This is a submission for the WeCoded 2026 Challenge: Echoes of Experience
It's the time of year when I feel most conflicted. Tomorrow is International Women's Day, and as I've seen in recent years, it's usually the time when men start asking when International Men's Day is and saying that equality has gone too far. Of course, not all men, but usually a man.
In Finland, we also have Minna Canth Day and Equality Day on March 19, and in the days between these dates, all kinds of trolls and weird anti-equality things appear. As someone who cares deeply about equality and human rights, this time is a bit stressful.
By the way, Minna Canth was a Finnish writer, businesswoman, and social influencer, best known for her work on women's rights. If you are interested in learning more about her, here is a link to Wikipedia: Minna Canth.
Anyway, I also really enjoy this time of year. Especially Dev's We Coded has a special place in my heart: reading posts from other people who are from underrepresented genders in tech and seeing how the community comes together to defend those who receive nasty or unnecessary comments on their posts.
This is my sixth time participating in We Coded, and over the years I have shared my experiences as a non-binary woman in tech. I also shared some advice for allies, but last year I decided to just share my experiences because a lot of people keep telling me that there are no problems and that technology is the same for everyone, so I am using my efforts to prove otherwise. And I'm going to continue it this year too, with a couple of tips included.
Naturally, these examples are not everything I have witnessed and experienced since March 2025, but rather a few select examples. Let's start with some invisibility.
Non-binary woman, an invisible creature
This has been the first year that I have fully accepted myself as a non-binary person. I'm still figuring out the details, so I present myself as a non-binary woman because I still feel a connection to femininity. I have lived as a woman most of my life, but at the same time, deep down, I know that I am not a woman. Or just a woman.
Anyway, one of the things I started doing is referring to myself with the pronoun "they." Generally, I address them/her, because I've decided not to use too much energy correcting people, so "she" is fine with me for now. But when I refer to myself, like in a biography or something that requires a third person, I use "they."
Last spring I was completing a CV for an independent agency. The agency person asked me to fill in the details of the CV and they would edit it to make it better selling. I was fine with that. I'm not the best at making up big words to sell my experience.
I wrote my bio using "they." A little later, I wanted to check something on the edited CV, so I opened the file and noticed that the bio had been updated. Yes, there were some phrases that were better at selling my experience. But they had also changed the pronoun "they" to "she."
I felt so fucking invisible.
I mean, it's one thing when someone makes assumptions about me. I can understand that. But editing my own words, that hurts. And yes, they probably didn't mean it. Hell, they probably didn't even realize what they were doing.
So, a word of advice: Respect the pronouns someone asks you to use, and especially the pronouns they use to refer to themselves. If someone writes their bio with a few pronouns, they know what they're doing. There is a reason for it.
What if your existence is propaganda?
Last year I gave a lot of talks on creative coding with Kotlin. The talks contained some live coding, and here's a video of what I ended up building on stage:
Isn't the ghost cute? If you're interested in hearing the full story, I gave this talk, for example, at Droidcon London (it was
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