I work in the tech industry. In my area, it overwhelmingly skews White/East Indian Boomer-aged male. New hires are encouraged to provide a brief intro about themselves. This time around the new hire has one of those Germanic/Nordic names that end in something that translates to "son of XYZ" (as a first name). Okay fine, another white man in the industry.

Out the gate the intro uses female-gendered terms. I was kind of blown away by it, given the industry and its history of misogyny. From my experience, all of the women have tried hard to be as gender neutral as possible when referring to themselves. One female employee, who is now well into maternity leave, tried extremely hard to call it "leave" or "absence". She was very uncomfortable with being in front in the International Women's Day photo-op despite being integral to the company (in hindsight it is likely due to the fact that she was visibly pregnant at the time). She is quite proud of herself and her work otherwise.

I say all this to lament the fact that someone who takes pride in being a "mother" and consistently uses gendered terms (like saying "policewoman" vs "police officer" or "cop") immediately tips me off to the fact that this person is likely not female. I'm more saddened that this person is one of "those" transwomen. I googled "her" and one of the first results is a Medium article about "breaking barriers" as the "first woman" to do a particular activity.

Before the Coronavirus, we also had a transwoman consultant appear in stripper heels and an animal print dress. Imagine if one of our female engineers came to work like that!!