Crossroads - Summer 2014

cogs or components that slot into teams to design products and write code. We do not work in emotional vacuums. Creative work demands you invest both your mind and your spirit. Certainly there is a great satisfaction to be found in building useful things. I have personally found satisfaction hinges on your relationship with colleagues, your company, and your community. To be marginalized, silenced, overlooked, discriminated, or censured (externally or internally) guts the fulfilment from the greatest of achievements.

Being your best creative self is a challenge. It requires technical training and personal development. It requires the freedom to take risks. The company and community you work in will bestow some of that freedom.

Ispent the first 27 years of my life pretending to be a boy. The first eight because I did not possess the language to object; the next 14 because I feared losing the life I was so ardently striving to build; the last five out of sheer momentum. At 27 I asked myself a simple question: How I would feel, looking back in 20 years,
if I wasted the next two decades hiding my true feelings and identity? The answer was
simple. I would feel regret. I admitted to myself right there that I am transgender. The lie,
that burden, was a weight for a quarter century. And then it was gone in an instant. I felt
Sometimes you must fight for it. You
must also grant yourself that freedom.
I had to find a community that accepts
me and I had to find the strength to be
honest with them and myself.

WHAT IS GENDER?

Each day you choose clothing that fits your mood and taste. You shape your speech in subtle ways. You express yourself or hold back through myriad interactions. If you never have before, take a moment now to consider how your sense of being a woman or a man shapes your actions. And if you have well considered how your gender informs your actions, take a moment to smile.

The noun sex is often confused with
gender in common language. Sex, un-
elation. Five years later that elation has
resolved into contentment.

Although my circumstances are particular, I do not consider my situation extraordinary. Everyone at some point in their life faces decisions that fundamentally shape their future. Early in your career you buzz with the energy of your burgeoning potential, yet opportunities to channel it are sparse. During this time, each decision you make—taking a position at an established company or a risky startup, pursuing higher education, or jumping into the job market—has very real downstream effect. The biggest decisions unfurl great tapestries of possibility and you must trace your path either way.