research-article

How remote work can foster a more inclusive environment for transgender developers

Authors:

Alexander SerebrenikAuthors Info & Claims

GE '19: Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Gender Equality in Software Engineering

Pages 9 - 12

https://doi.org/10.1109/GE.2019.00011

Published: 27 May 2019 Publication History

Abstract

In this position paper, we claim that remote work offers a mechanism of control for identity disclosure and empowerment of software developers from marginalized communities. By talking to several transgender software developers we identified three themes that resonate across the trans experience and intersect with the advantages to working in software development remotely: identity disclosure, high-impact technical work and the autonomy to disengage and re-engage. Based on these themes we identify several open questions that the research community should address.

References

[1]

C. Groskopf, "For programmers, the ultimate office perk is avoiding the office entirely," April 2017, retrieved February 1, 2019 from https://qz.com/950973/remote-work-for-programmers-the-ultimate-office-perk-is-avoiding-the-office-entirely/ data at https://github.com/Quartz/work-from-home.

[2]

S. Overflow, "2018 stack overflow developer survey," February 2019, retrieved February 1, 2019 from https://stackoverflow.com/insights/survey/ 2018.

[3]

C. A. Ehmke, "Contributor covenant," 2014, retrieved February 1, 2019 from https://www.contributor-covenant.org/.

[4]

S. Stryker, Transgender history. Seal Press, 2008.

[5]

F. Zlotnick, "Github open source survey 2017," http://opensourcesurvey.org/2017/, Jun. 2017.

[6]

R. S. Geiger, "Summary analysis of the 2017 github open source survey," Jun 2017. {Online}. Available: osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/qps53

[7]

E. L. Meerwijk and J. M. Sevelius, "Transgender population size in the united states: a meta-regression of population-based probability samples," American Journal of Public Health, vol. 107, no. 2, pp. e1--e8, Feb. 2017.

[8]

Trans<sup>*</sup>H4ck, retrieved February 1, 2019 from http://www.transhack.org/.

[9]

G. M. Olson and J. S. Olson, "Distance matters," Human-computer interaction, vol. 15, no. 2--3, pp. 139--178, 2000.

Digital Library

[10]

T. S. Teo and V. K. Lim, "Factorial dimensions and differential effects of gender on perceptions of teleworking," Women in Management Review, vol. 13, no. 7, pp. 253--263, 1998.

[11]

D.-G. Tremblay, "Balancing work and family with telework? organizational issues and challenges for women and managers," Women in Management Review, vol. 17, no. 3/4, pp. 157--170, 2002.

[12]

M. Wilson and A. Greenhill, "Gender and teleworking identities in the risk society: a research agenda," New Technology, Work and Employment, vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 207--221, 2004.

[13]

C. Sullivan and S. Lewis, "Home-based telework, gender, and the synchronization of work and family: Perspectives of teleworkers and their co-residents," Gender, Work & Organization, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 123--145, 2001. {Online}. Available:

[14]

U. Huws, S. Podro, E. Gunnarsson, T. Weijers, K. Arvanitaki, and V. Trova, "Teleworking and gender," The Institute for Employment Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK, Tech. Rep. 317, 1996.

[15]

C. Mendez, H. S. Padala, Z. Steine-Hanson, C. Hilderbrand, A. Horvath, C. Hill, L. Simpson, N. Patil, A. Sarma, and M. Burnett, "Open source barriers to entry, revisited: A sociotechnical perspective," in Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Software Engineering. ACM, 2018, pp. 1004--1015.

Digital Library

[16]

B. Vasilescu, A. Serebrenik, and V. Filkov, "A data set for social diversity studies of github teams," in Proceedings of the 12th Working Conference on Mining Software Repositories. IEEE Press, 2015, pp. 514--517.

Digital Library

[17]

G. Catolino, F. Palomba, D. A. Tamburri, A. Serebrenik, and F. Ferrucci, "Gender diversity and women in software teams: How do they affect community smells?" in 41st IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Society Track, ICSE-SEIS 2019. IEEE Computer Society, 2019.

[18]

H. S. Qiu, A. Nolte, A. Brown, A. Serebrenik, and B. Vasilescu, "Going farther together: The impact of social capital on sustained participation in open source," in 41st IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering, ICSE 2019. IEEE Computer Society, 2019.

Digital Library

[19]

B. Vasilescu, A. Capiluppi, and A. Serebrenik, "Gender, representation and online participation: A quantitative study," Interacting with Computers, vol. 26, no. 5, pp. 488--511, 2014.

[20]

D. Petruzalek, "Gender bias? a transgender perspective!" January 2018, retrieved February 1, 2019 from https://medium.com/@danielapetruzalek/gender-bias-a-transgender-perspective-de27f2cd3837.

