Lynn Cyrin, part 1

Nia: I'm going to start by asking you some really basic questions. How do you identify?

Lynn: Trans-femme. Somewhere on the spectrum of people who are trans and feminine, not exactly a lady most of the time. Sometimes, when it's beneficial to me.

Nia: OK. Can I ask when it’s beneficial?

Lynn: When it's useful for me to be really, really basic to have a simple identity, when I'm talking to cis people who don't know any better.

Nia: OK. And do you identify as an artist?

Lynn: I think of programming as art a lot. Not that I'm booting like huge math simulations that look artistic, I'm also a designer. I think it looks nice. I constantly neg myself on the designs that I make but I do all of my icons and all of my layout stuff in colors.

Nia: So you consider programming to be art, is that what you said earlier?

Lynn: Yeah, I kind of got to it from doing sketch artist stuff, and then architecture, and then programming was kind my career path.

Nia: So I don't know anything about tech anything, so when you say “sketch artist”, what does that refer too?

Lynn: I just mean literally in sketch books—

Nia: OK, got it.

Lynn: --for the majority of my life I was doing sketch art stuff.

Nia: And then I'm sorry you said there was something between that and programming?

Lynn: I did architecture. It's actually a really obvious flow when you look at it really hard, because when I was doing sketch artist stuff it was always concepts and shapes and order and form. It wasn't portraits at all. It was a skyscraper composed of blocks that I measured. And from there it was architecture. Architecture was almost too abstract for me. I wanted to do more, and interestingly when I was using architecture programs I was often more interested in how the program let me do the things I was doing rather than the thing I was making. And also I wanted to have more control over the things that I made, and once you learn programming you can make anything that a computer can make.

Nia: I read your origin story on your website and you learned how to code — you taught yourself how to code — while you were living in a homeless shelter?

Lynn: I was in school doing the architecture/engineering thing and I had one programming class when I was in school, and I was like “oh, this is nice” and then school exploded. That just so happened to be my bubble to my favorite classes in my last semester that I was there, and I had student loans, and my parents, and trans stuff and I'm like “OK, I'm San Francisco now.” I just kinda decided to go to San Francisco.

Nia: Where were you before?

Lynn: Washington D.C. Washington D.C. is surprising in it's transphobia, usually to people. They're like people are like “Oh yeah, it's the North East, so it's good, right?” No, not really.

Nia: (laughs) The North East is a lot more complicated than that.

Lynn: Yeah, it's a step from North Carolina, which itself is a step from South Carolina, and I don't have to describe South Carolina to people.

So I just decided to move to San Francisco and in the first month in San Francisco I realized I was staying in a really crappy place, and I realized that a student on the other side of the country who's definitely not going to school anymore doesn't get architecture or engineering jobs, right? But I was like, “but I had that one programming class.” That didn't make me think that I could get a tech job, it's just that of all of the tools I used when I was in school, that was the one I could still use. Everything else was some kind of software that's probably several hundred dollars, but programming is: you write words and then stuff comes out.

I actually remember the first thing that was explicitly an art project, I fiddled with the gravity equations and force equations from physics stuff to make exploding stars. I don't have gifs anymore because I lost them, but it was really pretty. That was the thing I was doing in the homeless shelter. I got the homeless shelter people to be extra nice to me because I was working all day. I wasn't getting paid for it but I was making exploding stars. And they're like “Lynn, you've been on your computer for 12 hours, what are you doing? I turn around my computer and there's this really cool thing happening and they're like “oh ok, keep doing that.”

Nia: So you grew up in DC?

Lynn: Yeah, I've only really experienced DC, San Francisco, Portland, honestly. I think it's been a very predictable migration for any particular queer person.

Nia: How so?

Lynn: Like I know a lot of people who moved from some non-ideal not-West Coast state to either San Francisco or Portland and then the other. That very specific thing.

Nia: So you moved out here because after you came out as trans staying at home wasn't working anymore?

