Lesley Carhart 
Just a reminder that our trans industry colleagues are literally running out the clock. Life and death. If you are wondering if you should offer them a gig even at a low rate outside America, for the love of Pete, do it now. There very well might not be a later for them, even to get a passport to leave. If this is imposter syndrome about their followers, credentials, or reputation, just offer the damn job. SOC analyst. Trainer. Anything.
xposted to the HR death site https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7293472922780786689/
If you think I’m being extreme, read this saga of a trans person currently even trying to get a passport. They were lucky to have an old ID still, and to meet an understanding bureaucrat, https://www.reddit.com/r/Passports/s/JCrTkHeBco
It’s month one.
Liminal witch 🧙♀️ Sarah@hacks4pancakes It's not an isolated case unfortunately https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_s5qEpzhVo&
Trans Woman DENIED Passport in LA
@xgebi I know. It just illustrates it well, this is before the really concerted Project 2025 push and they’re already losing access to documents essential to flee.
Alley Stoughton@hacks4pancakes I just used the ACLU of Massachusetts contact from to say that if they need more plaintiffs for lawsuits about this, I’m willing to be one.
Edit: my change from M -> F was at a time when we needed a surgeon's letter attesting to irreversible genital surgery. It's outrageous that the Trump administration is trying to revoke this change for me and many others, and I have hope the courts will agree it's out of order.
@fullyabstract ACLU is fighting and currently buying time.
@hacks4pancakes I know, saw the NYT article last night.
AnneH@hacks4pancakes Another fascist tactic. In Franco Spain it was normal for the state not to issue a passport for anyone suspected of demonstrating/importing the wrong books/speaking their own regional language.
Ehproque has moved@annehargreaves @hacks4pancakes not only for them being suspect… I've heard of people being denied one… in the 70s! because their father fought on the losing side
Leszek Ciesielski@ehproque @annehargreaves @hacks4pancakes the '70s, until Franco's death, we're still under his dictatorship. Similarly under the communist dictatorship in Central Europe, you'd be denied not only passport, but also many jobs and access to higher education, all the way until its fall in 1989. For being from a wrong family, for having family members in the anti-communist forces in WW2. Or for being connected to the wrong group of communists.
@skolima @annehargreaves @hacks4pancakes oh I know, I'm Spanish, when I say I heard I don't mean on the Internet! The stories from my Eastern European friends are wilder as they're coming from *millennials*
szakib@annehargreaves @hacks4pancakes In communist Hungary the default was that nobody gets a passport, unless someone at a high enough place vouches for them.
Mike (no, the other one)@hacks4pancakes Reshared. FWIW.
Rich Smith "@hacks4pancakes cross posted on my LinkedIn as well. I have a number of Swedish colleagues from my last company.
RDilling@hacks4pancakes Have been offline for about a week as we moved my father in law into assisted living. Just got back online and forwarded your LI post to my network on LI. (I worked internationally for the better part of a decade and have lots of intl contacts. ) Hopefully it helps someone.
Juliet Merida, Dum Tran Elf 🏳️⚧️I would love one of them non-US gigs if anyone has an extra.
@hacks4pancakes
@hacks4pancakes
Skarlet@hacks4pancakes yeah 6 months no work already definitely sucks.
kie/qui (planar)
L, generically a letter@hacks4pancakes if anyone wants to hire me into their country to work 100% remotely hmu
Matt Palmer@hacks4pancakes although, if you're just deliberately low-balling someone because they are desperate, you are a garbage person, and I hope fire ants take up residence in your colon.
@womble Oh, not my intent at all. For sure.
But sometimes work visas require a position having been open and unfilled. I took a (visa mandatory) demotion. A lot of people would by necessity right now.
@hacks4pancakes it's true that someone may have to take a step backwards to escape, I just want the skeevy vultures who like to prey on desperation to keep the fire ants in mind.
bigiain@womble So, all those sleepy vulture employers sponsoring H-1B visas, huh?
@bigiain yes, may fire ants take up residence in all their colons.
@bigiain although my understanding of the real purpose of the H1-B system isn't so much to directly exploit the desperation of the people being hired, so much as take advantage of the first order effects of an increase in labour supply to suppress wages. Still worthy of granting a long term lease to the fire ants.
cuan_knaggs@hacks4pancakes @womble or it could be in a country that simply doesn't pay that well
@mensrea @hacks4pancakes @womble If one's coming from the US, every other country seems like they don't pay well.
But US jobs actually don't pay so well if you count the cost of healthcare, schooling, and other social services that you need to pay from your salary.
But US jobs actually don't pay so well if you count the cost of healthcare, schooling, and other social services that you need to pay from your salary.
@szakib @mensrea @womble it’s like comparing our healthcare systems. We on paper have some of the best hospitals and doctors, and on paper you can access them quickly, but most of us avoid the ER, hoard medicine, and can’t afford critical treatments and tests our insurers deny. It’s a great system if you’re in the top 5% of Americans or so.
William@szakib @mensrea @hacks4pancakes @womble eh, the US has *wild* inequality though so it depends.
Being poor in the US is worse than being poor most other places, but holding a 6.5-digit tech job is not something that really happens elsewhere.
Australia is about halfway - engineering salaries here are maybe 30-50% of Si-valley rates but about 2-3x much of Europe.
@phenidone @szakib @mensrea @womble and those engineer salaries are much higher than the average, but still one medical diagnostic from bankruptcy all the time.
