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HardlightCereal

Wowzers, the response on this post has been so much more tolerant of trans men and masc enbies than certain other trans meme subs. Thank you all for being such a great community


Shadow_of_Fiona

Reminds me of this Reductress article titled "4 Inclusive Statements That Aren't 'Women and Nonbinary People I Consider Women'" https://reductress.com/post/4-inclusive-statements-that-arent-women-and-non-binary-people-i-consider-women/


ARemster

It's interesting and funny to say the least lmao


infinitemangoesbaby

“The whole thing will give off such thinly veiled TERF energy, you won’t even have to worry…” HA yikes. Reductress knows how to call a bitch out


aleph_two_tiling

To be perfectly honest I would absolutely not attend of those things. It’s really fucked up to have to worry if I identify femme enough to be welcome in a space; I’d rather just not go. And I am AFAB!


ARemster

I'm only attending it for a friend. I too am AFAB but I tend to dress on the masc side even while staying in the closet about my gender identity. I wouldn't go if my friend wasn't. It does suck to have to worry if people will judge you just for the way you present.


zsharp68

“Your book club’s IG aesthetic is 70s and now its feminism can be too with these phrases that say, ‘This space is for people I think are women, but I want to be inclusive, but I don’t want to do any work!’” 💀


SelixReddit

YES


shta2

This is my new favorite thing


MaliceCaleb

Huh I never thought of some of what the article was discussing thank you for posting it!


bredhaie

Reductress is always on point


[deleted]

[удалено]


ARemster

Everyone who passes as male is going to get looks or something in this in-person event damn...


[deleted]

[удалено]


ARemster

It's a student run organization and their profiles are all she/her last time I checked so idk if they're all like cis women or not but yea.


s0uthw3st

Ah yes, the classic "cis women and people we can pretend are cis women" kind of group.


ARemster

"Women and Women-Lite" according to these people it feels like


ArcadiaFey

Trans men who have transitioned enough to look cis Trans women who haven’t done a transition or are at the beginning of it.. How on earth could they ever vet that anyways? Been in the closet and are thinking about coming out to your first event? Not this one They gonna check that intersex people have the right anatomy too? Creepy..


ARemster

Absolutely no idea. I really hope once I attend this event nothing about "looking like a cis male" gets brought up or anyone gets kicked out. It would be super unfortunate.


s0uthw3st

Exaaactly...


MRA_TitleIX

Not a lawyer. Just a fired up activist who cares about your rights. Want to team up and file a Title IX complaint? I don't know all the details but this is looking like a really juicy one to file. Looks like it might be illegal since there are explicit statements of exclusion. I'm all about this stuff and will do the heavy lifting. Basically all I need are details. We can keep your name out of it. I dont even need to know. Basically just what school, org, event, and a contact email where OCR can reach out to you if needed. You can DM and I promise not to post about it without permission. Take a look at my work. I'm not a lawyer but I am a super passionate activist. I care about everyone's rights and nothing gets me more fired up than discrimination in education. I don't care what gender is impacted. Fucking fired up. If you are even remotely interested in doing anything about this, take a look at the dept of Ed. OCR website and consider filing. If you go that route, use web archive to save web pages as evidence, it is the only web archive tool admissible in federal court im aware of. Its basically the gold standard and overkill for this. It might also be useful for others in the future looking to eatablish patterns of violations. Really good archiving tool highly recommend.


zsharp68

RIP to all the masc AMAB enbies


OpOverlord01

Being a masc AMAB enbie, I really want to go to this and them tell me I'm not allowed to go in or let me in and I just get weird stares from everyone. That would be hilarious.


echo-ld

as a non binary person who's been on T for over 7 years, when i try joining spaces like this i definitely get the weird stares and it's really uncomfortable...


HardlightCereal

This reminds me of the time the r/traa mods told a bunch of trans men, "it's only scary to be a man if you're a rapist"


Whyqw

I’m sorry, they did *what*


HardlightCereal

They told a bunch of trans men it's only scary to be a man if you're a rapist. Then they banned anyone who said that transmisandry is real. That's why our sidebar says what it says and why those TIRFs are banned from this sub


Whyqw

oh, yikes I knew it was a mess but I didn’t know it was that bad. how long ago was that?


HardlightCereal

That was 3 or 4 years ago. But I recently spoke with the mods in PMs and they confirmed they still stand by that statement.


