Our LGBTQ+ community is part of the Snowflake solution
Data doesn’t just provide us with information with which to make successful decisions. It also allows us to determine which of our hunches are nonsense and which are based on facts we’ve processed in our subconscious. One of those deep-seated feelings is that the more different types of people represented in a company’s workforce, the more likely that company is to find solutions to the problems that confront them.
As McKinsey notes in its 2020 report Diversity Wins: How Inclusion Matters, every uptick in inclusion sees a commensurate uptick in profitability. Companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 25% more likely to have above-average profitability. Similarly, a recent study by the University of Vaasa’s Aalto University School of Business on publicly traded U.S. companies between 2003 and 2016 showed that those with LGBTQ+-friendly policies had both higher profitability and higher stock market valuations.
But as important as data is, the sources of data are equally important. And in this case, those sources are people. So in celebration of Pride, the half-century-old public celebration of queer identity and visibility, we spoke to some Snowflake employees in the LGBTQ+ community. Because just as our feelings need data to become decisions, our data needs people to become stories.
One thing they’ve all noticed is that the reality of gay marriage and the ability to use benefits for their loved ones have made their personal lives better than when they started their professional lives.
But aside from those commonalities, their stories are all as unique as, well, snowflakes. So to capture their distinctive portraits, we focused on the following questions:
- Given how often being LGBTQ+ has been considered an obstacle, what are you the solution to?
- What’s so cool about what you do?
- What does Pride mean to you?
Kelli Rabalais, Director of Global Cloud Service Management Support
What are you the solution to?
My wife and I do a lot of mentoring with LGBTQ+ youth. My wife has a master’s degree and she’s a pastor. They see her as a successful person in the religious arena with a college education, and then I’m completely the opposite—head shaved, tattoos, no college degree, high school equivalency, and a few college courses here and there.
Yet, here I am. A director at a very large software company. I worked my tail off to get here, too! People like us are vital for those kids and parents of those kids to understand it’s OK to be gay. You can be as out as I am, and be successful, and have a marriage, and be part of the community, and thrive. I pay my taxes, I get up every morning, and go to work like most folks do. There’s no difference between you and me besides who I love. And being gay is not a choice, it’s who I am.
That is the difference I feel that I make on a daily basis.
What’s so cool about what you do?
I’m just a cool person in general. Kidding kinda, but anything that I do, I’m going to do it to the fullest extent and be a badass doing it. I’m in north Texas, which is anti-abortion, anti–trans rights, anti, anti, anti, anti. I think being here, and fighting from within, making a difference, is one of the coolest things that I can do right now in my life.
What does Pride mean to you?
I was born the year that Stonewall happened. For me, it is about having that celebratory thing that’s just ours. Celebrating all of the positive changes that have been made in the past 53 years since Stonewall. It is not lost on me that up until seven years ago, as a citizen of the U.S., I, a lesbian, did not have the right to marry in this country. Thankfully, some brave folks fought and paved the way for me to be able to do just that. Next month will be five years married and going strong! I celebrate that daily. During Pride, we can celebrate our differences, our likenesses in a moment in time. I don’t necessarily need a parade to celebrate that I’m gay. But I also think it’s pretty amazing that there is a day where I can be surrounded by people who are the same as me, celebrating us—whether they’re trans, gay, nonbinary, gender fluid, pansexual, bisexual, it just doesn’t matter during Pride. We’re all part of the gay alphabet letter soup. It’s a nice human experience to be with my people and not have to worry about anything for that moment of PRIDE.
Amanda Hergott, Senior Solutions Architect
What are you the solution to?
I think the reason trans people and gay people feel like an obstacle is because we are a challenge to the social norms. We are making people rethink things that they assumed were true about life, which is: “Men are like this, women are like that.” Just from a feminist perspective, those are norms that need to get broken down anyway. That’s a value-add to society.
There are others who think trans people aren’t challenging gender roles, that we’re reinforcing them. But I did not transition because I want to wear makeup. That is not how that works. It’s a very rich, deep conversation that happens in the back lines of the gender wars.
What’s so cool about what you do?
The community that exists around the whole LGBTQ+ umbrella, it’s amazing.
The trans community is the one I’m most close with, and it’s just fantastic. Meeting trans people, talking to them, and just feeling like you’re part of the group and finding people like yourself, it’s great. And it’s something I’d never had before.
There’s a lot of hardships that come with transitioning. I lost my marriage and my house, for example. But it is still a net positive in my life. I struggled to make friends before. I struggled to be part of anything because I didn’t have my own identity figured out, so I couldn’t figure out a group identity. I have far more friends and far more of a social life than I did before. And it’s really cool.
What does Pride mean to you?
Pride means being visible. It means making it known to other people that this is a way to be, and it’s a wonderful way to be. When you grow up surrounded by mainstream culture, you would not know that being gay is a thing, that being trans is a thing. You’re not going to learn that stuff until somebody shows you, and Pride is about showing. It’s about getting things visible and talked about so that people who are like us can see it and realize, “Oh, it’s not just me.” And they can derive that supporting community to do what they need to do to be themselves.
Brian Forney, Senior Software Engineer
What are you the solution to?
My openness about my sexual orientation may allow others who are not comfortable or are not quite certain whether they’ll be accepted to feel comfortable in sharing that. They’re more likely to be able to bring more of themselves into whatever environment that we share together. I think that it allows them to be more authentic. We only have so much energy and keeping who we are hidden can take up a lot of that energy.
Being more open and tolerant can help others and sometimes help themselves to be able to put energy in other areas of their lives, where it’s more productive, rather than trying to protect themselves.
What’s so cool about what you do?
Being a software engineer, the reach that you can have can be fairly large because of the ability to multiply what you’ve done. You can do a piece of work at relatively low cost and yet it can reach a lot of people, so there’s the possibility of making other people’s lives better in a fairly wide way.