Lynn: It was DC, plus at home. So the best, the best trans clinic, air quotes “the best” trans clinic in DC, their best doctor was this white woman who patronized me the whole time. She asked really patronizing questions like “so you're experiencing what it's like to be harassed as a woman now?” I went there because I was like “Hey, I would like to get on hormones and stuff” and she's talking to me about the nature of feminine harassment and I was like “uhhhhhhhh.”

Nia: Like she thought you needed instruction as to how to be a woman?

Lynn: Yeah, and she was just generally, she was acting the age component of the situation which was a 60 year old woman talking to a 20-, 18-year old woman about 'life stuff' and that wasn't really my M.O. And also my parents weren't just helping, my parents just don't care to acknowledge anything. Despite my presentation convincing everyone outside, my parents just did the wrong thing the whole time. I tried that for a year. I tried the DC trans thing for a year, and it was a huge train wreck. And then I go to San Francisco—

Nia: Could you say more about how it was a train wreck? Or in what way?

Lynn: Firstly my parents would never acknowledge me. Family would never acknowledge me, and my friends… I lost half of my friends, which happens when your trans. Right, so just trying to figure out the thing. Oh, and I couldn't do school because half the trans reasons and half money stuff. So I was trying to figure out how to be trans while also trying to figure out how to have a job while being mentally assaulted by my parents and my trans therapist.

And then I was new at being trans, and my neighborhood wasn't so awesome, so every so often I would get clocked right as I left the house. Two, three, four, five seconds after I left the house. So I just thought “Well, fuck then I'm just not going to leave the house.” But not leaving the house means I'm with my parents who do the same thing that would be happening if I was outside, there's just less chance of me being violently assaulted for it.

And I couldn't move because I was poor in DC. I was the only place poor people fit in D.C. So I was like “I can't be here.” There was no upward mobility for poor Black trans people who don't know anyone in DC.

Nia: And you thought it would be better in San Francisco?

Lynn: Well, I knew that the trans part would be better in San Francisco. What I didn't know was that fact that I knew 1% of tiny programming skills would fit into San Francisco so super well. That's really what did it, but also the fact that I didn't have as many amazingly ridiculous trans issues. I moved to San Francisco and in three days I had

a woman of color trans therapist who got me hormones in a week.Nia: That's awesome.

Lynn: As opposed to a year… of this white lady… who was annoying… and didn't give me anything.

Nia: So how was San Francisco for you, and why aren't you there anymore?

Lynn: San Francisco was great.

Nia: How long where you there?

Lynn: Two years I think? San Francisco was great for specifically when you're queer and you don't have anything at all, and you have a professional skill, one of the type of arts that fits in San Francisco's area really well, or tech stuff, one of their professional aspects. People in San Francisco with money are really bad at solving the homelessness problem, but they really like to think they're trying. It's really easy if you share a career path with one of these industry people who want to help out, to get them to catch on to you, and try to pull you up… that being their way of solving the homelessness issue, just by helping you.

And also there was less passive trans micro-aggression stuff everywhere because no one knew me so I wasn't getting clocked all the time anymore so I wasn't going to be dealing with that.

Nia: And did you have a place when you came out to San Francisco or where you homeless when you first moved to San Francisco?

Lynn: I rented a thing from someone. I had a mat in someone's corner for $300 a month for three months. And I only had $1000. So as of the third month I had spent $300 on food so I couldn't pay rent because wanted to eat instead. And then one night, well it wasn't one night, there was two weeks preparation, but from my roommate's point of view, one night I was there, and then the next night my stuff was gone, and I texted them, “Oh, I'm in a homeless shelter now. Bye.” So that's what happened. It was an upward move though.

Nia: OK. I guess I'm just trying to piece the pieces of your story together.

Lynn: See? This is why people want me to write about it. (laughs)

Nia: Well, you're also a really good writer! So how did you get out of the shelter, or how did you stop being homeless?

Lynn: It was the specific way I decided to capitalize on local San Francisco people's tech evangelicalism/activism stuff and their wanting to help homeless people.

Nia: It almost sounds like they didn't want to help you because you were homeless, they wanted to help you because you were a programmer and they saw value in that.