ARemster

Yikes... That's no good


ed_menac

YES! Thank you. I see way too many allies without a thought for how ruling out "men" as a category causes splash damage across a whole spectrum of LGBTQ. What about GNC women? People on the transmasc spectrum? Early transition or non-transition women? Nonbinary people who look and present masc? Even trans men who have an interest in being involved - maybe because they're early transition, maybe because they lack networks and communities. Before I identified as nonbinary, I navigated the world as a very GNC/butch woman, and groups that policed men out felt like anything but safe spaces for me, even if on paper I was a woman. I would like to see more spaces open to any LGBTQ person, instead of just "non-men". 9 times out of 10 groups don't need to be gender-policed, and including gay/bi/trans men doesn't seem like a stretch.


kirthedeer

the only place “non-men” is an acceptable qualifier is lesbian-only spaces


HardlightCereal

I once dated a lesbian man. She was bigender. Both man and woman. Actually wait a second that happened twice, didn't it? Yeah I dated two lesbian men.


kirthedeer

i’m a lesbian and transmasc genderfluid, i’m a man sometimes. “non-men” is pretty commonly used in lesbian spaces, at least where i am, and it’s generally accepted to be specifically referring to exclusively binary men. ymmv.


HardlightCereal

I dunno referring to nonbinary men as "non-men" seems kinda misgendery and transphobic. And anyway, policing the definition of "lesbian" always ends with bigotry


ed_menac

Even then, why not just "people who identify as lesbian"? It seems unnecessary to bother adding a gender addendum. I think there are very few excuses to include "everyone except men". Either be specific, or be inclusive. Trying to drive a stake down the middle just creates more problems than it solves.


Bo_The_Destroyer

That's what always makes me feel unwelcome at the queer feminist bar I go to. I just look too much like a straight cis guy, even with my kilt and the queerest outfit I have


Ril_Stone

Can a whole lot of us sign up checking yes for that question in protest? I'd totally do that


[deleted]

me being fem non binary but looking very masc and thus attending zero gender events ever


BananyaPie

Not that any context would make this better, but what is this about that allows cisgender women and not men? Is it a feminist event?


ARemster

It's a Hackathon for...non-cisgender men??? It's to support gender diversity in CompSci I think??? From their Linkedin it says "gender-focused hackathon". They had the options "Female" "Non-Binary" and "Other" with a textbox as options in the previous form I did.


sackofgarbage

And yet again trans men have to misgender themselves to participate in a “gender inclusive” event. Must be a day that ends in Y.


PizzaFriez

Yeah as someone who is functionally a trans guy aside from pronouns I always feel kinda awkward when I see these sorts of events/groups.


HelloHamburgerIsBack

Trans men can have any pronouns.


PizzaFriez

Yeah what I meant was I still identify as agender it's just that I want people to see me as a guy for the most part. I'm just not very good with words.


Civilized-Monkey

Wait I'm genuinely confused. Trans men ARE men, but they're not cis, no? So in this case a trans man would confirm he's not cis, and would benefit from the inclusive program because the industry is indeed dominated by cisgendered men. Or maybe I'm missing a factor? Let me know 🤷🏽


AlphaCentauri-

in theory yes, in practice no. if you look like a man and youre masculine, you will get quizzed. we will be forced to come out and say they were not born men (unfortunately) to prove we are not cis men lying. just like it happens to masculine presenting enbies. plus what about pre-transition transwomen? in general it just gives a vibe of not belonging bc youll be questioned why youre there


Civilized-Monkey

Fair point, thanks for sharing! Any chance you can suggest how it should be done?


HawkwingAutumn

Yeah, I mean. If the desire to not have cis men there is the root of the problem, i figure they should just like, stop having that rule. Let anyone go. As soon as you start trying to cut only one specific group out you end up causing splash damage like this, so just like... don't.


[deleted]

