What happens when a Black woman switches her gender on LinkedIn to “male”? …apparently not the same thing that happens to white women. ✨ Over the past week, I’ve watched post after post from white women saying their visibility skyrocketed the moment they changed their profile gender from woman → man. More impressions. More likes. More reach. 📈 So I tried the same thing. And my visibility dropped. 👀 Here’s why that result matters: these experiments are being treated as if they’re only about gender; in reality they reveal something deeper about race + gender + algorithmic legitimacy. 🔍 A white woman toggling her gender is basically conducting a test inside a system where her racial credibility stays constant. She changes one variable. The algorithm keeps the rest of her privilege intact. 💡 When a Black woman does the same test? I’m not stepping into “white male privilege”; I’m stepping into a category that platforms and society have historically coded as less trustworthy, less safe, or less “professional.” Black + male is not treated the same as white + male. Not culturally. Not algorithmically. 🧩 So while white women are proving that gender bias exists (which is true), they’re doing it without naming the racial insulation that makes their results possible. Meanwhile, Black women and women of color are reminded—again—that we can’t separate gender from race because the world doesn’t separate them for us. 🗣️ This isn’t about placing blame; it’s about widening the conversation so the conclusions match the complexity. 🌍 If we’re going to talk about bias, visibility, and influence online, we cannot pretend we all start from the same default settings. 🔥 I’m curious: Have you run your own experiment with identity signals on this platform? What changed… and what didn’t? 👇🏾 | 234 comments on LinkedIn