the elephant in the room

we need to talk. I know, I know another blog post on the situation and we are all tired of seeing them, but I must confess it is time for me to share my view and opinions.

I am a trans woman, and for a long time there are certain individuals that have made me feel uncomfortable and unwelcome in the rails community.

that is not to say everybody is like that in fact, I have found a small group of people who are more than welcoming and are amazing individuals and I’m happy to call them friends

I am so disappointed by certain groups who defend characters in the community that don’t need extra defending no matter what it’s about. you are 1000% allowed to have opinions that differ from other people you are 1000% allowed to disagree with me and my opinions, but what’s not OK attacking somebody based on characteristics they cannot help or control for example, sex, ethnicity, race and gender and age. Additionally, in my eyes, it’s never OK to attack somebody based on where they lived or were born. They have zero control of those events.

recently, I was in a discussion and somebody posted that people are entitled to their delusional opinions. This was in reference to post criticizing the elephant in the community I think the sums of the root of the problem the fact that somebody has a differing opinion, a different walk of life and and posted their beliefs and one side will criticize it and call it delusional when they simply come from different walks of life and have seen different things and experience different things.

I admit, I have enormous privilege being white. I grew up socialized as a male. This is not the way things have to be. I have also experienced discrimination because I identify as a woman. It is so plainly obvious when this happens to me because of my upbringing, I can see it clearly and it’s boggles my mind when more people do not see it for what it is.  I also grew up in America for better or worse you know these days who could tell.

I know an enormous amount of people who are better off for having rails in their life. It literally gave me my career, and I know many others like that however, the elephant in the room is suffocating, many minorities from feeling valued and able to contribute to the rails ecosystem. it has driven away, valuable could pass contributors, and that’s only the known quantity how many people have looked at rails and the ruby ecosystem and chosen not to contribute because of the large elephants in the room?

Many people say your contributions will stand on their own, regardless of the factors mentioned above if they’re good enough, but if you grew up white, cis and in a first world country you generally have a leg above everyone else. This is why DEI is so important.

Freedom of speech does not mean freedom of consequences for that speech. It is at great risk I consider my words and publishing them. However, I simply must say something therefore I write today.

The open letter “Project Vert” that’s gone around asking the rails core to essentially fork and remove DHH from the community I think has generally not had the desired effect and long-term is not viable or a good thing for the community but what it has given is the strength for me to find my voice in all of this.

Rails needs strong funding for maintenance and diverse input and contributions to really succeed and a fork would need this as well.

In the days after the Ruby Central statements and the bundler issues with the maintainers, I urged people to remain calm and remember that humans are on both sides of this, this is still the case.

While I believe that Ruby Central made missteps and their communication has been poor. I do not believe it was done with malicious intent. time will tell.

To close this post out if you are an elephant in the room, please consider that your words do have meanings far beyond what you might possibly fathom. If you are not an elephant in the room, consider giving the birds an opportunity to sing the songs of their people. It might just make your day beautiful.

Be kind to one another.