Cisgender Programmer Privilege Checklist

The Cisgender Programmer Privilege Checklist

key:

• (ft) full-time, living as your affirmed gender.
• (cl) Closet, attending work as your assigned gender at birth
• (bin) Binary, identifying as either male or female, rather than both at once, a third gender, or no gender.

Being cisgender as a programmer, means:

• (ft) Not feeling like colleagues are constantly checking their gender pronouns around you.
• (ft) Not having to worry that your superiors are keeping you away from clients because it would hurt the company image.
• (ft) You get to use a gender-appropriate toilet without fear of having someone complain to HR.
• (cl) You get to use a toilet without feeling like you're in the wrong place.
• (cl/ft) Your company forms and policies have a category that fits your gender.
• (cl/ft) Not having to sit on your hands when speakers use gender fields in database schemata as an example of an attribute that never changes and only has two possible values.
• (ft) Knowing if a policy or other environmental factor hostile to people of your gender is put in place, you are not likely to be the only one affected, and you may not have to be the one to speak up about this.
• (cl) Knowing you can speak up about a hostile or potentially hostile situation without outing yourself.
• (ft/cl) Not having to depend on the support of allies in order to be taken seriously.
• (cl) If your company has a dress code, you may experience irritation, but you won't feel like you are being forced into wrong-gendered clothing (suit pants, collared shirt and tie for men, blouse and business skirt for women) instead of being able to dress androgynously.
• (cl) As a cisgender man in a workplace, you won't have to sit through misogynistic office humour and maintain composure while inside you are sick and crying, for fear of being ostracised by your all-male team 'mates'.
• (cl) Men will not decide you are 'gay' and use the term in a derogatory sense behind your back.
• (cl) When your company is awarding gifts for good work/celebrating achievements, cards and gifts (ie: flowers) will be gender-appropriate.
• (cl) You can get gender-appropriate clothes and accessories delivered to your workplace without feeling awkward.

• (cl/ft) You get to author/be credited for 'Privilege Checklists' using your regular ID without outing yourself.
• (bin) You don't have to explain the concept of non-binary personal pronouns over and over and over again.
• (ft) You don't have to ask people to address you by your affirmed gender more than once.