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If DEI is out in my country...

Does that mean RESPECT can be in?
I'm sure we can create a clever backronym for it.
Maybe something like...

  • Realizing
  • Each of us
  • Should
  • Protect
  • Everyone's
  • Chosen
  • Titles

If they answer to they/them, then they are cool with me.

In that same vein, I'm surrounded by people who clearly misunderstood what DEI stood for, saying it's hyper focused on transgender rights. It was not, but DEI as a policy agreed, Trans Rights Are Human Rights.

DEI reminded us, Women's Rights are Human Rights. Black and Brown Rights are Human Rights. Human Rights are Human Rights. It spoke to us, "All of Us Are Human. All of Us Have Equal Rights."
It codified what some people forgot, or would not acknowledge, that a queer person of color has just as much potential as a cisgendered heterosexual Caucasian male, that a woman can go on to be a kickass military pilot and inspire others to follow in her high flying contrails, that a person who disagreed with being assigned male at birth could go on to develop technologies that the modern world can't seem to walk away from (because it's in their hand, on their wrists, at their desks -- why yes, this was a salute to Arm, Ltd)...
It had to be codified to effectively remove artificial entry barriers to certain fields.

A true story

I worked for a multinational third party contact center close to a couple of decades ago. It was my first call center job ever, and in my group, we were supporting a dial-up internet service provider that also had partnerships with cable and DSL providers (which they were winding down, or had already spun down when I was hired). I found out about four months after my hire that our call center's contract was not being renewed with THAT client: we USAmericans were too expensive to pay when fewer were paying $29.99/month for


... dial-up internet; Offshoring to Central America saved the ISP many thousands of dollars per day.
I was to be unemployed in two months.

... Well, that's a problem.
But I was asked to take a test one day during my shift because the company was obligated to make efforts to retain as much talent to avoid layoffs. I was one of a handful of us who passed this basic (well... as basic as remembering all seven layers of the OSI Model in order can be) test of computer knowledge to go on to supporting ... we'll call them the Leaning E Computer Corporation in their basic business hardware support queue.
Looking back at the job, though, I saw a lack of diversity there -- I'm a queer PoC in a field dominated by not-queer not-PoC healthy and happy-to-be-males at that time. Don't get me wrong: there were other people of color, other nationalities, other genders in my call center on the work floor, but the split was about 70/30. We of that latter group collectively made up the 30%, and few of us were in positions elevated beyond the base offering, even when showing the knowledge and skill necessary.

DEI as policy and practice, generally, encouraged the seeking of other talent, those of us who are PoC, those of us who are women, those of us with disabilities, those of us who aren't the dominant combination of what made up most fields.

Lamentation in E Major

To see its departure fills me with a lament, that we are returning to more of the old ways, where a woman who has worked just as hard as her male counterpart gets passed over again and again because, frankly, she urinates from a sitting position. We'll see a return to the woodwork for people who were previously unashamed of the way they were born, of the way they love, of being bold and brave enough to steer themselves to who they wish to be, because the derision and hatred will return to an unchecked state.
I expect an attempt to undo the changes on the laws that extend the types of marriages.
We already see a change in how the US chooses to blatantly disrespect gender, how our leadership chooses to focus on genitalia as a defining characteristic for whether someone can get the job done, on removing the autonomy of choice for reproductive health for one gender...

It's sickening.

It's worrisome.

I feel like we're getting nowhere.

I want to export 100% Authentic Jayel to some other country when I exit this place in my life. Somewhere that will let me just live, let me be, let me grow.
Somewhere that isn't afraid to be inclusive and diverse, to treat humans as equals.
A place of peace.

Does this exist anywhere these days?