Let’s Get Ready for Pride

Michelle:
Hi, Allie.

Allie:
Hi, Michelle.

Michelle:
I feel like I haven’t seen you in a million years.

Allie:
I know. I didn’t record with you last week because… What was I doing last week?

Michelle:
It was actually the week before, you were in Cali, I think.

Allie:
The week before I was traveling, and then last week we didn’t record at all.

Michelle:
I recorded with somebody else. I’ve recorded with Tammy Lister and we put that out last week instead. The times have been crazy for both of us, for sure.

Allie:
Yes. But this is going to be a relaxing episode.

Michelle:
Yes, because it has not been a relaxing week. So let’s talk about something fun. I was-

Allie:
One day we should do an ASMR episode, and we should get really close to the microphones and just whisper about everything.

Michelle:
You mean like this?

Allie:
Well, you just triggered so many people.

Michelle:
You’re supposed to… On the microphone too.

Allie:
Okay, we’ll stop.

Michelle:
Oh my gosh. It’s too funny.

Allie:
So today… Well, it was your idea of the topic. So I’ll let you kick it off.

Michelle:
Well, today is Yoast Con, and I saw people posting. Somebody posted a picture of the swag table, and I love that Yoast is all about diversity and pride. The tweet said it’s not Pride month, but look at all the rainbow merch or the rainbow swag at Yoast Honors. I paraphrase, but something like that. I was like, “Yeah, that’s right. Pride month is coming up in three weeks.” And so my idea was as an ally myself, how can allies be the best allies they can during Pride Month? And so, I kind of wanted to kick that around as a topic and see what your thoughts were.

Allie:
Yeah, totally. I definitely think about this a lot, and I’d actually recently watched a… I guess it was a YouTube short. One of those portrait style videos on social media that’s only, less than a minute long or whatever.

Michelle:
A reel somewhere.

Allie:
It was either short or TikTok or somewhere reel, whatever. But yeah, it was this gay guy talking about all of the Pride merch at Target, and he was basically reviewing all of them to be like, “Okay, this is cringey; this is stupid; this is cringey, but I bought it; this is actually kind of awesome.” He made the point of saying that Target is a gigantic corporation. Their bottom line is money. Their bottom line is profit. But, if that means that a kid can wear a shirt that allows them to feel validated and proud of who they are, then it’s kind of worth it.
It made me feel a little bit less pessimistic about the performative nature of a lot of companies during months like Pride, or same for Women’s History Month, black History Month. They’re all of these months and holidays and so on that companies like to capitalize on because they know that people will… Not to say fall into that trap, but they’ll be able to make money. I’ve definitely bought rainbow stuff at Target before, and I know you have too. And I mean, you got to get it somewhere. You got to get your rainbow merch somewhere when you want it. But I think that so much of it is about putting your money where your mouth is, in terms of if you’re going to sell the stuff and make money off the stuff, what else are you doing to support that cause?
So I feel like it’s really important if you’re like, “Okay, well, I’m going to go to a Pride Parade and I need to go buy a Pride Flag or a Pride t-shirt,” to do a little bit of research about the company that you’re going to buy from and see, okay, well this company gave money to maybe an anti-gay marriage politician, or this company regularly donates to GLAAD or Trevor Project or something. Who are you going to go with?
I think that Yoast is such a good example of that because Yoast will put the pride flags on everything. And when we were where Camp Asia there, they threw a Pride party, I think in partnership with Codeable at Word Camp Think so, Asia, and it was fantastic. But, if you look at the work that Yoast actually does, sponsoring us, sponsoring lots of other diversity-focused intended people and projects within the WordPress community, even within their actual tool, having the… Oh my gosh, I’m blanking on what it’s actually called, but the Inclusive Language Tool. It’s not performative if you’re not just performing. If you’re just right doing it for the optics or for the sake of it or for the money, then yeah, it’s performative. But if you are doing the song and dance in addition to doing the actual work, then it all levels out.
Those are the companies that I feel confident in supporting because I know that it’s not just, well, “Here, buy a rainbow thing because it’s rainbow month.” And, Yoast does this stuff all year round. Word Camp Asia was in what, February? Nowhere near close to Pride Month. So it’s also a matter of does Target sell… And I’m blaming Target because I love Target, but do these stores that sell all this rainbow stuff during Pride Month, do they also sell queer-minded things, books, clothes, movies, whatever during the rest of the year? That’s an important thing to look at also. So those are all my thoughts.