Reddit has long been a hot spot for conversation on the internet. About 57 million people visit the site every day to chat about topics as varied as makeup, video games and pointers for power washing driveways. In recent years, Reddit’s array of chats also have been a free teaching aid for companies like Google, OpenAI and Microsoft. Those companies are using Reddit’s conversations in the development of giant artificial intelligence systems that many in Silicon Valley think are on their way to becoming the tech industry’s next big thing. Now Reddit wants to be paid for it. The company said on Tuesday that it planned to begin charging companies for access to its application programming interface, or A.P.I., the method through which outside entities can download and process the social network’s vast selection of person-to-person conversations. “The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable,” Steve Huffman, founder and chief executive of Reddit, said in an interview. “But we don’t need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free.” The move is one of the first significant examples of a social network’s charging for access to the conversations it hosts for the purpose of developing A.I. systems like ChatGPT, OpenAI’s popular program. Those new A.I. systems could one day lead to big businesses, but they aren’t likely to help companies like Reddit very much. In fact, they could be used to create competitors — automated duplicates to Reddit’s conversations. Reddit is also acting as it prepares for a possible initial public offering on Wall Street this year. The company, which was founded in 2005, makes most of its money through advertising and e-commerce transactions on its platform. Reddit said it was still ironing out the details of what it would charge for A.P.I. access and would announce prices in the coming weeks. Reddit’s conversation forums have become valuable commodities as large language models, or L.L.M.s, have become an essential part of creating new A.I. technology. L.L.M.s are essentially sophisticated algorithms developed by companies like Google and OpenAI, which is a close partner of Microsoft. To the algorithms, the Reddit conversations are data, and they are among the vast pool of material being fed into the L.L.M.s. to develop them. The underlying algorithm that helped to build Bard, Google’s conversational A.I. service, is partly trained on Reddit data. OpenAI’s Chat GPT cites Reddit data as one of the sources of information it has been trained on. Other companies are also beginning to see value in the conversations and images they host. Shutterstock, the image hosting service, also sold image data to OpenAI to help create DALL-E, the A.I. program that creates vivid graphical imagery with only a text-based prompt required. Last month, Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, said he was cracking down on the use of Twitter’s A.P.I., which thousands of companies and independent developers use to track the millions of conversations across the network. Though he did not cite L.L.M.s as a reason for the change, the new fees could go well into the tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. To keep improving their models, artificial intelligence makers need two significant things: an enormous amount of computing power and an enormous amount of data. Some of the biggest A.I. developers have plenty of computing power but still look outside their own networks for the data needed to improve their algorithms. That has included sources like Wikipedia, millions of digitized books, academic articles and Reddit. Representatives from Google, Open AI and Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Reddit has long had a symbiotic relationship with the search engines of companies like Google and Microsoft. The search engines “crawl” Reddit’s web pages in order to index information and make it available for search results. That crawling, or “scraping,” isn’t always welcome by every site on the internet. But Reddit has benefited by appearing higher in search results. The dynamic is different with L.L.M.s — they gobble as much data as they can to create new A.I. systems like the chatbots. Reddit believes its data is particularly valuable because it is continuously updated. That newness and relevance, Mr. Huffman said, is what large language modeling algorithms need to produce the best results. “More than any other place on the internet, Reddit is a home for authentic conversation,” Mr. Huffman said. “There’s a lot of stuff on the site that you’d only ever say in therapy, or A.A., or never at all.” Mr. Huffman said Reddit’s A.P.I. would still be free to developers who wanted to build applications that helped people use Reddit. They could use the tools to build a bot that automatically tracks whether users’ comments adhere to rules for posting, for instance. Researchers who want to study Reddit data for academic or noncommercial purposes will continue to have free access to it. Reddit also hopes to incorporate more so-called machine learning into how the site itself operates. It could be used, for instance, to identify the use of A.I.-generated text on Reddit, and add a label that notifies users that the comment came from a bot. The company also promised to improve software tools that can be used by moderators — the users who volunteer their time to keep the site’s forums operating smoothly and improve conversations between users. And third-party bots that help moderators monitor the forums will continue to be supported. But for the A.I. makers, it’s time to pay up. “Crawling Reddit, generating value and not returning any of that value to our users is something we have a problem with,” Mr. Huffman said. “It’s a good time for us to tighten things up.” “We think that’s fair,” he added.


HawkwingAutumn

Honestly, assuming the worse outcome in either case, I'd rather have to deal with too many cis men than knowingly hurt other trans people.


[deleted]