[21]

E. A. Riley, W. T. Wong, and G. Sitharthan, "Counseling support for the forgotten transgender community," Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services, vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 395--410, 2011.

[22]

A. Akhtar, "Transgender in tech: Inclusion, with limits," September 2016, retrieved February 1, 2019 from https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/09/06/transgender-people-find-flexibility-barriers-tech/89369436/.

[23]

O. Haimson, "Social media as social transition machinery," Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact., vol. 2, no. CSCW, pp. 63:1--63:21, Nov. 2018. {Online}. Available

Digital Library

[24]

B. Vasilescu, D. Posnett, B. Ray, M. G. van den Brand, A. Serebrenik, P. Devanbu, and V. Filkov, "Gender and tenure diversity in github teams," in Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ser. CHI '15. New York, NY, USA: ACM, 2015, pp. 3789--3798. {Online}. Available

Digital Library

[25]

IssueHunt, retrieved February 1, 2019 from https://issuehunt.io/.

[26]

S. E. James, J. L. Herman, S. Rankin, M. Keisling, L. Mottet, and M. Anafi, "The report of the 2015 u.s. transgender survey," December 2016, retrieved February 1, 2019 from https://transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/usts/USTS-Full-Report-Dec17.pdf.

[27]

T. S. Enterprises, retrieved February 1, 2019 from http://transtechsocial.org/.

[28]

M. J. Rowley, "The startup thats battling to open tech to transgender people," February 2015, retrieved February 1, 2019 from https://www.fastcompany.com/3042123/the-startup-thats-battling-to-open-tech-to-transgender-people.

[29]

M. K. Scheuerman, S. M. Branham, and F. Hamidi, "Safe spaces and safe places: Unpacking technology-mediated experiences of safety and harm with transgender people," Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact., vol. 2, no. CSCW, pp. 155:1--155:27, Nov. 2018. {Online}. Available

Digital Library

[30]

S. Wachter-Boettcher, Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech. WW Norton & Company, 2017.

Digital Library

[31]

J. Lachenal, "Op-ed: Tech's wake-up call from your trans-gender coworker," September 2014, retrieved February 1, 2019 from https://www.advocate.com/commentary/2014/09/29/op-ed-techs-wake-call-your-transgender-coworker.

[32]

A. D. Brown, "Identities and identity work in organizations," International Journal of Management Reviews, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 20--40, 2015.

[33]

I. H. Lang, "Transgender in the workplace," June 2011, retrieved February 1, 2019 from https://www.catalyst.org/zing/transgender-workplace.

[34]

M. Burnett, S. Stumpf, J. Macbeth, S. Makri, L. Beckwith, I. Kwan, A. Peters, and W. Jernigan, "Gendermag: A method for evaluating software's gender inclusiveness," Interacting with Computers, vol. 28, no. 6, pp. 760--787, 2016.

[35]

L. Lucero, "Safe spaces in online places: social media and lgbtq youth," Multicultural Education Review, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 117--128, 2017. {Online}. Available

[36]

M.-A. Storey, A. Zagalsky, L. Singer, D. German et al., "How social and communication channels shape and challenge a participatory culture in software development," IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, no. 1, pp. 1--1, 2017.

Digital Library

[37]

D. Ford, J. Smith, P. J. Guo, and C. Parnin, "Paradise unplugged: Identifying barriers for female participation on stack overflow," in Proceedings of the 2016 24th ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Foundations of Software Engineering. ACM, 2016, pp. 846--857.

Digital Library

[38]

A. Filippova, E. Trainer, and J. D. Herbsleb, "From diversity by numbers to diversity as process: supporting inclusiveness in software development teams with brainstorming," in Proceedings of the 39th International Conference on Software Engineering. IEEE Press, 2017, pp. 152--163.

Digital Library

[39]

K. S. Choi, "A comparative analysis of different gender pair combinations in pair programming," Behaviour & Information Technology, vol. 34, no. 8, pp. 825--837, 2015.

Digital Library

[40]

J. Terrell, A. Kofink, J. Middleton, C. Rainear, E. Murphy-Hill, C. Parnin, and J. Stallings, "Gender differences and bias in open source: Pull request acceptance of women versus men," PeerJ Computer Science, vol. 3, p. e111, 2017.

