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Trans former Wikimedia employee says abuse at the nonprofit is “organization wide”

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Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨wikipediasuckscoop@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/06/trans-former-wikimedia-employee-says-at-the-nonprofit-is-organization-wide/

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Comments

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  • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Man that is an unfortunate headline phrasing. I kept wondering if Optimus Prime has a penis or not.

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  • infeeeee@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Her direct supervisor was based in Kenya. […] Among other things, her supervisor asked her inappropriate questions about her sexual identity and inquired about her medical history. In emails to HR, Mae characterized other behavior by the supervisor as “transphobic microaggressions” and “ableism”.

    This sounds like it’s a clash of cultures in part. I guess in Kenya you can rarely meet openly gay or trans folks as it’s punishable with prison there.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBTQ_rights_in_Kenya

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    • tabular@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      A “clash of cultures” would not be inaccurate as “culture” includes everything a group says/does. It’s an insufficient term as it often conveys mundane differences but “stigma, discrimination, and violence” is a substantially more moral difference (if Wikipedia is accurate about gender identity and expression in Kenya).

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      • infeeeee@lemmy.zip ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        What I tried to say, it might be just some curiosity at the beginning, from someone who heard anti-gay propaganda his whole life, not necessarily malice. Wikipedia should have handled the situation better.

        After repeatedly being denied transfer to another team, Mae was asked to meet with managers so that Wikimedia could “learn more about your recent experiences.”

        E.g. it’s not clear why they didn’t let her transfer to another group. After this it should have become clear that they can’t work together, why it was better to fire her than to move her to a different group.

        Mae was warned that one of her managers was “a ‘fixer’ who goes after employees that were seen as stirring the pot.”

        So others noticed the she may be a problem as she seemed like stirring the pot.

        The article is one sided, it would help if wikipedia would clarify what was going on, what they saw. Maybe we can learn more about this from the lawsuit, if it will be public.

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  • qaz@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    PSA OP “wikipediasuckscoop” seems to have a personal vendetta against wikipedia. All their posts are various articles bashing the site.

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  • infeeeee@lemmy.zip ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I found a better article about this story: thedesk.net/…/kayla-mae-wikipedia-lawsuit-sinkule…

    The woman, Kayla Mae — who also goes by the name Kayla Morgan — employed the same attorney and law firm in a discrimination case brought against a Texas-based company called Security Brands, where she alleged ongoing workplace abuse and harassment because of her sexual orientation.

    In her first lawsuit, Mae said she worked as a senior software developer for Security Brands in 2020. From the moment she was hired, Mae says she was subjected to harassment because of her gender identity as a “lesbian female who presents as masculine.”

    “She is sometimes perceived as transgender, although she is not,” the complaint read.

    That is different from what Mae alleges in the case against Wikimedia Foundation, where her complaint identifies her as a “transgender female” who was subject to “gender stereotyping.”

    It sounds like she is playing the system deliberately. 2 times getting fired from 2 different companies for the same reason? Sounds fishy.

    Mae says the Wikimedia Foundation ultimately sustained certain complaints made against Mbuguru. But, despite those policy violations, she was still required to work on his team, which led to additional harassment and discrimination that was the basis for further complaints.

    Months into her employment, Mae was reportedly asked to speak with two Wikimedia Foundation human resource directors, Tatiana Tompkins and DeJa Hamilton, and a senior software engineering manager named Sai Suman Cherukwada. After speaking with Mae about her complaints, Cherukwada fired her over Zoom, the lawsuit alleges.

    She was fired during she made the complaint? With the pot stirring comment and this background I’m mostly convinced she is a the problem here, she is looking for drama everywhere. These kind of individuals don’t help the trans right movement, and lgbtqnation.com should do a background check on people they report about.

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  • brighteast@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    “Abuse”

    Mae was warned that one of her managers was “a ‘fixer’ who goes after employees that were seen as stirring the pot.”

    So basically doing their “managing job” in the best interest of the company.

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  • propitiouspanda@lemmy.cafe ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Trans people need to seriously worry about how much they’re crying wolf.

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