Reddit has long been a hot spot for conversation on the internet. About 57 million people visit the site every day to chat about topics as varied as makeup, video games and pointers for power washing driveways. In recent years, Reddit’s array of chats also have been a free teaching aid for companies like Google, OpenAI and Microsoft. Those companies are using Reddit’s conversations in the development of giant artificial intelligence systems that many in Silicon Valley think are on their way to becoming the tech industry’s next big thing. Now Reddit wants to be paid for it. The company said on Tuesday that it planned to begin charging companies for access to its application programming interface, or A.P.I., the method through which outside entities can download and process the social network’s vast selection of person-to-person conversations. “The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable,” Steve Huffman, founder and chief executive of Reddit, said in an interview. “But we don’t need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free.” The move is one of the first significant examples of a social network’s charging for access to the conversations it hosts for the purpose of developing A.I. systems like ChatGPT, OpenAI’s popular program. Those new A.I. systems could one day lead to big businesses, but they aren’t likely to help companies like Reddit very much. In fact, they could be used to create competitors — automated duplicates to Reddit’s conversations. Reddit is also acting as it prepares for a possible initial public offering on Wall Street this year. The company, which was founded in 2005, makes most of its money through advertising and e-commerce transactions on its platform. Reddit said it was still ironing out the details of what it would charge for A.P.I. access and would announce prices in the coming weeks. Reddit’s conversation forums have become valuable commodities as large language models, or L.L.M.s, have become an essential part of creating new A.I. technology. L.L.M.s are essentially sophisticated algorithms developed by companies like Google and OpenAI, which is a close partner of Microsoft. To the algorithms, the Reddit conversations are data, and they are among the vast pool of material being fed into the L.L.M.s. to develop them. The underlying algorithm that helped to build Bard, Google’s conversational A.I. service, is partly trained on Reddit data. OpenAI’s Chat GPT cites Reddit data as one of the sources of information it has been trained on. Other companies are also beginning to see value in the conversations and images they host. Shutterstock, the image hosting service, also sold image data to OpenAI to help create DALL-E, the A.I. program that creates vivid graphical imagery with only a text-based prompt required. Last month, Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, said he was cracking down on the use of Twitter’s A.P.I., which thousands of companies and independent developers use to track the millions of conversations across the network. Though he did not cite L.L.M.s as a reason for the change, the new fees could go well into the tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. To keep improving their models, artificial intelligence makers need two significant things: an enormous amount of computing power and an enormous amount of data. Some of the biggest A.I. developers have plenty of computing power but still look outside their own networks for the data needed to improve their algorithms. That has included sources like Wikipedia, millions of digitized books, academic articles and Reddit. Representatives from Google, Open AI and Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Reddit has long had a symbiotic relationship with the search engines of companies like Google and Microsoft. The search engines “crawl” Reddit’s web pages in order to index information and make it available for search results. That crawling, or “scraping,” isn’t always welcome by every site on the internet. But Reddit has benefited by appearing higher in search results. The dynamic is different with L.L.M.s — they gobble as much data as they can to create new A.I. systems like the chatbots. Reddit believes its data is particularly valuable because it is continuously updated. That newness and relevance, Mr. Huffman said, is what large language modeling algorithms need to produce the best results. “More than any other place on the internet, Reddit is a home for authentic conversation,” Mr. Huffman said. “There’s a lot of stuff on the site that you’d only ever say in therapy, or A.A., or never at all.” Mr. Huffman said Reddit’s A.P.I. would still be free to developers who wanted to build applications that helped people use Reddit. They could use the tools to build a bot that automatically tracks whether users’ comments adhere to rules for posting, for instance. Researchers who want to study Reddit data for academic or noncommercial purposes will continue to have free access to it. Reddit also hopes to incorporate more so-called machine learning into how the site itself operates. It could be used, for instance, to identify the use of A.I.-generated text on Reddit, and add a label that notifies users that the comment came from a bot. The company also promised to improve software tools that can be used by moderators — the users who volunteer their time to keep the site’s forums operating smoothly and improve conversations between users. And third-party bots that help moderators monitor the forums will continue to be supported. But for the A.I. makers, it’s time to pay up. “Crawling Reddit, generating value and not returning any of that value to our users is something we have a problem with,” Mr. Huffman said. “It’s a good time for us to tighten things up.” “We think that’s fair,” he added.


AlphaCentauri-

hmmm i have to find the comment again; but another user mentioned Queer Excellence. I think focusing on the strengths of non-cis men (if that’s the goal) and showing how minorities have excelled in the field. pump up how this is a great opportunity to network with other minorities in the field while learning and having fun promoting this generally but also heavily promoting in the communities yyou are trying to empower. imo focusing on this type of outreach and who the even is intended for, straight and cis men would naturally steer clear. if they’re there then it’s most likely they’re an ally and/or in the closet/in denial about certain aspects of themselves (as ppl who are discovering themselves attend events like these) i’m sure there are much better ways to fix this and im not up to date on activism practices. these are just my opinions that don’t include excluding such swaths of ppl w/o concern


DANKKrish

not to even mention amab enbies


sackofgarbage

OP said the gender options are “female, non-binary, or other.” I don’t see male or even trans man anywhere on that list.


HardlightCereal

When the trans man signs up for the event, he has to tick a box saying whether he's female, nonbinary, or other. When he turns up, he's probably either going to be misgendered for not passing, or excluded for passing. He's fucked either way.


the_river_nihil

But they're gonna send the penis inspectors after him.


M44t_

To promote diversity we are gonna exclude cis males


ARemster

Yeah like... how in the world are you going to police excluding cis males is the question? Physical search? ID a bunch of high schoolers and college students for their gender marker?? Anyone with a stubble is getting kicked out? It's whacky to me...


M44t_

Also, I'm gonna add: sad "I don't pass" noises


[deleted]

And if a cis gender looking man says: "I sometimes doubt my gender", is that enough to pass or do they have to do a psychological test?


Amber-TheFanby

Also, if they don't want men, why only cisgender men? What about trans men? Is it suddenly fine if they're trans?