Lynn: Well, I mean, yeah! That's kind of the broad point I like to make to people. I have a lot of programmer, well-paid tech friends who at least have the presence of mind to make this statement about themselves frequently enough. Like, they wouldn't take a 70% pay cut to go full socialism so that no one would be homeless. They wouldn't do that. They openly admit that they wouldn't do that. But if they can bring someone who is homeless into their circle and they know that they're going to be brought into the circle, they're going to that. They don't have enough general desire to give to everyone, but when they're like “this one person will do this thing if I can give them this,” then they feel compelled to help.

Nia: If they can see a tangible change in a short period of time in how their help makes a difference?

Lynn: Yeah.

Nia: Sorry was there more you were about to say?

Lynn: Yeah, no, that was it.

Nia: How did you start having fancy tech friends in San Francisco?

Lynn: My first thing was I went to tech events, and I'm like, “I'm going to act like I'm just normal. I'm going to act like just a college student and I'm going back to my dorm after this.” And that got really annoying really, really fast. So when I first started going to tech events I was homeless, and when you're homeless the thing they don't tell you is that… they kind of like to act like homeless people are just allowed to sit around all the time, but if you're in a homeless shelter specifically, or even if you're homeless on the street, people are harassing you to do something all the time.

And for me that was just “I'm going to find a tech event to go to every day” because what else am I going to do? I'm going to do nothing, so I'm just I'm going to go to a tech event, everyday. And at first I was like I'm going to act like I'm normal and I'm going to act like “I'm going to a tech event and then I'm going back to my dorm because I'm 20. 20's in a dorm. So I have a chill life.” And that kind of got annoying really quick because people kept asking me questions that I felt compelled to lie to but I hate lying, so I'd be like “Ehhhh, actually I'm not working on my homework when I get back. I'm actually going to be really annoyed at the fact that everyone's smoking weed around me, specifically because I'm allergic to it.”

Nia: At the shelter they're smoking weed?

Lynn: Yeah. You would think that they wouldn't be allowed to do that. They're not. But they do it. That actually was my experience in the dorm also.

Nia: People were smoking weed a lot?

Lynn: Yes, but, regardless. (Nia laughs) At some point I got tired of more invasive questions than that. Questions that wouldn't be invasive if you had the normal “oh yeah, my parents are paying for me to live in the dorm and I'm studying CS in college.” If I had that life it wouldn't be annoying but since I didn't I was just constantly frustrated about everything all the time. At some point I stumbled onto one tech event that had someone representing a tech feminist group, and I made like one off-hand comment about how someone was being really dramatically classist with something they just said. And I was like “What if someone can't afford this $1000 thing? Shouldn't that be obvious to everyone?” It was apparently obvious to no one (Nia laughs) around me. And the one person who representing the tech feminist people was like “Oh my gosh, you broke the monotony of our completely ridiculous privileged thoughts. You should come hang out with this geek feminism Double Union activist tech-sphere.” So then I moved there, I moved into this sphere of people who were all collectively working in tech, and all want to have it to be more political, like, activism and stuff. At least there people know about all of the basic forces that people deal with. I won't show up there and be like “using the n-word is racist” and have them be completely surprised. I didn't have to deal with that anymore.

Nia: That was something you were dealing with in tech spaces?

Lynn: I haven't dealt with that… actually, yes I have. (laughs) I was going to say “I haven't, no I didn't really deal with that particular thing.” No, actually I have. Usually from men. Usually from white men. Usually from white men whose parents pay for their CS degree and then they got their first job from their parent's job, and now they just don't know anything and now they're like “what do you mean using that word is racist?”

And that was my professional contacts before I found the activist subset of my profession. So instead when I moved to the activist subset of my profession, my complaint moves from “yes, excluding Black people from all your things is racist” to “I would like it if you gave a slightly larger percent of your income to reversing all of this imperialist colonialist stuff that's going on” and like they understand me, and they aren't like “Lynn, what are you talking about?” They're like “Lynn, sorry, I don't want to do that.”

