> You could replace "rainbow" with "Ukraine flag" or "Russian flag" or NY Yankees logo and it would still hold to be true
This _is_ the issue, making these "equivalent". Here we're drawing equivalencies between posting "the flag of a country interlocked in an international proxy war" with posting a "rainbow flag which LGBTQ people use to create solidarity, to feel normal, and not have their existence deemed controversial in the same breath as, amongst other things..." an international proxy war!
You're correct in that you didn't use those words, and it's fair to state that; I do however stand by my comment. What underlies my rephrasing of it into that form is this:
> Openly gay != in everyone’s face writing preachy DEI memos and forcing pronoun campaigns Essentially, don’t advertise that you might bring drama to the workplace.
The points you're listing (DEI, pronouns) are efforts to _address_ people who _are bigoted, but you word it in a way that makes it seem _bad_, using words like "preachy", "force" to describe what's really pretty low effort asks on the part of businesses towards it's employees to be more inclusive.
To put it bluntly, how is asking to _not misgender_ someone "a campaign" or "virtue signaling"? How is asking to reduce biases against people of color "a campaign" or "virtue signaling"? You're right in that you're not saying things like "insufferable", but you're specifically choosing to callout certain items, with certain phrasing, and the common denominator in all those are _minorities_.
Now you might make a rebuttal referring to something of the affect, "It's not about the content, it's about the _fact I have to participate in these activities_", and that very well may be a genuine response. But why, of all the things we _have_ to do at work, which are so much more insufferable and draining, are these the ones you take issue with?
Specifically, in a concrete day to day sense? Asking for the smallest of efforts, the most minimal of inclusive actions, in the form of "putting a pronoun on your slack profile" doesn't really feel like a _campaign_ to me. We've spent more time here talking about it then it takes to add it to the profile during the "campaign"!
Are people on HN getting railed at work with pronoun campaigns? We had one and it was honestly _the easiest thing in the world_
"Hey Daft, can you add pronouns"
*15 seconds later
"Done!"
What's the honest holdup with making the work environment more inclusive to non-binary or fluid people, there are a _lot_ of them. We already call people by their preferred titles, preferred nicknames, why the hangup on pronouns?
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.
Yeah, I gotta agree with the other poster here. If the person is interpreting "rainbow emoji" as a signal for "gay people bad", that seems like a company you definitely wouldn't want to work for, considering they _wouldn't recognize your basic humanity_.
What's most wild to me is that here, on hackernews, people are saying "Don't give _any signal_ that you're gay", and making that seem comparable to other actual controversial things on your profile.
I feel like you skipped a couple steps between "showing a rainbow", and "bringing drama to the workplace", there's nothing wrong with having a rainbow on your profile, and certainly nothing to suggest that the person would be insufferable, unless you're implying that by the _nature of being gay_, they're more likey to be insufferable? Which, honestly, is bigoted.
This _is_ the issue, making these "equivalent". Here we're drawing equivalencies between posting "the flag of a country interlocked in an international proxy war" with posting a "rainbow flag which LGBTQ people use to create solidarity, to feel normal, and not have their existence deemed controversial in the same breath as, amongst other things..." an international proxy war!