Maybe not your whole self, but I'd like the people I work with to feel safe talking about their family, their disabilities, their religion, their culture or subculture, the things they love doing, whatever makes them human.
Work is not a safe space. The people who say they want everyone to feel safe in their speech usually (actually, almost always) want people who agree with them on
> family, their disabilities, their religion, their culture or subculture, the things they love doing,
Except, even if you did, you could always be just a little purer. You could show off to your coworkers how you were a better ally than them, maybe they would be as good as you if only they “did the work" harder.
https://americandreaming.substack.com/p/memory-hole-archive-... captures the experience pretty well
The answer for years was to just keep your mouth shut while the hysteria subsides. It still is likely the right answer. In theory bringing everything to work would be great in a perfectly liberal environment, but we just don't live in that world. The illiberal and the intolerant will just gain leverage over you in a competitive environment such as the workplace.
Don't try to fast-talk people into opening up. They have a better idea than you what's safe to talk about, about their lives. If they think they can't open up, they're probably right.
But merely saying "I'm taking next Wednesday off to celebrate Eid" ought to be fine everywhere, as is "this weekend I'm singing in my church choir then going for a picnic".
Similarly, wearing a wedding ring or mentioning that you have a partner should never be a problem, but issuing a company-wide invite to your next sex party likely will be.
"Personal" isn't a synonym for "intimate". It's reasonable to assume that people are able to share the former without forcing their colleagues to deal unnecessarily with the latter.
One persons level of comfort is not the same as others, so just saying I want people to be comfortable having their religious opinions respected is not a simple request.
Some religious opinions are basically oppression of others. I refuse to allow people to be bigots in my presence regardless of their reasoning.
Also as someone who was a member of church which had anti-christian ideals, pointing out the hypocrisy can be the only way for them to question what they are in. Doing and saying nothing helps no one.
Work environments are professional environments.
Silence is always the preferable choice in those matters.
Yes, you want to feel like the people around you feel safe to share it. Everyone with things that are uncomfortable to hear have learned that they're not. They know the polite fiction to talk around it and make you feel like they're open. They're not.
To me, either the culture bubble is extremely strong in your area, or being able to admit alignment with ideas shared by a major political party in an area where another party is more popular is an very low bar.
On the scale of topics that I conceal about myself, politics is as easy as talking about the weather.
I expect to accomplish my tasks. I can be friendly, polite and humorous but you don't need to know anything about how I live.
The main factor is a boss or supervisor can act on their judgement of an employee and employees do not have the same leverage.
For example, I currently deal with the knife and gun collector crowd, hunting fans, weed guys, even genz sneaker aficionados bring the ire of various classes or camps that are more dominant at workplaces.