Nia: (laughs) OK, so that's progress on some level.

Lynn: It is progress. It's definitely progress. I became a conduit through which they could actually do something that they felt they were actually doing. A lot of people see that and they're like, “Dang, don't you think you're like selling absolution to them?' I'm like, sort of, but I can tell with the vast majority of people for whom I do this thing, if it weren't for my specific work to get them to be more actively activists instead of theoretically activists, they just wouldn't be doing it at all.

Nia: Yeah.

Lynn: They would just say things. Like I think it was just three days ago that someone was on Twitter. They were talking about how this one tech project got $25,000 and they just threw it away. It was this white dude with a beard, like everyone else in tech, and they were like “What if marginalized people had this money?” and everyone who replied to them was also a white dude with a beard. And I'm like “Y'all don't know what you're talking about do you?” and they were like “No.” (Nia laughs.) I was like “Here, donate to specific thing, and you can just passively solve the problem. You will be giving to marginalized people in tech from that. You won't just be theoretical 'tech is wasteful, marginalized people should be doing something, but I don't know how to help them.'” I just say to do this thing, or give to me, or give to this specific group, and then they do it. This was like three days ago. This is an extremely common occurrence for me.

Nia: That you guide people in how to spend their money, and/or be less fucked up in tech?

Lynn: Yeah. I'm just at that position where there's a constant influx of people who like just realized “Dang, I'm fucked up.” And they're like, “How do I fix this?” And I'm like “Well, here's some links, three or four things by people who are doing a lot more work than you for a lot less money.”

So, for example my accountant for CollectQT that I work for, recently they did all of our numbers. The other people who work for CollectQT, their non-CollectQT jobs were Walmart and KFC, respectively. But instead of that, they’re working on tech stuff and activist stuff, for 5 dollars an hour, but it's not Walmart and KFC. So that's like a good living role that I've created for people, but I've created it on the back of— their rate is $5 to 10 an hour, but mine is $1. I work $1 an hour for all the stuff I do. It's worth it for me, because I know that me working $1 an hour let's four other people work $5 an hour, instead of KFC, and I like doing tech.

Nia: It sounds like they're making less than now they were making at KFC and Walmart.

Lynn: I'm making less than I would be I was working at Google or something, so yeah.

Nia: OK.

Lynn: It's more sustainable. Not for me specifically. It's not tearing people's brains apart as much. So the other day I corrected my coworker on a technical thing, and they were really upset because they feel like they're really bad at tech and blah blah blah blah blah, and that's the sort of complaints I get.

Nia: A coworker at CollectQT?

Lynn: Yeah. And they were upset, because they feel like their bad at tech stuff, and blah blah blah. But a few months ago they were complaining about how their boss at Walmart or wherever it was, was alluding to wanting to rape their girlfriend, and they just kept working there because that's what they had to do. Right? I'm like, “Well, clearly working here is a dramatic improvement” and I'm really glad that I can spread, through me working $1 an hour, and channeling most of my donations that I pull from tech people to other people, I get a lot more out of it than I would otherwise. That's been my whole M.O. for the last three years. Two or three tech people were like “Oh my gosh Lynn you should use that for you, 'cause you're really cool and great. You should go to conferences and stuff and fly around, and see cool people.” I'd actually rather pay queer people to not work at places that are horrible. So, that's been my thing.

Nia: Yeah, I was going to ask you how you convince people—that are already probably making minimum wage at KFC and Walmart—to take a pay cut but I feel like you just answered that question pretty well. (laughs)

Lynn: Yeah. I find that really funny, “Convince someone who's already working minimum wage to take a pay cut.” But when I was in that situation, I didn't understand the concept of potentially liking your job or your coworkers—

Nia: When you were in what situation?

Lynn: When I was in the situation of working minimum wage somewhere shitty that I absolutely hated. I didn't know the concept of liking your coworkers at all. Usually I'm not convincing them to take a pay cut, I'm convincing them that I'd be a cool coworker, better than like, racist micro-aggressions literally all day everyday. That's the draw for it. And then we're like, “Oh we can only pay you this much,” and they think of the fact that the work will be less mind-numbingly bad, they usually just deal with it. If you can still eat given the pay cut then you just deal with it.

