Michael Ann DeVito, PhD (she/her) 🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️
@DrMichaelAnn
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Community AI/ML, Tech Literacy, Folk Theories, Queer/Trans/Sapphic HCI. Assistant Professor @KhouryCollege @NU_CAMD . AuDHD, trans woman, femme lesbian, dork.
Boston, MA
Joined February 2012
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Last Seen Profiles
Pinned Tweet
NEW PUB: Safety and Community Context: Exploring a Transfeminist Approach to Sapphic Relationship Platforms @
#CSCW2024
Relationship platforms just aren't made for sapphics, especially trans sapphics, and we think we might know how to start fixing them.
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This is a problem in queer research too - studies on gay men don't get "but what about lesbians?" questions, but every single study on lesbians, trans women, etc, gets a "but what about gay men?"
The pressure for lesbian/sapphic spaces that have decentered men to include them is mind-boggling to me. We just do not do this to gay men.
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This thread is capturing something I wish for all newly-out trans women to know: cis lesbians are mostly very chill and welcoming to trans women. In my personal experience, lesbian spaces where folks are *really into* being lesbians are way safer for us than general queer spaces.
Lesbophobia aside, the result of the antagonization of cis lesbians as trans-exclusionary and the fearmongering of symbols historically used in lesbian circles is actually... Transmisogyny
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@tpwrtrmnky
Now imagine that you are a very visibly trans professor teaching undergraduates with egg vibes. It's... quite a ride.
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Part of the heart of transmisogyny is people (cis AND trans) looking at misogyny and saying "wow, I wish there was a way I could do that openly but not get in trouble for it. If only there were a subset of women no one would mind or even notice me targeting."
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If anyone ever tries to tell you we couldn’t possibly have predicted the biasing effects of algorithms, my professional recommendation is that you print out a copy of on heavy paper and thrash them about the head with it shouting “WOMEN WARNED YOU IN 1996”
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The amount of academic queer/trans theorizing that ultimately just unironically says this in fancier words is truly stunning.
@lisaquestions
@MissAtomAge
if only trans women would shut up and take the abuse, the community would finally have unity
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Exciting news! This fall, I’m joining
@Northeastern
University as an Assistant Professor of Computer Science
@KhouryCollege
and Communication Studies
@NU_CAMD
, where I’ll be continuing my work on folk theorization and ethical, transfeminist, community-focused approaches to AI/ML.
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I don't think the best way to measure yourself is to compare yourself to others, but if you're going to, PLEASE pick a reasonable basis for comparison, e.g. if you're an Italian trans woman, please compare yourself to Italian women (esp re: body hair), and not... anime characters
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Watching all this stuff about the debut of MIT's computing school and how they're laying down a lot of rhetoric about needing people that understand both CS and society.
Lol, it's called iSchools/info sci/social computing/HCI, my dudes. We've been here a while. Try coming to CHI
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I did it 😁💃
Some minor revisions to finish up, but tbh "Dr. Michael Ann DeVito, PhD" both sounds and feels pretty damn good.
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I'm on the job market and looking for TT Assistant Professor positions! I take a qualitative, sociotechnical approach to work on Human-AI Collaboration, folk theorization, and queer/trans social computing. If you're hiring, let's chat!
What I'm about:
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Great thread from Erin about how some “pro-trans” tools like Soupcan can easily be weaponized to serve transmisogynistic ends. If you don’t account for intracommunity issues in your “community” tool, all you’ve done is taken sides in a fight you might not understand/anticipate.
To be blunt, this kind of tool basically has essentially no value outside of a very niche context of crypto-terfs on Tumblr and being weaponized to try and ostracize queer people by pretending objective standards it can't meet
It's basically designed to automate trashing.
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The vast majority of bi people are deeply chill and in community with lesbians, and I’m still really proud of the fact that I wrote the first computer science paper to ever be about bi experiences. But holy shit, there’s an emerging fringe that’s deeply, dangerously lesbophobic.
"Bi women get correctively raped by lesbians" HOLY SHIT, just say you're a disgusting lesbophobe and call us slurs. jesus fucking christ
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I think there's actually a low level of dysphoria among some trans women that feels like bigger gender dysphoria, but is actually the very "normal" cis woman experience of making some unreasonable comparisons to bodies/contexts that just aren't yours.
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The answer, of course, is "because every single other paper anyone has ever written in this space that relates AT ALL is about gay men on Grindr" and also "I am deeply uninterested in what gay men do, generally"
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Not going to join the "don't do a PhD" chorus because doing a PhD is one of the best things I've ever done and was a time of immense personal growth for me, but you really need to be SURE this is what you want before you go for it. Don't apply on a whim.