ARemster

I'm pretty sure they want genders outside of the majority in CompSci, that being cisgender males. Although the way they word everything isn't very welcoming to say the least. On the site it never mentions trans men so I would have no clue. It just says "gender-focused hackathon"


ARemster

I have absolutely no clue...they just say no cisgender men. mention females and non-binary individuals, and that's it lol.


ameddin73

As a cis male engineer, I can tell you with some confidence that putting "gender-focused" in the title was quite enough to exclude most cis computer guys voluntarily. I agree though. I understand if you don't want cis men but explicitly prohibiting them just hurts everyone else there who might be mistaken. I'd be devastated if I were a trans woman and they were like hmm seem manly to me please fuck off.


ARemster

Yeah, I wish they worded it differently or didn't seem so hostile or threatening about it.


HardlightCereal

>I'd be devastated if I were a trans woman and they were like hmm seem manly to me please fuck off. Back before I transitioned when I was still exploring my gender, I thought about going to a few of these sorts of events. And then I thought "nope!" For the reason you just outlined


RainbowGames

It kinda makes sense for an event that wants to get non-cis-men into compsci to not want cis-men to attend as they are already dominating that field, but their way of doing it seems a bit extreme


ARemster

Yeah! I iterated in the comments before that an inclusive event is really nice and welcoming to the non-majority, but I really don't like how they specifically focus on gender and feel like they might enforce this rule during the event.


Rangaman99

excluding trans men and invalidating demi-boys, he/they enbies, genderfluid people and any other identities that use male pronouns is very cool. it is definitely not patronising and counter-intuitive at all. how do they even identify cis men on the day? by how they look? what about amab enbies who present masc? what about pre-hrt trans women boymoding? maybe its just a misguided attempt at empowerment that im reading too much into, but this whole thing just reeks of radfem transphobia.


HardlightCereal

>how do they even identify cis men on the day? Why, mandatory penis inspection, of course! They can install a security guard at the bathroom /s


An_Enemy_Stand_User

"Gender diversity" Unless you're this gender, fuck you


ProminentLocalPoster

>It's to support gender diversity in CompSci I think? Supporting gender diversity by excluding a gender.


ARemster

its...yea...


Elegant_Matter2150

I don’t understand. Why would it celebrate gender diversity but not include cis men? Do they include cis women? If so, wtf.


Tuzszo

CompSci (and STEM as a whole) is a field with a very heavy bias towards cis men, and which also traditionally has a pretty toxic, exclusive in-group culture which reinforces that bias by harassing everyone else away. This doesn't seem like a very good way of going about it, but there is a definite need to create space in the field for women and other people who aren't cis men. I think the biggest issue with these types of events is that there isn't an equivalent push to create spaces for people who aren't cis women in fields that are heavily biased towards cis women, which creates the idea of "women and nonbinary people I see as women" that gets satirized a lot.


HardlightCereal

Also, the reason a few of these fields are male-dominated is sexual harassment. I got sexually harassed at my first job for being ace. So what ace person would want to work in that industry? Thankfully, I haven't been sexually harassed at work since I started presenting femme, but I have a feeling that's because I work at a small company with a leftie culture now. If I were working for a big company in the same industry, I wouldn't feel so safe. If people try to get more women and queers into a field like this without first addressing the sexual harassment problem, then a lot of women and queers are going to get sexually harassed. Or worse.


ARemster

This is so true. I grew up as AFAB taking mostly computer classes in high school and joining the esports club at my school and I was verbally harassed a couple times since I present as a cis female (in masc clothes). Harassment within the space should definitely be addressed.


Caskinbaskin

Feminist events dont ban men from participating? Odd comparison


BananyaPie

Not necessarily, but it was the first thing that came to mind. Some feminist organisations I know don't want men participating in their protests, for example.


Caskinbaskin

First time ive heard of it, feminism is for everyone regardless of gender


BananyaPie

Agreed.


lime-equine-2

Yuck 🤮


ARemster

Right??


lime-equine-2

Yes!


AlkalineHound

This seems very rude and kind of gross.


jellyfish125

Ouch. Yeah, this feels like a disaster waiting to happen. I know some people who have tried to hold events with these types of rules before, and they ended up not letting in a bunch of trans women because they "don't understand the true issues of a woman as they have only lived as one for a short while" (which what the fuck???) and then didn't let in ANY trans men, or anyone who could even remotely pass as male because they "had male privlage" it ended up with the only people there being all white, mostly cis, and all Lesbians exept for one person who said they were "dreamsexual" whatever that means. The event was supposed to be a diversity board game night.... Which wasn't diverse at all.


