusive place on the internet!
My heart
Woot woot! Happy to celebrate Pride Month with everybody. π
I'm really looking forward to reading folks posts under #devpride.
sending love and rainbow β€οΈπ... happy pride month π³οΈβππ
This is very nitpicky, but technically MTF and FTM transgender people still live inside the gender binary, at least to some extent ;)
Thanks for this comment! We are going to incorporate this into the post right now :)
What an initiative !
Good luck to anyone who participates with a story! π
Sending love!
Glad to hear about the initiative!
Just to nick pick some more, it's Greenwich (not wiTch).
... although I don't think the Queens who were there would be too upset about the gaff!
Ha! Thanks for the edit! We've implemented it :)
EDIT: The community member that this response was directed at has left the community.
As a member of the DEV team, I don't see this post as "political activism" but rather as us being inclusive and celebrating LGBTQIA+ folks.
I think it has much more to do with caring about people and being empathetic than it does about politics. This post is also very much in line with our values and Code of Conduct, so you shouldn't feign being surprised by this post.
We are absolutely a platform for developers AND we're very transparent about our beliefs and values; it's possible to do both!
Lastly, while you say you refrain from posting your political conviction, it doesn't feel that way when you hop into a post that celebrates LGBTQIA+ and complain about us being too political. That's not helpful, it's hurtful. It's uncalled for and not welcoming or inclusive.
But it very clearly is though. There's a clear political message and it's being amplified through platform tools.
Looking at a bunch of definitions online, most of them seem to be well reflected in the first sentence of the wikipedia article:
In that sense, I think it's at least reasonable to consider this sort of advertising for a political topic a form of activism, as the ultimate goal is to sway public opinion, thereby influencing political decisions to some degree.
I see it more as social activism than political activism, but I don't really want to argue semantics. If you want to define this post as political activism then okay.
The main point I wanted to get at in my message is that it's rude and unhelpful to hop into the comments section of a post that is celebrating LGBTQIA+ individuals and try to down-talk or dismiss the message. Our Code of Conduct states:
I see the message above as a dismissal of an inclusion-oriented request.
And despite what the original message said, we can absolutely celebrate LGBTQIA+ folks AND still be a platform for developers. In fact, I think we're a better community because we try to do both.
We're transparent about our values here not necessarily to try and "influence political decisions", but rather to be welcoming and celebrate LGBTQIA+ folks β it's a simple as that. You could say that our donations to the Marsha P. Johnson Institute are evidence of our political activism, but again I see this as being compassionate toward people who have been marginalized. And honestly, I don't care how you want to define it. We're not doing anything shady or trying to hide anything from you all... just the opposite actually, we're being super transparent and letting you all know what matters to us and what kind of community we want to foster. This way, if you disagree with us, you clearly know where we stand and so can "vote with your legs and find another platform."
I don't really want to continue debating this with you here because I think it takes away from the focus of this post. To be very clear, please refrain from messaging me any further about this.
Good point tbh. Distinguishing between political and social activism feels a bit like splitting hairs, but I was already nitpicking to begin with, so that's fair.
As I said elsewhere, I don't see the merit in this complaint mainly because Dev never was a community to talk about code and nothing else; there's always been conversations around the broader social topics surrounding software as well.
That being said, from the perspective of someone who misunderstands Dev to be exclusively or even primarily a platform to talk about code, it is absolutely reasonable criticism.
Because of this, I think trying to disprove that this whole thing is some form of activism is just the wrong way to address that criticism. Dev has never been apolitical, so there's nothing wrong with a bit of activism for a good cause, whether this is what's happening here or not.
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