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My latest paper is a great example of this - it's a study of sapphic dating/relationship apps, and the
#1
piece of feedback I got from queer colleagues was "why don't you focus on gay men and trans men looking for men on Grindr?"
NEW PUB: Safety and Community Context: Exploring a Transfeminist Approach to Sapphic Relationship Platforms @
#CSCW2024
Relationship platforms just aren't made for sapphics, especially trans sapphics, and we think we might know how to start fixing them.
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Sadly, I don't find this surprising. A common reaction to me wanting to do CS research with/for trans women has been "why do you want to erase trans men." I don't! I just wanted to zoom in on trans women, and that should be okay, especially considering that *I* am a trans woman.
I am at a complete loss for words.
We're like, three for three on women saying they do not think about or center men and immediately being accused of violence, bigotry and sinister crypto-agendas for that simple assertion.
Men and the man-fandom see being ignored as harm.
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Welcome to my new, clumsily-titled podcast "cis women feel a little weird about their bodies too sometimes, so please be kinder to yourself"
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Sometimes, you write a paper that has a lot of personal importance to you, and putting it out in the world feels kinda scary.
But it's worth it.
Coming soon at
#CSCW2022
: How Transfeminine TikTok Creators Navigate the Algorithmic Trap of Visibility Via Folk Theorization
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I have been a professor for 2.5 months and applied for 4 grants. Interestingly, grad school involves *checks notes* zero preparation for grantwriting. Perhaps... we should look into this?
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Are there some shitty lesbians? Well of course. But if you haven't noticed, there's some shitty... everyone.
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(The Grindr work is actually great and the dude who did most of it is a mentor and friend, but a big part of why we're friends is that he 100% understands why I, a very dykey dyke, do not do that kind of work.)
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How do you tell the difference between good and bad lesbians? Personally, I am now suspicious of lesbians who don't really hang with other lesbians - like, there's a reason for that, and it's because it makes it easier for them to behave in ways that most lesbians disapprove of.
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Excited to join
@cuinfoscience
and
@whatknows
's Identity Lab in January as a
@CRAtweets
Computing Innovation Fellow! I'll be expanding my folk theories work towards supporting everyday human/AI collaboration.
Now I just have to defend that pesky dissertation...
#CIFellows
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(also shoutout to this guy for the time I just showed up to lab meeting in a skirt and was like "she/her pronouns, let's start the meeting" and he just rolled with it and made sure everyone else in the department knew how to address me)
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Honestly, if you're not willing to fight transmisogyny, I seriously question your commitment to fighting misogyny AND your commitment to fighting transphobia. ESPECIALLY if you yourself are some form of trans.
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Transfems are understudied, and I think attitudes like the one being talked about in the tweet I quoted are a big part of why that is. Every time we try to study our own transfem communities, the same thing that happens to cis women happens to us: why can't you make it about men?
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@binaryAegis
"biohacking your endocrine system is based actually" seems like an excellent book title, tbh
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For example, most lesbians disapprove of transphobic behavior and arranging social death for other lesbians, and in my personal experience, that one lesbian who doesn't hang out with other lesbians is 100% doing it because she wants to be transphobic and wants to silence people.
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Thread worth checking out. So true; pre-compression, especially MP3 and h.264, a rich media internet seemed like a pipe dream to me.
I think one of the unappreciated aspects of computers is how directly they are tied to advanced mathematical compression of data.
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The amount of TT jobs I can't even consider because I'm trans on a pure safety and medical needs basis is absurd.
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I'm incredibly sad about this, but I've largely come to the same conclusion - humanity as a species needs to get its house in order before we head out. The answers aren't in off-planet colonies, they're in compassion and mobilization right here on this planet.
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I think
#CSCW2023
is an appropriate occasion to announce that my research group at
@KhouryCollege
, the Sociotechnial Equity and Agency Lab, is up, running, and looking for partners, grad students, and (in the near future) a postdoc!
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Some things (e.g., things explicitly about women, cis or trans) are just not about men (cis or trans) and I am awfully tired of the same bullshit sexist dynamics that cis women face just getting a new coat of paint and showing up as trans discourse.
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TBH, my dream is really to run an R1 research lab with the specific mission to train as many top-tier trans and nonbinary HCI researchers as I possibly can before I retire.
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LOL @ all these British TERFs calling me “mate” and saying I’m not a lesbian. First off, somebody should really tell my girlfriend 😂 Second, in the immortal words of Donna Noble, “You're not mating with me, sunshine!”
