This is topical because "The Imitation Game" has been in the news and movie theaters recently:

I come from a Soviet immigrant family whose stance on all things LGBTQ is predictably conservative. Sometime in high school, as part of my interest in CS, I read Turing's life story. The story of a man whose contributions were fundamental to my chosen field being persecuted due to his sexual orientation cinched my views on the matter: talent and contribution are everything, the rest is private and irrelevant.

> talent and contribution are everything, the rest is private and irrelevant

Indeed. However, sometimes this viewpoint is considered "erasure" -- if I say your sexuality/gender/ethnicity is irrelevant to code, that's really me eliminating it from the picture of who you are as a person.

It's an interesting conundrum, because while these things shouldn't get in the way, at the same time, we want people to feel comfortable. We don't want people to feel that they must downplay or cover up parts of themselves. So we want to care about these things, but caring about them too much is bad also (because then we'd be fetishizing).

There's a basic conflict between people who consider identity contextually relevant and people who consider identity universally relevant. To the former group, all that matters is that you did good work, full stop. To the latter group, that's erasure.

I think a lot of folks tend to assume others are like themselves. Sometimes difference is obvious: my female and asian coworkers are obviously not white men like me.

Sometimes we assume others like the things we like. This year, I got a secret santa gift of an inflatable portal 2 turret. Although I'm a software developer, I don't play video games; the gift was lost on me.

When we're talking about diversity, we need to move beyond assuming homogeneity and seek to understand and celebrate difference. Getting there can mean visibility, and that can be tough.

Gay people, bi people, trans people, and some people of color can fade into the background if we don't make our presence known. Wearing that rainbow Mickey at a conference could mean a lot to a queer person who feels alone in the tech world.

I think that a lot of people in tech have experienced growing up being different. Different in some way that made people uncomfortable, didn't help them fit in, and possibly got them made fun of.

At least so far, I've found the tech world a pretty easy place to be gay. But I do make sure to come out early at every place I've worked. Not only does it avoid any awkward (for both parties) questions about a girlfriend, it helps us move toward a world where we celebrate our differences.