Michelle:
I will say that I think in some cases… So I shop at Walmart because it’s easy. They have writing carts I can use. I have a friend that once a month, she and I go over there and I pick up the things I need. And so last month I was twiddling around and saw those kiosky-type put together things for Pride at Walmart. So I bought myself a new baseball cap. I bought myself some pins, I bought a she/her pin, that kind of thing. I wore it to Word Camp Buffalo last weekend because I also want to do things, but then a non=performative way. But I want to really show my allyship when I’m out and about and doing things.
I shouldn’t say… I’m quite certain that Walmart isn’t one of those companies that are doing the right things like you just said; however, they do treat it like a holiday. So they’re also not celebrating Christmas all the way year round; they’re not celebrating Thanksgiving and Halloween and all those other things, but they’re treating it like a holiday. So it’s a special thing, and this is a special kiosk.
And so, I had to pick up a few things there because it was convenient and reasonably priced, of course, which is always budget conscious, that kind of thing. Did I do it? Maybe not. But I’m happy that I have some things that at least show my allyship when I’m out and about, and will certainly be wearing them more frequently in Pride Month to show allyship for people and to show myself as a safe space there. But, I won’t limit myself to using the things that I bought. I bought a fan, too. If you know me, I love fans because I’m freaking hot anywhere and all the time that go places. So to have a fan in my pocket means that I’m able to cool off quickly. So I bought a rainbow fan that I’m like, oh, that’s going to be in my purse all summer long.

Allie:
So cute.

Michelle:
So if I get hot, I can use my rainbow fan. Does it make me a target? Maybe a little bit, right? But I’m okay. I’ve suffered the slings and arrows of lots of people lately and over time. So if I get targeted because of hateful talk or anything because I’m an ally, I am willing to take the brunt of that on and if I can still continue to be a safe space for other people. But yeah, is it silly to be excited about my rainbow fan?

Allie:
I don’t think so.

Michelle:
I’m super excited about my rainbow fan, and I don’t know.

Allie:
I mean, I’m super jealous of your rainbow fan. I might go try and find one for myself.

Michelle:
I may have to buy you one.

Allie:
But yeah, I mean, not to say that if you don’t do all of that research that I just talked about, it makes you a bad person or a bad ally. I’m just thinking of it from a best case scenario perspective.

Michelle:
The sustainability too,

Allie:
Yeah, the sustainability of it. And I think that not to get too in the weeds with politicy economical things; I believe that there is no purely ethical consumption under the capitalist umbrella under which we live. If you’ve ever seen The Good Place, they explore the concept of every decision you make, whether you try to make the best decision in the world, potentially could hurt or harm or inconvenience somebody. So I always just think about it if I know that I made the best decision I can in that moment, whether that’s doing all of the research or just making the choice to be the ally that I want to be, I think that’s fine. I just think sometimes people get-

Michelle:
Yeah, you have to [inaudible 00:09:42] think about it.

Allie:
Yeah, I just think sometimes people get really like, “Well, I want to really, really make the best possible, possible choice.” And so, I think doing the research into a company is typically the best place to start.
And also because sometimes I see people… So I will say once or twice in the past, I have seen people absolutely roll their eyes at Yoast’s rainbow usage. I think last year, maybe Taco or somebody had changed their Twitter profile to have a rainbow in it. And I was speaking to somebody and they thought that was just so cringey. They just sort of assumed that it was performative because they hadn’t really paid attention or done any research into the company and what they’d done. And it was like, to a degree, I almost couldn’t blame them because it’s almost the exception rather than the rule that a company is not being performative.
But I felt super bad. And honestly, now, I didn’t say anything about that, because they made an offhand comment. We were talking about something else, and I didn’t want to completely derail the conversation and potentially start an argument. But I kind of wish that I had said something in their defense. So that’s kind of the flip side of things, is try not to assume that a company is being performative if you don’t actually know what actions are behind what it is they’ve done and said and what they’ve supported and all that.

Michelle:
Unlike the Juneteenth conversation we had almost two years ago, talking about a quick little table set up at the front of a grocery store because they forgot and want to suddenly be celebrating and doing the things that are so horrible. “Oh, it’s Juneteenth. We should put watermelon in the front of the room.” Remember that conversation we had?

Allie:
Yes, I do. So painful.

Michelle:
It’s not even performative. It’s anti-performative. It’s racist.

Allie:
I would much rather accompany not even acknowledge pride at all than to rush to put something together without a lot of thought and have it just be offensive and lazy. And no, honestly, I’m not going to walk into a store in June and think to myself, if they don’t have some sort of Pride something, I’m not going to think like, “Oh, this company sucks.” I’m probably not even going to notice it. So I know we have a lot of business owners out there who listen and stuff. And if it comes down to just not posting, making, selling, whatever, something for one of these holidays, just don’t do it. Nobody’s going to notice. It’s nice if you do, but yeah, don’t sweat.

Michelle:
Yeah. And don’t do it because you think you should.

Allie:
Yes.