Nia: How do you eat on $5 to $10 an hour? I mean I don't know what minimum wage is here, but in Oakland it's $12.25, so $10 is getting close to minimum wage, but $5?

Lynn: Yeah, I mean, I'm the only one who's full time on the thing, and I work above full time, I work 60 hours a week.

Nia: And you don't have a day job? This is it for you?

Lynn: (pause) So my—

Nia: Sorry, your nod is not audible. So I need (laughs)—

Lynn: Yeah, yeah.

Nia: OK, thank you (laughs).

Lynn: My pay stuff for CollectQT specifically is $1 an hour but I get paid $1200 a month to work to work 60 times 4… 240 [hours] a month. So, full time plus 50% more. My rate is way low, my rate is probably also $5 an hour given all the money I get in.

I make it work mainly because there's a lot more upward mobility than if I was working the $12 minimum wage in retail or something, I would just be working in retail. But with the pay cut I took to be integrated in tech stuff just for working a lot less… For example, I specifically have technical interviews I'm working on entirely because my activism stuff gave me the experience to be able to interview for companies that would pay me a living rate.

And CollectQT's writer just got a contract for a few thousand dollars for writing some technical articles. I was their bridge to tech stuff, I was the only super activist queer tech person that they know that helps them out. So we try not to work on the false assumption that the thing we're doing right now is sustainable. But we all know that the step above where what we're doing right now is a lot higher than, like, cashier to store manager in retail. We're half running on hope and half running on fumes. (Nia laughs) And generally we capitalize on it at the very end, so we're like “OK, cool we made it.”

Nia: So I want to ask you about CollectQT, but I don't think you answered the question about how you got out of the homeless shelter.

Lynn: As of me getting into the activist tech sphere, I think two or three years ago at this point, everything I did sort of led up to me founding CollectQT. As of me founding it I was getting in about $1000 a month.

Nia: Sorry, I'm still not following how you got from the homeless shelter to $1000 a month.

Lynn: Crowdfunding. That's probably the word I didn't use.

Nia: So you started crowdfunding while you were in the shelter?

Lynn: Yeah. I tried to only off-handedly, or like, sarcastically mention that I was in a homeless shelter on my whole “I'm doing tech things, and I'm really activist and you should pay me to keep doing this cool stuff.” Get rid of the homeless activist tech thing, everyone, everyone, that gives me a bunch of money to keep on working in tech doesn't know another trans Black women in tech. Not even one. Except me. And the majority don't even know another Black woman in tech. Don't even know another Black person in tech.

Nia: Jesus.

Lynn: So I'm like way out there. I'm like homeless, and I'm three identities that they never interacted with. Ever. And they're just white and boring.

The first person who wanted to crowdfund me one of the white and boring people who wanted to help out more, who just had a lot of money they didn't know what to do with, and they were like “Hey Lynn, if you started crowdfunding I'm sure people would give money to you.” I was like “Would they?” and they were like “I'm sure,” (Nia laughs) meaning that they would do it. I didn't understand. It took me a month. After a month and a half I did it. And all of a sudden there was $400 from someone who I didn't know who it was. I was like wait, I know who it was. It was the person who told me to do this.

A lot of people can't get this. But this is actually probably unsustainable. It's definitely unsustainable in large numbers. When you start doing reoccurring crowdfunding and Patreon, if your first influx is like above $50 or $100 it kicks you off really hard. Cause if you're below that oh they don't get anything, what could they possibly be doing? Blah blah blah blah blah capitalism. Money gets to more money. That sort of thought process. But I started off at $400 and I started slowly inched up to $1000, at which point I could… I wasn't really renting somewhere. I was supposed to be renting, but I wasn't actually paying rent. I was working for the person to whom I was supposed to be paying rent. Only as of me crowdfunding up to $1300-$1500, which I'm at right now, could start paying rent with the crowdfunded money.

Nia: And that's a month?

