Huh, interesting. I would second MtF transgender. I've worked at places that will interview so they can appear what you might now call "woke", but then not hire based on their dislike, not skills or personality.

And there are so many MtFs in tech. I'd love to see statistics, but it feels skewed.

It is skewed.

This is one of those things I Can't Say in most places, but (unless you transitioned in elementary school) the MtF experience in tech and the cis female experience are totally different, and they (the MtFs) know it, because so much of our work is done online where you can be whatever gender/sex you want. I know how people reacted to me when they thought I was male vs. female.

Age plays into it, too. Everything was fine before I went through puberty, but a lot of young techie men have a really hard time with their sexuality and take that out on their female colleagues in various ways. (I've also seen some gross reversals in female-dominated professions re: issues with men, so...) Now that I'm in my 30s and the men in that insecure/figuring things out age range aren't interested, it's better again.

I don't know what it's like now as I've not worked in an office for 15 years, but back in the day being a woman in a tech company must have been horrible. Most tech guys I knew had zero experience with interacting with women and therefore would unconsciously act in the most creepy manner towards any and all women. Also, the women would get no respect as they were automatically assumed to have inferior technical skills.

My situation is interesting because I haven't worked in tech because of my experiences pre-22/leaving college. I was raised by geeks and carted off to computer shows on my dad's hip, started programming in elementary school, etc. So I spent a lot of time in tech spaces but not professional environments (I mean, this was also the 90s and early 00s so there were just fewer professional tech spaces).

Everybody was super chill until I was about 12. Then things got very ugly, very quickly. Anytime it was known that I was a female teenager, it was terrible, especially as one that was (at the time) better than some of the males. I'm also gay, so at the time I was stuck in this horrible situation of often being surrounded by dudes ~5 years older than I was who were a.) very creepy and b.) might be homophobic (including violent because again, 15-20 years ago) if I came out. And of course all the ones who are nice until they learn you'll never date them, or the ones that viewed me as a challenge/trophy of some sort.

Very weird to have aged both in and out of creepy male fuckability: Most of the creeps don't go for women over 25 (and I finally look like I'm in my mid-20s) unless they're elderly, and I can beat up most 75-year old men, so that's less scary.

I have some sympathy for the boys as an adult, because a lot of them were bullied a lot, but...dudes, you think I had it better? I had to deal with their bullying and yours. Thanks for that.

I don't have statistics at hand, but folks on the autism spectrum are more likely to be queer or otherwise gender non-conforming. So if there are more autistic people in tech this certainly makes sense.

That's interesting too. I can definitely see that from personal observances, but what is driving it?