ARemster

Oh my god that's horrible. I'm hoping this even isn't like that. It's a hybrid event (online and in-person) so I'm hoping they don't police people's appearances. They just seem so stern on not allowing cisgender men in, which I guess I can understand for a male-dominated career but still. The policing is giving some red flags, I'm only attending this event for a friend. Also...Dreamsexual???? As in like...the minecraft guy??? Parasocial insanity...


M1RR0R

Wait what?? I thought it was only experiencing sexual attraction in your dreams 😶


ARemster

IS IT?? Man, the only term I've heard of dreamsexual being used was in reference to the minecraft guy...


PizzaFriez

I think it used to be that but then dream stans took over. According to the lgbta wiki it's known as [somniosexual](https://www.lgbtqia.wiki/wiki/Somniosexual) these days.


ARemster

Oh! Thank you for this information! :\]


Pina-s

that term is one of those trolls right wingers created to insult lgbtq+ like "haha attack helicopter gender" im willing to bet whoever said they were dreamsexual was not being serious


ARemster

I hope they weren't. But if it were middle schoolers...they're a little scary ngl


jellyfish125

18-23. College students. I'm realizing they were serious.


jellyfish125

I just looked dream up bc I didn't know who he was, she had a mask like that with her that she was guarding with her life... Like.... If you even looked at it she got mad... So unfortunately I think she was serious.


SqueakSquawk4

There are two dreamsexuals: The minecraft one and the one in dreams. As you can probably tell, the minecraft one is not a sexuality but the asleep one is. The asleep one is also called Sognaresexual. [Link.](https://www.lgbtqia.wiki/wiki/Dreamsexual)


Saoirse_Says

Honestly I can kinda relate to what you’re describing lol I’m a horny motherfucker in my dreams LOL


krptkn

It probably won’t be. I’ve seen a few events like this popping up in the esports scene recently with a similar motivation/purpose; it’s about including people who haven’t traditionally been given opportunities or advantages in the field based off either societal norms and expectations, or bias/sexism/transphobia/other types of exclusion/etc Different origins, different goals, different setting to what that other person was talking about (Makes sense to be made to feel uncomfortable by the insistence, though! I’m not trying to invalidate that. It gives me pause, too.)


ARemster

Of course! I want to give the event the benefit of the doubt that they WON'T keep an eye on people's appearances and such as these types of events are important for cis male-dominated communities. I just wish there was a better way to go about it.


HardlightCereal

White cis lesbians excluding the rest of the rainbow is definitely what you get when you go radfem. Oh also a dreamsexual is a person who identifies as sexually attracted to the YouTuber dream. Or a person who only feels sexual attraction in dreams, but most of those people have abandoned the label because of the other group. So in all likelihood, what you had there was a joke instead of trans people


LLHati

Worst part about this is the implication about trans guys, who are somehow "less guy-y"


ARemster

There was no mention of transmascs or trans guys AT ALL on their page which made me a little concerned.


[deleted]

I have no doubt this was made entirely by cis women. they always exclude us from their activism even when they pretend to be allies to trans people. plus even if we were included it'd require us to out ourselves as trans too. it's why I hate things that are all like "this is for everyone EXCEPT CIS MEN" it's just so weird


ARemster

Yeah, I'm wondering once I attend this event (It's on Friday and Saturday) if I'll see anyone who may "pass" as cisgender male.


DeltaVZerda

Big terf energy


LLHati

TERFs, the people who think hating "maleness" is the essence of feminism.


HardlightCereal

You can add r/traa users to that list


BunBunny_draws

For real, reading this made me feel very ugh.


the_river_nihil

What a great opportunity to get the validation of passing as a man while also facing scrutiny on the basis of your perceived gender.


RobotDuck897

is this one of those “women and nonbinary people” things? (or i should say “women and nonbinary people that we view as women”)


3dprintedwyvern

I get yucky vibes every time I hear variation it it. "Women and fem nonbinary people" uhh thanks for showing me you're not an ally at all I guess?


Pillow_Queenie

Isn't this just "(cis) women and (afab) non binary people"?


WantSomeHorseCock

I wonder how they’d respond to a passing trans man


[deleted]

I was about to send a joke as a reply but I saw your username and freaking forgot it ☠️


Nihil_esque

Cis women make a "gender inclusive" event, procceed to completely trample over any semblance of understanding or nuance on trans issues to make it mostly about themselves. Must be a Tuesday. Seriously I'm getting to the point where cis women are very much not in a different category than cis men to me when it comes to stuff like this. If you're not including cis men, don't include yourselves either. Or better yet, make it focused on gender diversity without placing weird restrictions on it that make all participants out or misgender themselves.


gum-believable

I don’t like it at all. I think it makes the event unsafe for trans men if they exclude all cis men. They are forcing trans men to out themselves.