[41]

A. Schlesinger, W. K. Edwards, and R. E. Grinter, "Intersectional hci: Engaging identity through gender, race, and class," in Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ser. CHI '17. New York, NY, USA: ACM, 2017, pp. 5412--5427. {Online}. Available

Digital Library

Cited By

Frluckaj HStevens NHowison JDabbish L(2024)Paradoxes of Openness: Trans Experiences in Open Source SoftwareProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36870478:CSCW2(1-24)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3687047
De Souza Santos RGama K(2024)Hidden Populations in Software Engineering: Challenges, Lessons Learned, and OpportunitiesProceedings of the 1st IEEE/ACM International Workshop on Methodological Issues with Empirical Studies in Software Engineering10.1145/3643664.3648212(58-63)Online publication date: 16-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3643664.3648212
Russo DHanel PVan Berkel N(2024)Understanding Developers Well-Being and Productivity: A 2-year Longitudinal Analysis during the COVID-19 PandemicACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology10.1145/363824433:3(1-44)Online publication date: 15-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3638244
Show More Cited By

Recommendations

The role of theory in gender and information systems research

In response to claims emanating from recent assessments of the status of gender and IS research about insufficient theorizing of gender, a critical literature analysis of research papers on the topic of gender and IS that appeared in information systems ...
Exploring a Makeup Support System for Transgender Passing based on Automatic Gender Recognition
CHI '21: Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

How to handle gender with machine learning is a controversial topic. A growing critical body of research brought attention to the numerous issues transgender communities face with the adoption of current automatic gender recognition (AGR) systems. In ...
An empirical investigation on the challenges faced by women in the software industry: a case study
ICSE-SEIS '22: Proceedings of the 2022 ACM/IEEE 44th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Society

Context: Addressing women's under-representation in the software industry, a widely recognized concern, requires attracting as well as retaining more women. Hearing from women practitioners, particularly those positioned in multi-cultural settings, ...

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

GE '19: Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Gender Equality in Software Engineering

May 2019

50 pages

Program Chairs:
Ivica Crnkovic
Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden
,
Karina Kohl Silveira
PUCRS, Brazil
,
Sara Sprenkle
Washington and Lee University

Sponsors

SIGSOFT: ACM Special Interest Group on Software Engineering
IEEE-CS: Computer Society

Publisher

IEEE Press

Publication History

Published: 27 May 2019

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article

Conference

ICSE '19

Sponsor:

SIGSOFT
IEEE-CS

ICSE '19: 41st International Conference on Software Engineering

May 27, 2019

Quebec, Montreal, Canada

Upcoming Conference

ICSE 2025

2025 IEEE/ACM 46th International Conference on Software Engineering

April 26 - May 3, 2025

Ottawa , ON , Canada

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

21
Total Citations
View Citations
164
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)15
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)1

Reflects downloads up to 18 Nov 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Frluckaj HStevens NHowison JDabbish L(2024)Paradoxes of Openness: Trans Experiences in Open Source SoftwareProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36870478:CSCW2(1-24)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3687047
De Souza Santos RGama K(2024)Hidden Populations in Software Engineering: Challenges, Lessons Learned, and OpportunitiesProceedings of the 1st IEEE/ACM International Workshop on Methodological Issues with Empirical Studies in Software Engineering10.1145/3643664.3648212(58-63)Online publication date: 16-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3643664.3648212
Russo DHanel PVan Berkel N(2024)Understanding Developers Well-Being and Productivity: A 2-year Longitudinal Analysis during the COVID-19 PandemicACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology10.1145/363824433:3(1-44)Online publication date: 15-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3638244
Santos RStuart-Verner BMagalhães C(2023)What Do Transgender Software Professionals Say About a Career in the Software Industry?IEEE Software10.1109/MS.2023.325774340:5(34-40)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/MS.2023.3257743
Newman KEndres MWeimer WJohnson BGrundy JPollock LPenta M(2023)From Organizations to Individuals: Psychoactive Substance Use by Professional ProgrammersProceedings of the 45th International Conference on Software Engineering10.1109/ICSE48619.2023.00065(665-677)Online publication date: 14-May-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/ICSE48619.2023.00065
Kohl KPrikladnicki R(2022)Benefits and Difficulties of Gender Diversity on Software Development Teams: A Qualitative StudyProceedings of the XXXVI Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering10.1145/3555228.3555253(21-30)Online publication date: 5-Oct-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3555228.3555253
Frluckaj HDabbish LWidder DQiu HHerbsleb J(2022)Gender and Participation in Open Source Software DevelopmentProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35551906:CSCW2(1-31)Online publication date: 11-Nov-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3555190
Gunawardena SDevine PBeaumont IGarden LMurphy-Hill EBlincoe K(2022)Destructive Criticism in Software Code Review Impacts InclusionProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35551836:CSCW2(1-29)Online publication date: 11-Nov-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3555183
Winchester HBoyd AJohnson B(2022)An exploration of intersectionality in software development and useProceedings of the Third Workshop on Gender Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion in Software Engineering10.1145/3524501.3527605(67-70)Online publication date: 19-May-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3524501.3527605
Holtzblatt KMarsden N(2022)Inclusion Techniques for Team Practices in HCIExtended Abstracts of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3491101.3503753(1-3)Online publication date: 27-Apr-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3491101.3503753
Show More Cited By

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Table of Contents