Michelle:
That’s the thing I’ve talked about. I gave a talk last weekend about starting podcasts. The number one thing I said is don’t start a podcast because you think you should have a podcast. That is the wrong reason. Don’t put rainbows out in June because you think you should. That is the wrong reason. Do it because you are an ally and you want to show yourself to be an ally and a safe space, or because you are a member of the community and you want to demonstrate that you are a member of the [inaudible 00:12:48] of the community. Yeah. Show your pride. Absolutely.
So let me ask you this, a couple other questions then. So if I, for Pride month, put a rainbow in my Twitter bio, is that performative if I’m truly an ally? And is it welcome, and is it make somebody go, “Well, is she an ally or is she gay or is she trans or is she…” What’s the right way to do that? I love showing my allyship and showing my pride in my friends, but I still don’t want to do something that’s like, “Oh, she shouldn’t do that because she’s an ally and not a member of the community.” So there’s all those questions that I have.

Allie:
Are you asking me? Or just putting it putting out as a question?

Michelle:
Yeah, I’m asking you.

Allie:
Oh, okay.

Michelle:
I mean, yes, other people are welcome to tell us, but I want your take. I want your take on it.

Allie:
I definitely want people to disagree with me if they want to. I think that putting a rainbow emoji in your bio is almost… It’s almost more for you than it is for other people. For a long time, I’ve had a rainbow and a black fist in my Twitter username. And that really, I feel like it’s my little way of… It sounds so stupid. It’s kind of my little way of trying to be punk rock about… This is my professional business account, but I’m not going to hide these things. I’m going to show that these are things that are important to me. And I really don’t think most people care, but it makes me feel like I’m not hiding myself.
I also do feel like it makes me into a little bit of a safe space where if somebody sees those things, they already know certain things about me, whether they see the flag and think that I’m gay or just an ally. So I think those are the two main things. It’s like for you to show the pride that you want to show, and it does show that you are a safe space. If I go to someone’s Twitter bio and they have their pronouns in their bio, I immediately, and this is probably not a good practice, but I immediately think differently of them. I’m immediately like, okay, this is somebody who’s kind of with it, who’s kind of with this whole alphabet people thing. Right?

Michelle:
Alphabet people.

Allie:
I think that I do get confused. If I see a flag in someone’s Twitter bio, I do almost always… I’m like, “Are they gay or are they just an ally?” There’s a particular WordPress person I’ve talked to you about where I’m like, “Are they gay or are they an ally?” It’s absolutely none of my business, and I’m never going to ask them.

Michelle:
Of course not. [inaudible 00:15:31] is sometimes you wonder, right? So for sure.

Allie:
Yeah, I wonder. So I don’t think that putting a rainbow or any other type of emoji like that in your bio is performative. If, like you said, if you are truly an ally and you have the actions and the words to back it up, it’s a form of expression, self-expression as is anything else. What really sucks is if you are not supportive of all of those things and you do it because you think you should, like we talked about, or because it looks good or because everyone else is. That was one of the things that really me off in around George Floyd time, when everyone was changing their profile pictures to be just the black background. And there were so many people I saw do that who I was like, “You don’t know why you’re doing this. You’re just doing it because it’s like a trend right now.” And that would make me really angry. And I never even did that because to me, it felt so many people were doing it that it felt pointless. It felt like it didn’t mean anything.
So I think that, yeah, if it’s something that makes you feel good and proud and that you believe people will find a safe space in you for having it, I think it’s wonderful and fantastic to do. Yeah. Just don’t feel compelled to do anything. Do whatever the heck you want.

Michelle:
I was just going to say that back in… This was, gosh, this was before I was even at Gibbs. So we’re talking six, seven years ago. I posted something on Facebook about Black Lives Matter. And is before George Floyd, this is before all of that. And I posted something on there with pictures of my daughter and said, Black Lives Matter because her life matters to me more than anybody else. And it was such a great way to find out who I didn’t want to be friends with anymore, because the very first comment underneath her, in spite of the fact that the whole post was about my kid said, “All lives matter.” I thought, well, isn’t that interesting?
So I will say, nobody is forcing you to say anything, to post anything, to hang a rainbow or not hang a rainbow, any of that kind of thing. But it’s really eye-opening when you do put your allyship out there publicly, because you will see very quickly the people that you would prefer not to be associated with. And the people that came out of the woodwork, “Well, as long as they love Jesus.” And I was like, “Well, don’t forget that Jesus overthrew the tables in the temple and befriended those people who needed the handout more.” So like I said, Black Lives Matter. Yeah, that kind thing.

Allie:
Oh, boy.

Michelle:
Yeah, It was super eyeopening. And one of my then customers at the time that… Boy, I’m going to really out myself right here. One of my then customers at the time commented negatively on that post, and so I logged into his WordPress website and I went to the code into my CSS customizer, and I commented out Black Lives Matter in the code so that it’s on his website, but he has no idea.