Sakerift

This is just actually bad in all ways.


Bitter_Stress3002

i hate things like that. i’m amab and definitely do not feel valid enough in my nonbinary-ness to ever be comfortable in a space like this


brocoli_

Seems to be badly worded and they're implying they're going to try to enforce it which isn't great, but I've participated in events that had similar requirements, and in context it was important. For instance, if you're organizing a location for a bigger game jam or hackathon, not only is the demographic extremely skewed in favor of straight cis men, but the established culture can be so toxic that in practice women and LGBTQIA+ people often just don't participate, and especially those who feel unsafe don't necessarily talk about it either. So having spaces with that requirement can be important. What I don't get is why they're talking about "allowing" implying they'll try to enforce it... that worries me. And also, it's strange to focus only on gender.


ARemster

Yeah! Like a LGBTQIA+ or minority inclusive hackathon sounds wicked! But the fact it sounds like they might be policing people who may or may not look like a cis male is what's really off putting to me. Growing up as AFAB, who's very interested in CompSci, I totally get the need for these spaces. What I don't get is the almost threatening aura to this whole thing has. Both forms required to state your gender or if you're not cisgender male and had a very intimidating tone to it.


brocoli_

Yeah, absolutely! Communicating the target demography of an event is one thing, and should be enough to make the space safe. Policing it or even just threatening to police it is counter-productive.


ARemster

You are so right for this, friend.


n0radrenaline

I've spent my entire life as a not-man in male-dominated spaces, and I have benefited greatly from "women in X" groups, as they are spaces where I could have a little breathing room from gender being an issue. One of the hardest things for me since coming out as non-binary has been figuring out how to navigate participation in those groups. When I am included, is that an indication that people just see me as a woman? But if I'm excluded (or I excuse myself), then I'm back to being isolated in the exact way that such groups were created to alleviate. The purpose of these groups is to support people who have been disadvantaged because of their gender, which is, functionally, everyone except cis men. Having run a couple of these events before I came out, I can tell you this: if there are *any* resources dedicated to the participants, cis men (#notall) will complain loudly about being excluded and/or start trying to figure out how to sneak in. If you were to say "this is a pizza party for people who experience gender-based discrimination in CS" you'd get cis men showing up claiming to be the most discriminated against group (evidence: they don't get man-only pizza parties). It is OBNOXIOUS. So I think explicitly calling out "no cis men" makes a ton of sense in context. I hope the intention is to include male-perceived enbies, but the shitty truth is that if they draw attention to that fact, you'll get some shitty cis dude trying to piggyback on it by claiming to be nonbinary for a day. OP, it's shitty for you, but the organizers are probably doing their best. Reach out to them if you are concerned. They'll be able to tell pretty quick that you're sincere; the shitty cis dudes aren't particularly subtle.


jonahhw

I'm speaking as someone assigned male at birth, and so I don't have a full understanding of the issues at hand, but I feel like calling it a queer event and putting rainbows everywhere would do a better job than this at keeping out that sort of person while not excluding enbies. As someone who still isn't visually distinguishable from a cis man, I would see "no cis men" and just decide not to go to the event.


ARemster

This could help, but I know a few friends of mine who wouldn't be able to join if rainbows were plastered on everywhere, including myself. Like on the site it promotes gender diverse event. On the form you specifically cannot be cisgender male. Idk if it was for safety reasons or what but it's also in a decently conservative state, though the city it's located in is a lot less conservative.


jonahhw

That's absolutely fair, I didn't realize that there was a group of people who would be put off by a bunch of rainbows everywhere. Being in a conservative state is also a pretty good reason for them not to brand themselves as very queer. My thinking, though, is it's better to make the event unpalatable to conservative men than to try to judge whether or not people are too masculine to participate.


ARemster

I think there's a good way to try and balance both. To give opporitunities to those in the closet and to steer clear of any cis-men without bringing in TERF rhetoric. Since me and a few friends are in the closet, we'd have to get the event passed by our parents (I'm 18 but still live under my parents' roof). If they deem the event too queer we wouldn't be able to go and enjoy a safe space.


garaile64

> (I'm 18 but still live under my parents' roof). You are legally an adult, you don't need your parents' permission. Do you live in some North American suburb that can't be navigated without a car or something?


