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Comment by mrRandomGuy | Hacker News Reader

This just in, people who also happen to work are not mindless automatons. People like working at places that seem to align with their own personal views.

It's baffling to me that people believe I should turn off my brain when I'm at work.

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You are free to work at companies where you can impose your political views on those arounds you. However people who don't want to work with you are free to go work for companies that doesn't let people like you do that, like Coinbase.

spot on

imagine a world where a company can just be a company

it would be like a safe space for businesses

If you cannot work without doing social activism then perhaps a non-profit foundation is a better place to be?

but that's thing...what is "social activism" here? I don't think having a single tweet or post from your company's account saying "happy Pride month, we love our LGBTQ+ Coinbasers" is activism really....it's just like, a nice thing to do. No one is saying Coinbase or any company should pay their employees to go make phone calls for Bernie Sanders' campaign on the clock. It seems like people are inventing some kind of strawman of "paid activism" that no one is asking for.

I don't know, more people celebrate Christmas compared to Pride month, but saying "Merry Christmas" can be seen as controversial. It's hard to imagine that "happy Pride month" is completly neutral.

How about we stick to "a company can do everything it wants as long as it is legal and people are free to go work at whichever company they want"? Why is that controversial? If you want to effect social change become a politician, do not try to turn your work place into a political party that has to react to every social fashion.

The problem with the argument that this is making a workplace a political party is what the fuck are you supposed to do if you’re transitioning at work? Now you’re fucking political, and all you want is for your boss to call you she/her and your health insurance to cover your hormones.

Lets say that coinbase said "We are fully political at work, we expect all of you to have conservative views!". Would that make you happier than their current apolitical stance?

I don't think we should optimise workplaces for the smallest possible edge cases.

If you joined a bigoted company as a queer person and transitioned then you have to change your job, the same way if you join NPR and suddenly realise after spending too much time online that you are in fact right wing.

Work is a place where people go to earn money to do stuff they want after. It's not a place to get validation.

That doesn’t answer my question of what happens if someone transitions in a workplace. How do you do that non-politically? Dismissing the edge cases of marginalized people is kind of like… of course they’re edge cases. Marginalized people are edge cases by definition.

> That doesn’t answer my question of what happens if someone transitions in a workplace. How do you do that non-politically?

It is simple, you transition, you tell people you want to go by the other name now. If people say it wrong you remind them but don't get angry. If they harass it for it there are laws against harassment, bringing up harassment isn't political. You can discuss the medical benefits with your manager or HR, but don't have to try to make a political campaign about it.

If people makes a fuzz over those things then they are political and you can report them to whoever is in charge that they are bringing politics to work and causing problems. If they truly are against politics at work they will take your side and tell those people to stop.

What do you do if your peer reports you as political because asking people to go by your new name is a political demand? I’m genuinely asking, because I’m under the impression that even asking people to respect your pronouns can be too political, or trying to use a bathroom you think matches your gender.

If you legally changed your name then it isn't an political act.

> I’m genuinely asking, because I’m under the impression that even asking people to respect your pronouns can be too political

That is just your assumption here. Why are you assuming that? It is almost as if you assume "apolitical" means "conservative". That isn't true, even if the left tries to tell you that all "apolitical" people are really closet conservatives that isn't really the case.

I’m assuming that because there are laws in several places in the country about whether or not trans people can use certain bathrooms, so I’m assuming it’s a political thing.

Yeah, so in those parts you will use the bathrooms you are allowed to use. I'm not sure what is unclear here?

I think my assumptions are different than you. I’ve met people, co workers, who have told me that a trans person asking to be described as a new name is political, and forcing the co worker to call them by a new name is forcing politics in the workplace. This is my understanding of what an apolitical workplace means. Am I wrong? I’ve generally avoided workplaces that claim to be apolitical explicitly because the people I know who claim to be apolitical actually claim that they’d never respect a trans persons new name, because that’s bringing politics into the workplace.

Then your problem isn't with apolitical workplaces, but with conservative workplaces.

Also, a few people saying that trans stuff is political doesn't mean that those views are the general consensus or that apolitical workplaces works with that. I haven't seen that and almost everywhere I've been doesn't really do politics at work. Trans people are just people etc, nobody cares.

How do you tell an apolitical workplace from a conservative workplace if the conservative workplace claims it’s apolitical?

I don't know. How do you tell an apolitical workspace from a progressive workspace if the progressive workspace claims it's apolitical?

But until we see that coinbase harasses trans people who work there I'll assume they are apolitical as they say and not conservative. If you have evidence that they did harass trans people as you fear then you can bring them up and we can see that coinbase isn't really apolitical, but until then you are just creating a problem out of nothing.

Plenty of companies have policies against politics at work, but I've never heard of a real expample where that caused issues with trans people. Instead people just bring up thought examples. I don't doubt it might have ever happened, but I don't think it is nearly as common or problematic as people try to make it out to be.

I can assure you that most people would not bat an eye they were asked to use a different pronoun. The problem starts when they are 1) forced to do so b) suddenly have to "disclose" their own pronouns, and you end up on a zoom call with he/hims she/hers and one they/them.

The problem is not that some people want to stop being marginalised, the problem is that the aim is to marginalise a normal person.

> The problem starts when they are 1) forced to do

So is the apolitical thing that a co worker can choose not to call a trans person by their new name and pronouns and the trans person can’t demand it?

If they are rude then you can bring it up with your manager about them being rude. Companies usually doesn't accept rude behaviour or bullying. If they are fine with rude behaviour and bullying then you will have problems regardless of the political stance of the company.

There is no law that makes people call other people by their given names too. Or law that makes people call priests "father". I don't understand how that can be so hard to fathom.

You should not legislate kindness.

> There is no law that makes people call other people by their given names too.

Actually this would likely fall under some form of workplace harassment issue, and the company would have a duty to stop the harassment. ("Offensive conduct may include, but is not limited to, offensive jokes, slurs, epithets or name calling, physical assaults or threats, intimidation, ridicule or mockery, insults or put-downs", and it's kind of hard to imagine how calling someone a name that isn't theirs isn't a form of mockery or name calling.)

What's a normal person?

> or trying to use a bathroom you think matches your gender

If you get in trouble for being in the wrong bathroom at work, you need to go find a company that isn’t full of children. Nobody has time to care where you pee

>It's baffling to me that people believe I should turn off my brain when I'm at work.

You should choose a place of employment that lets you behave as you feel you need to behave, not expect that you as the employee are the one who decides on the standards of behavior.

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