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"why are you so focused on intracommunity issues, Michael Ann?"
It may, in fact, be related to the fact that I have consistently found far more safety, solidarity, and material support among cis women than among non-transfeminine trans people.
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NEW PUB @
#CSCW2021
and FOLK THEORIES ARE BACK! Platforms change constantly, and we're left to adapt by updating our
#folktheories
. I look at how we account for change during folk theorization, and how our relationships with platforms impact adaptation.
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I'm encountering so many young, queer members of the community that can't go to CHI in Hawaii this year for cost reasons. Treating these conferences like vacations for senior faculty and putting them in expensive locations hurts those just coming up, esp. the marginalized.
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I wish more trans women thought like this, because I think it’s legitimately the only way to be happy with yourself. Become the version of *you* that you want to be, instead of holding yourself to some absurd external default.
I'm probably not subtweeting the exact thing you're thinking of. There's been a sluice of deplorable rhetoric surrounding beauty standards and transition goals, and I thought I could chip in something that isn't terribly negative.
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I want to teach a tech ethics class that's entirely based on watching episodes of Voyager. There is 100% enough material there for a whole semester.
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I have found "what worries you about this" to be one of the best questions I can ask when training junior researchers. "What do you need?" and "How can I help you prepare?" both go to a "what SHOULD I need?" place - but what they *actually* need is to address their worries.
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Before
#Pride
ends it's important we each remember the literal, individual pride in being queer that sustains us. Six months (this week!) into being on estrogen, one of the best things in my life is being trans. I'm proud to be a queer trans woman. I'm proud that I found Me.
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IMO, "I look forward to citing this work" is one of the coolest things you can hear from reviewers.
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Read this whole thread, but this is important: getting rid of abusers WILL mean realizing horrible things about people you genuinely like. Abuse is just so widespread, and tbh most abusers know how to fake being decent people. We've got to be prepared to throw them out anyway.
This is how it is. It may be your own colleague, friend, advisor or advisee, and in some contexts they may have been fine--even fun!--around you. It’s uncomfortable to have to reconcile this. Principles over discomfort means that this is what we have to do.
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Why do I want more trans women to know this?
1) There's your community, right there
2) This knowledge is the difference between your first sapphic relationship being the usual messy but fun growth experience, and you being used as an experiment by the worst kind of lesbian
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Queer interrogation scene in DISCO: confident daddy joking (Culber), uptight twink asking for gossip (Stamets), old, tired lesbian asking for snacks (Reno), young pansexual just trying to keep afloat (Tilly) and angry lesbian who is too into martial arts trying to fight (Nhan).
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I'm talking about my discipline, Computer Science, but this is a thing throughout scientific research. Why do we have so little info on women's health? Because no one would fund work unless it was on men! Same thing in education! Same thing in EVERYTHING!
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Cis friends, I know there's a lot happening in the world, but this is a crucial moment for you to be vocal and active in your support of trans people. Yes, I know you had a busy afternoon planned, but they're literally stealing kids and taking life-saving meds away from them.
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NEW PUB: How Transfeminine TikTok Creators Navigate the Algorithmic Trap of Visibility via Folk Theorization @
#CSCW2022
I view folk theorization as a crucial tool for marginalized users, and that's super true for heavily-targeted transfemme creators.
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Once again, I am struck by how much harassment would just disappear from this site if we had a "do not show my content to people within the United Kingdom" option - looking at the stats, the vast majority of my traffic on days when I'm being harassed is from the UK.
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I simplified the title to "Understanding Users" but look! A real course at Northeastern that I designed and am teaching in the spring:
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Of course, I'm probably just a victim of the grand cis woman conspiracy where they insidiously lower our defenses by loving us, supporting us, materially aiding us, sheltering us, running defense for us, making space for us...
Truly, these monsters are playing the long game.
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I woke up to a bunch of transphobic harassment on this platform and TikTok, and a bunch of really nice things from all of you, my academic colleagues and actual intended audience. Thank you all for regularly being the counterbalance to a world of people who are full of hate.
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Research friends: I really, REALLY don't want to see the word "intersectionality" in your paper if I'm about to hit a methods section that reveals a sample so white its reflection can be seen from space.
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“If you were to remove my internal sense of my own womanhood, you would remove my whole sense of self. I will never consent to that, ever. To even theorize doing so is plainly unethical.”
If you do not have deep understanding of the above, you have no right to do trans research.
It's been awhile since I've done a post on my newsletter but I had some thoughts on that retracted gender dysphoria journal paper that I had to put to print.
