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Comment by EatingWithForks | Hacker News Reader

How do you be gay "on your own time"? How do you be a they/them nonbinary "on your own time"? My co-workers sometimes have a picture of them with their opposite-gender life partner in their profile pictures... they are clearly bringing that heterosexuality to work. One of my most productive team-mates is a man who keeps an image of his wife and kids on his desk, even!

Why did you bring up the garbage code thing? The poster and the original poster said nothing about your actual capacities as an engineer.

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People bringing any aspect of their weird home lives, hetero or not, on LinkedIn is just embarrassingly unnecessary at best. The idea of me declaring my heterosexuality while postering my CV with a photo of my wife and I embracing on the beach would never cross my mind, but inexplicably it happens all of the time.

This has nothing to do with your individual sexuality. Everyone looks ridiculous being overtly personal on LinkedIn.

I hear what you're saying, and the issue is that the photo you're describing would not be considered controversial for most people, even on LinkedIn. Lots of people have wedding photos, or photos with them and their spouses, and people don't bat an eye.

But, for someone who is gay, by mearly showing a picture of themselves with their husband they'd be "declaring their sexuality", and being "overt"; They don't have to say anything more. Their _existence_ is politicized, and that's the problem.

And when we say "don't show rainbows", or don't show anything that can be linked to LGBTQIA, we're really saying,

"You can't do these otherwise non-political things, because just being who you are is still politically charged". We're better than that HN.

Believe me when I say a middle aged white conservative guy posting Jersey shore photos of his third marriage on LinkedIn is precisely an example of what I deem to be outrageously ridiculous on LinkedIn.

I feel like you're giving away your stance here with the "weird home lives" comment in relation to being openly gay. And I don't mean that I want even more personal stories to LinkedIn, but posting vacation pictures is hardly equatable with posting a hardship story about being gay in the workplace.

Being heterosexual is a privilege since it's the norm, so you don't have to worry about it. Being gay on the other hand can be dangerous, even life threatening depending on the country.

What? Weird home lives are LinkedinLunatics posting themselves working from pools and their backyard writing pseudo motivational blogspam. And countless other acts of WTF.

You're projecting on to me right now.

You specifically said this which I maybe latched on to a bit hard.

> The idea of me declaring my heterosexuality while postering my CV...

But based on your answer you are also making a delineation between "blogspam" and for example someone posting a story about discrimination for being gay (for example).

But the thing is that the original poster did not say not to put a picture of your spouse up on LinkedIn. It explicitly says nothing rainbow i.e. gay. It reads very "there are only two sexes, male and political".

Also, a photo of yourself during your wedding is not a "weird home life". That's like the maximally normal home life thing. I think it would be flagrantly out of bounds for someone to tell a co-worker that their wedding photo is "weird home life" stuff and to keep it at home.

Edited to add: I don't really have anything against the advice of not putting your personal life at work. i.e. photos of kids, spouse, vacation pictures on linkedin, etc. I'm just confused why apparently only gay people can't do it according to OP. That's so bizarre to me.

I agree with you no one should be singled out specifically. I extend the idea to all people!

Bring it to work, not to the interview.

Once you're hired feel free to do whatever, but leave anything controversial off the interview.

And yes, your linked in profile is part of the interview.

Again: what do you mean by "leave anything controversial off the interview"? Why is gay the controversial thing? I'm 100% fine with saying "leave all your personal stuff out of your linkedin", i.e. wedding photos, vacations with spouse, pictures of your children, etc. But why ONLY the gay people?

Not "being gay", but "being a campaigner".

None of my multiple gay friends have ever displayed a rainbow on their profiles.

They are, however, openly gay on their profile.

No hiring manager wants to deal with drama, so it's not just rainbows, it's literally anything that that has a campaign and political force behind it, like Trump pictures, BLM links, climate change, conservation, nuclear power...

You reading the word 'ONLY' when one example is proffered is a problem in your end.

Have you actually asked your gay friends if having a rainbow on your profile makes you a campaigner for the gays? If they've felt personally campaigned by people with rainbows in their profile?

I literally don't understand affiliating rainbow emoji with pictures of actual political candidates or an actual explicitly political activist name.

I also don't understand saying climate change, conservation, or nuclear power has campaign/political force behind it. If someone had something to do with nuclear power in their profile I would just assume they worked in energy??? I am not reading politics into this at all dude...

> I literally don't understand affiliating rainbow emoji with pictures of actual political candidates or an actual explicitly political activist name.

It doesn't matter that you don't understand it, the idea is to get the interview over other candidates who focused solely on presenting the value they bring, and at the interview, landing the job over other candidates who are also focused solely on the value they bring.

You may not understand why hiring managers tend to avoid candidates who display non-work-related activism on their CVs, but that's just the way it is.

I agree. The world is messed up, but it is what it is.

I have a connection on LinkedIn (garnered from the spam connect campaigns I talked about previously) that talks about his MtF transition experiences as well as the struggle to land a job. No one cares enough to do more than post "You go, girl!" and move on with their day. Good advice would be to tell this person that LinkedIn is not the place to talk about your bottom surgery, vents about potential unsympathetic employers, or your struggles to find a partner. A good hiring manager would check social media for any red flags, and this public venting is a HUGE one.

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