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Diversity. Or something.

I used to track data about demographics on Hacker News and sometimes blogged about it. I stopped because I had no audience and my relationship to people on Hacker News mattered to me, so I chose to mostly keep those observations PRIVATE. 

As far as I can tell, I'm the only cis woman on the leaderboard.

My understanding is one individual on the leaderboard privately identifies as nonbinary but isn't out about it on Hacker News. At least one member of the leaderboard is openly a gay male. I have reason to suspect two MAY be trans but aren't saying that publicly.

At least one is Greek nationality. At least one is Polish nationality. At least one is Asian American. 

One extremely pasty White WASP lived in Japan for a lot of years and married a Japanese gal.

To my knowledge,  none of them LIES about any of that but they tend to not harp on their ethnicity or nationality or culture or other demographic "identity" details. Some are uncomfortably open about being Christian and one of the cultural defects of Hacker News is that ONLY Christians can proudly wear their religion on their sleeve and if you believe in anything else, you may end up being openly insulted over it.

I initially TRIED to post neutrally without admitting my gender and didn't feel comfortable with that and unlike someone who is a gay man or a pre transition or closeted MTF trans individual, I can't really hide my gender and participate in a way that might lead to earned income.

Believe me,  I've contemplated it. Like what if I took payments via crypto or gift cards instead of PayPal or Patreon?

I don't know how to convincingly "boy mode" as someone who was a full-time MOM for two decades. And I feel strongly if I tried to hide my gender, I would either fail disastrously or at some point get invited to a meet-up IRL and then the shit would hit the fan.

I remember a scene in a biographical movie about a Hispanic singer asked to change his name to something less Hispanic sounding as his stage name and he was affronted and the White guy talking to him said "My real name is (some probably Jewish or Polish sounding name) not (the more White Anglo version he worked under)." And he tried to assure him it's not really racism, it's more like marketing. 

Italians weren't accepted as White when they first began immigrating here. Irish weren't either.

The people who are adequately "White male passing" or "inner clique coded" without harping too much on what makes them different get accepted into the old boys club. 

I can't pull that off and a stupidly high percentage of men who LIKE me are incapable of respecting me as a professional and can only obsess about how they would hit that. And I have ABSOLUTELY no idea how to get past that.

But honestly, if you are REMOTELY capable of being read as "White male," "White men" are vastly more diverse than most morons looking for bullshit reasons to complain about lack of diversity seem to realize. 

And I once had this conversation on Hacker News where someone was having a cow about some list of founders and I was like "One is a woman and one is from India (or whatever) and one is Jewish. What are you going on about???"

Doesn't matter. He's not a multimillionaire founder so they all look the same to him AND OBVIOUSLY he's not rich because they are meanie faces EXCLUDING him because he's the wrong demographic!!! Waaah!

Yeah, that demographic is "asshole" and they don't want you.

Footnote 
Not on the leaderboard but part of staff at one time or another: Paul Graham was born in England, Sam Altman is openly gay and Dan Gackle is Canadian. 

FYI, I loathe Sam Altman. His name appearing here is NOT a personal endorsement. 

The person identifying privately as nonbinary shafted me and I deleted my Facebook account over their shit. They are probably hand picking whom they will "allow" on the leaderboard. This shitbag reached out to me twice, both times as my handle was approaching the bottom of the leaderboard.

Me commenting on their gender identity is evidence I have insider information on them. It's not evidence we are friends nor is it me vouching for them.

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