Allie:
That is such a devious yet harmless prank.

Michelle:
Yes, exactly. Was it the right thing to do? Probably not. But did it feel good? Damn straight, it did.

Allie:
That’s pretty fantastic.

Michelle:
Anyway.

Allie:
It’s like if you, I don’t know, put a rainbow sticker under somebody’s shoe where they’ll never see it, but it’s like it’s on you. You’ll never know.

Michelle:
Well, I worked someplace once where the owner… This is before I was in tech at all. So the owner of the company I worked for was the biggest misogynistic megalomaniac I have ever worked under. I was there five years and it was bad for my health, it was bad for my psyche. Everything was terrible. And the last year that I worked there, something had rolled under a desk and I got down to pick it up. I just happened to look up under the desk and somebody had written the owner’s name… So it was, let’s say the owner’s name was like, Joe Smith was like, Joe Smith is Satan.

Allie:
That’s incredible.

Michelle:
But it was just this little Easter egg. And I was like, yeah, that tracks, and so that’s kind of what gave me the idea. I’m not suggesting you all sabotage or even subversively code your customer sites, but it just felt good to [inaudible 00:20:16].

Allie:
We’re not encouraging vandalism in any way, shape or form.

Michelle:
No, no.

Allie:
But we can recognize when it’s funny.

Michelle:
Yeah, that’s funny. Exactly. It was a long time ago. So if you are one of my current customers, I have not done that to you. I promise.

Allie:
Good. Oh my goodness.

Michelle:
But honestly, I don’t take on customers that are like that anymore. And I don’t take on very many customers because I’m just too busy, but anyway. I am rambling and I am off-topic at this point, so.

Allie:
No, I love it. No, see, it’s on topic because it shows what an ally you are.

Michelle:
There you go.

Allie:
And if you add a rainbow emoji to your Twitter bio, you’re not being performative.

Michelle:
There you go. Exactly. And soon we’re going to have lgbtqpress.com, and people will be able to join that. I do put my money where my mouth is and buy domains. [inaudible 00:21:05]-

Allie:
At very minimum, you bought a domain.

Michelle:
At the very minimum, I bought a domain and there’s a Slack channel. If you are a WordPress member of the LGBTQ community and you are interested in learning more, being part of the process and joining our Slack, please reach out to me and I will get you an invitation to that.

Allie:
Yep.

Michelle:
Put that out there, too.

Allie:
Which, I need to do now that I think we talked about it a million times and I just haven’t.

Michelle:
I could make that happen.

Allie:
Yay. Thank you.

Michelle:
You’re welcome.

Allie:
Well, yeah, so I’ll see all of you in the LGBTQ Press Slack channel.

Michelle:
That’s right.

Allie:
Cool.

Michelle:
I’m the official ally mom and there’s an official ally dad in there, too. I’ll let him introduce himself at some point, though, and just say that if you are part of the LGBTQ community, there are safe spaces for you. More than just Pride month. There are people like me in the community making sure as much as I can that you are welcomed and that you are safe and that you have a home in WordPress. So reach out. I know Ellie is the same way. We would be happy to be your access into safe spaces as the community, so please consider us your friends and your allies as well.

Allie:
Absolutely. Honestly, over the years, I have loved meeting folks in the community because a lot of us are not like out, out. Some people are kind of completely closeted, which I’ve been so honored to have had a couple of people come out to me that are not out, and it just makes me feel so good to be something like that for them.
People like me who I am considered, I guess, straight passing because I’m married to a cis male, even though I’m bisexual. So whenever I do meet somebody like that, I’m like, cool, there’s another person like this. There’s another person I can identify with in this way.

Michelle:
Exactly.

Allie:
So I get really giddy when I meet other folks in the community, and there are places for you and for us and all that good stuff.

Michelle:
Absolutely. And one other thing I will say is we are drafting a code of conduct for the LGBTQ Press space, and we will do our best to keep it a safe space and protect you as much as possible. One of the things that people have to agree to is that they will not discuss people outside of that space because not everybody is a hundred percent out. And that my goal is that nobody gets outed. But also, we can never guarantee safety. That’s something that in a virtual space that cannot be guaranteed, but we do everything we can to make sure that it’s a safe space for you and that there are safe people you can speak to.

Allie:
Yeah. Totally.

Michelle:
Yeah.

Allie:
Cool.

Michelle:
Anyway, so there, hopefully we’ll get it launched in time for Pride month. That would be pretty cool.

Allie:
That would be pretty awesome. I’d be really excited for that.

Michelle:
Same.

Allie:
Cool. All right, well thank you so much for listening, all of you there on the podcast land, and we’ll chat with you some more next week.

Michelle:
Absolutely. We love it. Sounds good. Bye. Bye.