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A good thread. Medically transitioning isn't a requirement to be trans, but it's really important to a lot of people's experiences.
I've met far too many pre- or early transition trans people worried that medically transitioning is somehow conformist or some kind of personal failing, a temptation to be resisted.
Fuck that noise. Bodily autonomy rules and biohacking your endrocrine system is based actually.
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NEW PUB @
#CSCW2021
: What would a platform centered on queer design values for all queer folks look like? For starters, a lot more focused on self-determination and inclusion, with elections, specialized educators, opt-in algo curation, and tiered spaces.
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(Important note: CS/HCI also happens to have a bunch of trans men in it who are *super* supportive of trans women and my work specifically. This isn't about trans men vs trans women - it's about larger societal attitudes and how they get reproduced through trans discourse.)
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Today is one year since I started taking hormones. I was always a girl, but that day I started actively reclaiming my womanhood, and I have zero regrets. I get to be fully me now, even if I came into being fully me at the worst possible time. A lot changes in a year. (thread)
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I want to be clear: not about a specific paper under review.
But in general: it sucks to be a go-to reviewer in an area where people constantly ignore your specific work.
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This thread is a good look at how the narrative re: queer and trans issues has rapidly radicalized to the right over the past few months. It is getting worse, folks, and this is the time to use cishet privilege to actively help your queer and especially trans friends.
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Visible older transitions are legit doing a lot of the younger folks a service. As someone who is around students who are eggs a decent amount, a lot of the chatter I hear has that "but I'm already 19, there's no point" flavor, and they NEED countermessaging.
fucking love seeing ppl who are in their 60s or older transitioning and posting photos showing themselves off and it makes the ppl who think you have to transition by 20 all the more irritating
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I need to find a way to teach a class over in WGSS so I can sublimate my frustration into a syllabus, like one does.
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To me, the most interesting point of
@morganklauss
’ new paper is the simple provocation: why are we even classifying gender? It’s too fluid a concept to be useful, and lower-level characteristics tell us a lot more about the person.
#CSCW2019
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@ACM_CSCW
No lie: I want the PC to please understand how much less stressful today is for many of us because the new four-deadline structure for CSCW exists. I firmly believe that the new CSCW structure will be a positive for the community's collective mental health.
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Wow. The amount of DMs I got basically saying “I support trans rights but can you please not say mean things about Harry Potter” really seems horrifying when I consider the crickets re: posting about actual, non-fictional trans folk losing their healthcare rights.
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Yesterday, we held a Queer(ing) HCI SIG I helped organize - and I have to tell you all, it thoroughly exceeded my expectations and even my hopes. I have some thoughts I’d like to share, about building solidarity and being inclusive as a queer community.
#CHI2019
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I am teaching ethnography and grounded theory this week in a Computer Science college, and I continue to be amazed that I found a CS school that wants me to teach deep, interpretive, qualitative methods.
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Something I've been hearing a lot in algorithm-related sessions is the worry that it will seem "creepy" if we explain everything. But... if what's going on is actually really creepy, shouldn't that be how the user feels? Maybe... we could be less creepy in our designs?
#chi2018
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New pub with
@ashleymawalker
@
#chi2020
! The first HCI study of bi+ experience and queer intracommunity dynamics in online spaces, PLUS some interesting new methodological developments and an extended, v. citeable perspective on conflict and harm online.
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Yeah, this is policy, folks. Don't even talk to us if you intend to try to hide who we are. We deserve better.
I've got someone in my mentions trying to justify a cis lesbian wanting to date a trans woman but "don't say anything about it" cuz cis women will get abuse.
As a cis lesbian, I say FUCK OFF to that.
If u won't date a trans woman openly & be proud of her, don't date her. 🙄
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Read my
#CSCW2021
paper on adaptive folk theorization! New methods! New framework for folk theorization and adaptation! New way to account for deep, complex feels towards platforms! New standard for algorithmic literacy! Now with "Honorable Mention"!
NEW PUB @
#CSCW2021
and FOLK THEORIES ARE BACK! Platforms change constantly, and we're left to adapt by updating our
#folktheories
. I look at how we account for change during folk theorization, and how our relationships with platforms impact adaptation.
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Pride month starts tomorrow. Seems like a good time to remember that queer liberation and Black liberation are inseparable from each other, and that the reason we have pride in the first place is the courage of Black bisexual transwomen.
#BlackLivesMatter
#BLACKTRANSLIVESMATTER
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Stop building machine learning systems that tell you who is gay! You're taking good jobs away from sassy, judgmental queer people.
Also it's ethically indefensible. And weird too, tbh, stop obsessing over us.