Being a software engineer is relatively easy to do compared to other professions, like being a doctor. Patient care or teaching is very one-on-one or is done in small groups, so it’s harder to replicate. It takes a lot more energy.
What does Pride mean to you?
To me, it means two things. One, I think it’s got a root in the struggle for equality, which is still with us today. I think you can just look at the news to see that. But I also think it’s a celebration of the ability to be open about your identity.
These two elements coexist. I think this is a conversation that happens around Pride celebrations. Sometimes it can be contentious. Sometimes both sides of that discussion can come out and coexist. I think it’s important that they both exist.
Kelsey Hammock, Associate Sales Engineer
What are you the solution to?
I think that queer people tend to be much more…I’m going to say “gritty.” We tend to have a much stronger sense of self than others. You have to, because that’s how you get through all those challenging situations. For instance, I went to the world’s largest Baptist university. You watch the queer campus club get denied charter for the 14th year in a row and you just have to say, “Screw it. I’m going to be myself. Your opinions do not get to dictate my reality, my truth.”
At the end of the day, I know that no matter what scenario I’m thrown into, I’m going to figure it out because I have to.
In my experience, queer people in the community also tend to have a lot of compassion, particularly for other marginalized groups. Being queer is an intersectional identity in and of itself. Yes, I am a lesbian, but I’m also a cisgender woman, and I’m a white woman, and I’m all of these different things, which is the case for all of us. I think it’s easier for queer people to see other communities struggling and recognize that their fight is our fight, too, because queer people are a part of all of these communities as well.
What’s so cool about what you do?
As a kid growing up in Florida in a very small Baptist community, my high school brought “reformed” gays to come talk to us and tell us about the error of their ways. That’s my context. So, I recently turned 30, and for a lot of people that’s a really scary thing when it happens and they’re like, “Oh my God, there’s so much I need to accomplish. I’m just not there.” But I didn’t feel any of that panic because, to me, my life as it exists now is so much cooler than anything I ever even dreamed was possible for myself as a kid.
I came out a little bit later in life. I was 24. So I dropped a huge bomb on everybody I knew and it was fun. But once a challenge like that is out of the way, you start to realize that the only thing that really holds you back is yourself. At the end of the day, the only thing that could keep you in the closet is yourself.
And I think the same is true career-wise. I’m willing to take those chances. I’m willing to shoot my shot at the things that seem impossible because I have already done so many things that I once thought were impossible.
What does Pride mean to you?
Pride is both a protest and a celebration. I think Pride is a celebration of how far the community has come and a large act of defiance against those who look to roll back that progress. Pride is just overwhelmingly an unashamed display of queer joy and queer love and queer unity. The first Pride I went to was just the most incredible experience—to see so many people from so many different walks of life, all here to celebrate the same thing.
For people who have never been to Pride—whether they’re straight, whether they’re queer, whatever—I strongly recommend you go, because I think that any issue you have with this community will dissipate once you spend 10 minutes at a Pride event. It just really highlights that, at the end of the day, all we’re asking for is just let us love the people that we love. Let us be the people that we are.
Melonnie Gilbert, Workplace Coordinator
What are you the solution to?
For me, coming into a marriage where I got to become the parent to two daughters, it’s really awesome to be the person who I wish I had as a kid to look up to—to be who you are and bring your true self to every relationship and every job, to go into the world and love freely, and not be criticized for it.
So I’m thankful to be able to be that safe space, to create that safe space, and to represent that safe space.
What’s so cool about what you do?
Being a workplace coordinator, I literally come across everyone in the office. So I have, I want to say, a unique relationship with everyone here, and in a sense I’m able to create the environment that everyone is looking for in their work life.
I know how it feels to want to be represented in the world that we live in. So, I try to make certain that need is reflected in our office by the different events we have. Just making sure that our chorus of voices is ringing out and being heard within our Snowflake network is cool. I’m talking about the LGBTQ+ network, the African American network, among women, even among networks that don’t necessarily apply to me.
I just want to know what’s going on, so I can be an asset or an ally to people outside of our company as well, but inside the company to create that safe space that people would love to come to work in.
What does Pride mean to you?
To me, Pride month is an acknowledgement, a national recognition, of all of the accomplishments we’ve made and everything that we still have left to do. It’s a time for everyone to be celebrated and to know they are seen. We see you, the world sees you, you’re celebrated, and you are part of a community that’s larger than just you, than just your city, than your state. It’s way larger than who we are. We have friends and allies and supporters everywhere.
So I think that’s what it is, just that national reminder and celebration of just who you are.
Jabe Hickey, Senior Technical Program Manager
What are you the solution to?
I hope the things that I bring include kindness and a big tent where everybody gets to be a part. Because I’m gay, because I’m a woman, and because I’ve had a voice that’s been on the outside, it’s really, really important to me to make a place where people can be heard.
I hope that translates into good teams, fun teams, and a chance for people to make a difference. That’s what I try to facilitate.
What’s so cool about what you do?
What’s cool about what I do is how we work together in support, how we work together in Snowflake. I love our management, I adore them, and the reason why I do is that we have this incredibly flat hierarchy.
Everyone gets to participate in conversations, everyone gets to contribute. It’s not this nicey-nice kind of thing. We have contention. But it comes from a place of respect, it comes from a place of trying to understand what the other person is saying, and it comes from a place of trying to do the right thing for customers. I have spent my work career, up until Snowflake, working in places where we didn’t always do the best thing for our employees or for our customers.
Having the opportunity to actually build something the right way with people I admire and respect is the coolest thing ever, and I bring all my entire self to it.
What does Pride mean to you?
Pride is the celebration of an opportunity to become everything we can be and to be whole persons!