Hop Studios has always been an equitable and supportive place to work. And yet we have also learned and improved in this respect since our beginning two decades ago. For example, this year is the first year we are writing about the annual Transgender Day of Visibility, created in 2010.
In fact for me, today is a special Transgender Day of Visibility. Because it’s the first such day that I have been visibly transgender. For the first time, I can say I’m 51, I’m non-binary, and my pronouns are they/them. And it gives me contentment and peace to be able to write that.
There are many sub-questions that seem to follow the disclosure of my non-binaryness, and I’m happy to answer them if you’d like to talk to me about it. (Common three: I’m not changing my name, I didn’t know then what I know now, probably not).
But this blog is still about Hop Studios, so let’s focus in that direction:
What does my or anyone’s gender have to do with Hop Studios and what we do?
In a way, nothing. Updating your CMS, designing your Impact page, estimating a new calculator, helping you build your site architecture—these things don’t get done differently by someone who has a shorter or longer pronoun. We put the best people on the correct problems, and we treat all our clients the same; that’s just how we roll.
Nevertheless, there are two significant reasons why I wanted to turn the spotlight on my gender for a few awkward paragraphs today.
The first is this: The broader the experience of the world we have at Hop Studios, the more likely we are to have experienced and understood the broader world that our clients and our client’s clients live in—what their needs are, what frustrates them, what contexts they might bring to trying to use the tools we build and maintain.
That broad view helps us do better for everyone, not just for the usual bulk of folks. And improvements for a small group actually often help the large group as well, in ways they might not even have thought to ask for. In fact, this is the opposite effect of what is sometimes claimed — that energy, time, and money spent on a sub-group takes something away from the main group.
Think, for example, of cut curbs, those little sidewalk ramps at each end of the street that are now common and are required for disabled accessibility. They also help folks with strollers, people using a dolly, folks moving furniture… improving the world for some does make the world better for everyone.
There’s another reason I want to speak up today — it may be obvious that you don’t need to be transgender to run a web design, development, and maintenance studio. But I’m standing up to say: you also don’t need to NOT be transgender.
At a time when trans rights, trans health, and trans equality are under attack in so many places in the world, both locally and nationally, and in domains as diverse as sports to child-rearing, I think it’s important to make it clear and plain that there can be transgender dentists and transgender baristas and transgender cowpokes and transgender CFOs and transgender teachers and transgender politicians. It should be as ordinary and unremarkable as having pierced ears.
We believe at Hop Studios that your gender should not limit you, nor should you be limited by others. No one else should get to define you as something you’re not.
So, I’d like to share a personal thank you today to the brave and caring activists working to support equality, justice, dignity, and respect for transgender people. For those who are feeling anxious, ostracised, or attacked ever more these days simply because of how you exist: I see you, I hope you see me, and I want to improve the world for you.
To learn more about Transgender Day of Visibility and access to resources of all types, visit GLAAD.