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Thank you once again,
#cscw2021
, for sending me interesting papers to review. I review a lot, and every time, CSCW gives me something I can dig into and really appreciate / legit help improve. To me, personally, our process feels like peer review as it is supposed to be.
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Are you
#queerinhci
? Do you care about queer issues and research?
#CHI2020
might be cancelled, but the CHI Queer SIG is all-online and bigger than ever. Idea forums and async discussion now-April 28, live events April 29 & 30. for details!
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Do you have any idea how many people try to stop each and every one of us from accessing care? A LOT. Conforming would be keeping my body in an unacceptable state just so people don't have to deal with another visibly trans woman.
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@talia_bhatt
Are you telling me we can't solve transphobia and racism by making sure everyone in the party understands the boss mechanics?
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@ChanceyH
@theroguesenna
This should be an option on the Survey of Earned Doctorates, tbh. They're missing a huge amount of data by not letting people indicate spite-related motivations.
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@jakki__CO
I strongly suspect this is a case of what I’ve called “algorithmic paternalism” in my research - genuine attempt to protect from harassment via cutting us off from (potentially harmful) engagement that’s poorly implemented and just winds up silencing and isolating us in the end.
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What a nice thing - my first publication ever, highlighted for
#iwd2021
It’s especially meaningful because I have spent the last 72 hours being bombarded by graphic, hateful messages telling me I could never be a “real woman” - it’s nice to know my colleagues support me 💜
For
#womenshistorymonth
#IWD2021
, we feature: From editors to algorithms: A values-based approach to understanding story selection in the Facebook news feed by Michael Ann DeVito
@drmichaelann
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lol I just realized I've been pretty consistently explaining my transition to folks at CSCW 2020 (I had a big bushy beard at CSCW 2019) by just saying some version of "yup, I'm a girl now, it's a whole thing"
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It is fundamentally bizarre to me how so many folks equate “social construct” with “not real”
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I'm not at CHI, and that's the only reason I'm not showing up out of nowhere when people have conversations about better understanding user perceptions, whispering "folk theories," and then disappearing into the shadows.
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***looks at Omicron numbers***
You know what? I'm buying a nicer chair for year 3 of working from home.
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Excited for the next
#StarTrek
spin-off, “Michelle Yeoh Does Whatever The Fuck She Wants”
There is zero sarcasm here, I’ll watch Philippa Georgiou do anything weekly for as long as she cares to do things.
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I'm torn on our ever-increasing expectations re: undergrad research. It's AMAZING that there are so many opportunities for undergrads to do real research now. But at the same time, I see more and more of them just having to freak out about another metric they're behind on.
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As
#CSCW2023
winds down, I want to put it out there that if you have amazing undergrads or master's students who are interested in doing a PhD in qualitative computer science, queer/trans HCI, or social computing, I'm recruiting! Please send them my way.
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My partner is a fat cis woman, and our experiences are directly tied together on issues ranging from medical and social discrimination to fetishization to difficulties in trying to find clothes. The overlap in social positioning actively makes us better partners to each other.
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Today is
#TransDayOfVisibility
. I continue to be a nonbinary trans woman! There's a lot going on right now, but it's important we still take the time to remember that trans folks exist, and we still have a lot of fighting to do for our rights, fights you can help with.
#TDOV
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Titled my dissertation strategically.
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So excited to be part of this awesome group!
As the new academic year begins, Khoury College is excited to welcome its largest-ever cohort of new faculty. Check out our roundup to learn about them, their research and teaching interests, and what makes them tick. Read more here:
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I want to teach a grad class that's all about how to go from "I found 12 things, 6 of which appear to relate to every single one of the other 6, all of them are cool" to "I have three points, two cross-cutting themes, and a solid contribution to theory and/or design"
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Gotta apply to this grant-writing grant real quick so I can get a grant-writing grant to write this grant so I can hire a postdoc who will free up more of my time so I can write more grants.
This is a very good system.
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To speak to her overall point from a personal perspective: I just can't see how me taking the reins of my own biology, teaching myself basic endocrinology, and pursuing the exact meds I want to turn my body into exactly what I want it to be is "conformist"
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TFW you want to be Spock when you're a little kid, then you want to be Jadzia Dax as a teen and young adult, and now you're an adult adult and realize you're half Kira Nerys, half Kathryn Janeway.
(This feeling is being a transgender, autistic lesbian.)
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One of my favorite parts of accepting this new job was my girlfriend lovingly creating a giant pro/con matrix on her whiteboard to gently reveal to me that I'd already made my decision.
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