@hacks4pancakes @szakib @mensrea @womble I can confirm that, having recently been through a really bad diagnosis with my wife. We still have a house, and the total cost of treatment so far has been about $2k/yr in prescription meds.
Fourth round of surgery then second round of radiation is in a couple of weeks and has cost us *zero* so far. And that includes replacement of several things that I previously thought came under the heading "not field-serviceable", like vertebrae.
@hacks4pancakes @szakib @mensrea @womble if we were in the USA I (and the kids) would be homeless and she would be dead by now instead of hoping to get another decade.
@phenidone @szakib @mensrea @womble my mom died of cancer and that statement is not an exaggeration. Glad you’re safe.
@hacks4pancakes @phenidone @mensrea @womble Even before Trump, the US has been a very cruel country. From here it's astonishing that the government lets its citizens suffer like this, and that the well-armed citizens don't Mangione more CEOs more often.
badsynthesis@szakib @mensrea @hacks4pancakes @womble A colleague worked in Boston for a year. His salary was over double, his wife's salary too, but after childcare/school for two and everything else they had less to spend on fun each month.
@badsynthesis @mensrea @hacks4pancakes @womble Yeah I once tried to hire a senior IT person moving from the US to FI and the offer we gave was very generous, but he refused. I spent half an hour explaining all the things he would not have to pay for here, but he just couldn't understand and refused. (He asked for about 50% more than anyone in FI would pay him.)
[Tangent: "wives" is a mistake that changes the meaning of your message in a funny way.]
@szakib @mensrea @hacks4pancakes @womble Haha, damn autocorrect. He only has one ;)
Yea I can imagine that conversation being tricky if the other part doesn't realize how different things are in some places across the pond.
launchdaemon@szakib @mensrea @hacks4pancakes @womble there is also work culture and expectations to take into account. My perception of US companies is expecting long hours and not to take annual leave so haven’t pursued some remote positions with US companies that otherwise looked very interesting.
@launchdaemon @mensrea @hacks4pancakes @womble Agreed. Even in Europe, I avoid US companies because of this. When my worktime is over, I go home. That's worth quite much money for me.
fnord99@hacks4pancakes or, hear me out, hire the best person for the job without caring about their gender and etnicity.
moanos@fnord99 how about not acting like an asshole?
People fear for their life and you're like "but what if a cis white man doesn't get a job?"
@moanos believe me, u want to be treated by the best doctor and fly with the best pilots, no matter what their etnicity or sexual preferences are. You want your bridges and your offshore rigs designed and built by the best professionals. Their etnicity and sexual preferences are secondary. I would fear for my life if that was not the case. And do u go around throwing "asshole" to anyone having an opinion different than yours?
Alephwyr: Mad Dragon of Mastodon@fnord99 @hacks4pancakes Why do you have an entire government dedicated to fucking over minorities if you're capable of competing on merit?
@Alephwyr @hacks4pancakes i don't get your point. 'Hiring the right person for the job' does not mean 'hire white ppl for the job'. The selection should mind only suitability professionally, nothing else.
Simon Richter@hacks4pancakes @ireneista we're still hiring embedded (bare metal/Linux) people in Tokyo. Immigration has the usual "degree or ten years of experience" requirement, and we don't do HSP visas.
@GyrosGeier I just can't stop thinking about halal snack pack visas now.
Dave@hacks4pancakes we'll have general elections in 2 weeks with a real risk that our "conservatives" repeat their crimes of the 1930s and collaborate with our fash.
To avoid getting people out of the frying pan into the fire I'll do a damage assessment in 2 weeks and then circle back to your proposal, I promise.
@Laird_Dave please evaluate and talk to people on the ground. In some cases, very bad is better than concentration camps being built,
@hacks4pancakes we're literally at the "let's build camps for refugees" stage rn and I have *no* clue if/how that would come into play for trans refugees even if they have a job and a place to stay. Not gonna bring anyone into this shitshow. In 2 weeks we'll have more info and then we can have a look at stuff. Until then, different European countries are probably a safer bet.
@hacks4pancakes worst case we'll have to join you in AU (or NZ) so offering refuge in Germany currently doesn't appear to be a great idea.
I'll always be grateful for you keeping on being a light in the darkness, though, and I'll keep trying to keep up with you.❤️
ǝlqɯnɹ uoɯᴉS@hacks4pancakes JFC this is grim. If there's any introductions I can make on the hellsite that is LinkedIn, I have >2,000 connections, all of whom I've actually met. Hit me up.
Jonathan Kamens 86 47@hacks4pancakes Just to corroborate, I know a trans USian who can't get a US passport because their birth certificate has been corrected. The State Dept. won't issue them a passport with a gender that's not the one they were assigned at birth, and won't issue them a passport with their assigned-at-birth gender because it wouldn't match their birth certificate.
They have dual citizenship, so they can leave the US using their other passport, but if they do they won't be able to return.
They have dual citizenship, so they can leave the US using their other passport, but if they do they won't be able to return.
kcarruthers@jik @hacks4pancakes might be time to flee anyway?
EVHaste@jik @hacks4pancakes Howdy fam; I’m working on a similar story right now. Having a second example would be extremely helpful to me.
Do you think your friend might be willing to speak to the press? If it helps, I’m also trans and *extremely tired of this bullshit*.
@hacks4pancakes I've got a lot of paper and a few years of experience as a junior third shift Linux sysadmin. Open to offers. Ireland is ideal, EU countries in general good also.