Lynn: Yeah. I know all the people who have made all of the most reoccurring money in tech because they're all my friends. I'm talking about like Ashe Dryden, Shanley Kane, two or three of the GamerGate people, like I know their income because I'm their friend and I've been following them since before they got that income, right? And I'm like fifth on that list at like $1300ish of like tech activism money. So in the tech activism sphere it's a lot. It's like top ten a whole lot, but it's $1500 a year— no, $15,000 a year. But whereas I'm doing all this amazing groundbreaking tech activism, crowdfunding,making your own job and then not having to be chained to people you don't really want to work with type of life, it's so new that the cutting edge is 15K a year.

Nia: So all of your income that you live off of is completely crowdfunded?

Lynn: Yeah. I honestly don't know how I've managed for this long. And I honestly the only reason I've sort of given in to be like “I'm going to get a tech job now.” I really want indulgent things- “indulgent things.” Like I would like actual medicine for my actual trans problems, instead of “Oh, I can sort of get it from this clinic here but then I'm off of it for three months because I can't afford it. And then I have to wait for six months,” because the wait times for trans clinics in Portland are six months. Then I have to order it from out of state for a 200 percent markup. Out of state— sorry, out of country.

Nia: Oh, wow.

Lynn: --from this place in Indonesia and sometimes Customs takes it. So I just got tired of that whole thing. And I also got tired of—this is me being a little shit—but I got tired

of, like, so, other activists who are trying to do their own thing would be like, “Oh my gosh, Lynn, why don't you do more with the relative amount of more money that you make than the rest of us who are doing the Patreon thing, which, the average of all my friends on Patreon, they're getting $5. I'm like, well yeah, I guess when you see my 1K on Patreon,”— and it's not 1K on Patreon, it's 1K total from a lot sources. But I guess when you see that you're like “Oh my gosh Lynn why don't you do more stuff with all this money you're getting?” I'm like this is 15K a year, and I support myself. People's expectations weren't matching with reality. It just got to be too much at some point, So, I was like “I'm going to do the standard thing. I'm just going to interview somewhere and get my job.” At first I was just thinking about it and then I just casually asked “Hey with the amount of experience I have, what do people normally make?” And they were like “Well, depending where you are, something between 75 and 110.”

Nia: Thousand.

Lynn: I was like, “Really? Really? So you're saying if I was still in San Francisco I'd be making 10 times what I would be right now, if I working at was at a tech company?” And they were like “Yeah definitely. Definitely. For sure.” I have enough experience through my crowdfunded 10K to get to increase my income tenfold? Right? And I sort of internalized that and I was like I can't keep doing this thing. I would like it if I knew that once I moved out of activism there would be a tiny vacuum of people doing my particular thing, and other people would come in and do it be really motivated, but probably not, probably not soon, because I was doing way too much. But I feel really good about the stuff that I've done. I'm ready to have a ‘buy a five dollar video game and not feel guilty about it' type of life.

Nia: Yeah. It's weird that people expect you to pay it forward when you're supporting yourself at a level that's not opulent. You know what I mean?

Lynn: Yeah. I mean I have some video games now and again. I actually ran out of money for food twice… last month and the month before. Right? I had to put off paying rent in order for the Patreon to come in order for me to feed myself, and then pay rent with the rest of the Patreon money. I think that was also the other thing when I was like “Hey I just ran out of food, this really sucks.” But people still expect me to… like, my organization is queer/trans, right, but people still expect me to have more organizations be like 66% people of color, in a really aggressive sort of way.

Nia: Wait, I don't understand. People are giving you a hard time for hiring white people?

Lynn: Or like similar sorts of things. They're like you should do more activism. Blah blah blah. I try to not be like “if you have so many opinions then you just do it yourself,” but the criticism never comes from people who are self-supporting on 15K a year. I hit critical mass of ‘I would like more toilet paper plus people just keep yelling at me’ that I was just like I was never mind.

Nia: But as of right now you don't have a fancy tech job, you're still living off crowd funded money.

Lynn: Yeah, yeah.