My Pride Story

Pride Month 2022

Corey Hickson
June 16, 2022

It’s pride month and with that comes more topics than I could ever possibly discuss in one piece of writing. We could go into the research that highlights the differences that LGBTQ2+ folks experience in tech, or dive into queer history of Stonewall with Marsha P. Johnson, or many other personal stories! There’s a lot to pick from and it honestly makes it tough to write anything because of all the potential stories to tell.

Rather than attempt to speak on behalf of others or retell their stories, I thought I’d share some of my personal experiences. In doing so, I hope that someone can find value in reading this or understand something better than before. Even if I’m not sure what that will be haha.

As a warning, this writing talks about sensitive topics like hate, depression, and mental health.

Growing up being a kid in the closet was not great and there’s not really any other way around it. Before I really started to understand all that, I used to have a lot of passion and curiosity for life. In my experience, and I’ve heard this is quite common, I grew up knowing I was different in some way, but I just didn’t understand how. But as I began to understand that, I also understood that other people did not want me to be the way that I was. So, I began to hold onto my breath to put away the parts of me that were different, not knowing that’s where so much of my passion and curiosity for life came from.

The rest of being a kid and teenager was a lot of removing the word “fag” etched into my calculator, or not drinking until about 22 because I was afraid someone would ‘figure me out’ if I was drunk. All of this continued on until university where things got quite bad and I became depressed. I was like Gollum but taller and with better hair. Sorry to anyone who knew me before I came out.

Eventually, things got bad enough and I more or less broke. I knew that something had to change to figure out why this 20 year saga of my life had left me a shell of the person I was when I first started walking around on this planet. This happened right about the time when I started to get into tech as a career, rather than a hobby. So I decided to come out (a bit). I let a few people know via text I might be dating men in the near future. My friends were supportive but my family had a meltdown and tried to convince me it was a phase so that they could ignore it. When I eventually got into a stable relationship, I was told to move out because they couldn’t “handle what I was doing.”

But, the switch had been flipped. Something in me had led up to that change and finally that young kid that had so much passion for life had peeked out again. That part of myself never really left but it was a huge relief after what had been years of the world showing me and my peers that being different was not okay.

And so I was out. And at some point soon after, I was working at Vendasta. At this point you might say, “we did it and we all learned a lot about ourselves along the journey, right?” Not quite, once you’re out, the bad things don’t suddenly stop, and there’s a lot more to it.

Being new to the tech industry left me with a lot of questions. Could I be out at work? Would that impact my career? Is tech and being queer two separate things? I had a lot of hesitations but eventually I found spaces here where that was ok and I became a lot more comfortable being out and honestly quite vocal about it when it mattered.

I do think it has impacted my career and the paths that I’ve chosen, although some of those impacts have been positive. For example, being queer in tech has opened doors to a whole global network of peers that I get along with instantly and cherish dearly. In Saskatchewan, we’re quite isolated from a lot of the mega-tech centres like San Francisco or Seattle, but I have queer friends abroad which help me understand how we’re doing here in comparison. I think that two-way mentorship is extremely valuable to me and I use it to provide more informed opinions when I work here.

On the other side, though, there are spaces in tech that I won’t go near, or know I’d be out of place in. There’s no simple solutions to intolerance of differences, and they’re complex issues. Their effect on LGBTQ2+ people in tech can be complexly hateful or ignorant and tough to deal with, especially to queer people of colour. For example, trying to express how corporate culture draws from heternormative, white, male norms and limits space for queer working culture.

Outside of tech, we’ve come a long way from when I was in school, but I still go to the gym and hear young adults say “that’s fucking gay” or I hear slurs at the mall (both this year already). I think a lot of people would know me as pretty patient, but when things like this happen, suddenly 20 years of frustration can come back in a snap. I still have trouble focusing my anger into constructive comments that could better educate them.

So I hope in reading this, you’ve taken away something you think is valuable and will help us all work better together. If you’re reading and think, “wow that’s so brave you shared this!” I would encourage you to take that inspiration to be brave enough to speak up when those around you say something shitty or use who we are as a dis. I use laughter as a coping mechanism but I’ve learned that I can laugh at something then stop and say that that’s not okay to say and I don’t want to hear that. LGBTQ2+ folks aren’t always around to say something and the work shouldn’t always be ours to do even if we are around, so I hope that we can get help stopping those behaviours, making us more inclusive.

This writing is really just a slice of my experience and I imagine some of you will have more questions than when you started reading. I’d be happy to field them as best as I can and my DMs are open. I’ve helped answer questions before when fellow Vendastians respectfully wanted to know more and am happy to do so again.

Lastly, I want to plug our #lgbt-only channel. We have an exclusive space for LGBTQ2+ folks that we chat quite a bit in and support each other. If you are interested in joining, please let me know and I’ll send you an invite. We’re always excited to have more LGBTQ2+ people around :)

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