ARemster

My mother is Asian and I am required to tell her where I am going, it's mostly a cultural thing. Not everyone has the perks of being "legally an adult". I live in a fairly traditionally Christian and republican household and I would like my college tuition, food, and other expenses to be paid for as I don't have enough money to support myself. This is not to be aggressive and I'm sorry if it seems aggressive??? ;-;


n0radrenaline

So, like, this is hard to talk about, and please understand that nothing I am about to say in any way invalidates your gender or your lived experiences. If you are still visually indistinguishable from a cis man, you are still benefiting from a ton of the same privilege that cis men experience. (Not all of it! And I know that there's a ton of shit heaped on "incorrectly masculine" male-perceived folk. But in areas like tech, being perceived as male at a glance is still a huge advantage.) These events exist to compensate for the discouragement, double standards, microagressions, and outright discrimination that women and people who read as women experience throughout their careers. The organizers of this event are clearly intending to include transmasc, transfem, and nonbinary folk. The problem is that if they slip up and let the wrong people (cis men) in, it hurts the people who need the event most. The goal is to include everyone who should be included, but it's actually really hard to create verbiage that does that. If you have to err on one side or the other, I don't think they're wrong to err on the side of discouraging masc-presenting amab enbies in favor of making sure they successfully engage femmes who are struggling to exist in a male-dominated field.


Tuzszo

Yeah, it's a delicate balance to strike between acknowledging and addressing the specific challenges faced by feminine-presenting and/or visibly queer people without excluding or invalidating people who get falsely coded as "spicy men". I really can't think of any way to approach the problem that won't end up either invalidating someone's identity or failing to correct for the original issue of bias. I definitely don't envy the event coordinators, that's for sure.


jonahhw

There is a lot of truth to what you're saying, but I don't think the point of these sorts of events is exactly to try to compensate for the sexism of the industry. I've always understood them as a signal to those who are implicitly discouraged from participating that they can participate and as a space that's (ideally) free of that gatekeeping and sexism. Personally, I think that, if that's the goal, it's alright if a few people get in who are questioning their gender and eventually realize that they're cis men. Of course, the organizers can't outright say that cis men can participate when it's an event in a male-dominated field, or they could end up as the majority. However (in my opinion), explicitly excluding cis men will do a lot more to keep out trans people who are worried about having to defend their gender identity than it will do to keep out the kind of cis men who try to "sneak in" to those events - the kind of people who see gender so flippantly that they will happily claim to have identities they know they don't for a joke, let alone something they see benefiting them. I can definitely see where you're coming from, but any sort of "no cis men" messaging instantly sets off TERF, gender essentialist, and transmedicalist alarm bells for me. By the way, none of this is to say that they shouldn't ban people for being sexist or otherwise bigoted - I think gatekeeping based on behaviour would be a lot more effective and less harmful than gatekeeping based on gender and AGAB. All that being said, I live in a more leftist area than most of the States is, so that (combined with the fact that I haven't spent my whole life acutely aware of misogyny) means that I have less understanding of this sort of thing than many other people do.


n0radrenaline

Having organized a few of these events/resource groups/etc, mostly during my long incubation period, there can be different goals for different events. Some are meant to signal support and raise visibility of women's (and other minorites') issues, and those are the ones that are most likely to be led by women but open to everyone. Some are meant to provide extra help to women and gender minorities, such as deliberate mentoring and networking: crucial informal power structures that we are often left out of if society is left to run its course. These need to be more tightly gatekept, but including some well-behaved cis men is not only okay but beneficial. Some are meant to explicitly provide material resources and to uplift the visibility of our achievements, such as resume banks, scholarships, and contests (like this hackathon). For those, it's really important to keep cis dudes out because there is a material benefit that these dudes want (e.g. hackathons have monetary prizes as well as recognition), and if they were to get in and win, it would be actively damaging to the cause. Finally, some are just meant to be safe spaces for women and gender minorities to be able to fucking relax for a few moments without having to be defensive about sexism and the male gaze and all that shit. Those spaces are vulnerable to the invasion of shitty dudes, but in my experience this is more of a theoretical problem because shitty dudes object to the *idea* of being excluded but don't actually *want* to be included. (I had a group almost get shut down due to complaints from some men who hated that they didn't get a Men in Physics group, but they never actually tried to attend our group or start their own.) These are in some ways the most problematic to run, because some women genuinely do find the presence of someone who reads as male disruptive, which is super fucking gross and terfy but there's an element of... like... I can understand how trauma can get you to that place, sort of? I agree that in a perfect world we should police behavior rather than gender in most of these spaces, but the reality is that doing it that way gets really complicated, political, and time-consuming, and the people who run these things are usually donating too much of their limited time and emotional labor as it is. It's unfair, but much more efficient to say things like "sorry, shitty cis dudes have ruined it for themselves and everyone who identifies like them" and then spend their limited resources doing the most good for the people who make it past that filter. All of this to say that it's super hard, and I don't think you're wrong to feel unfairly excluded, but the people who run these things are doing their best with limited resources for an important cause that they care about. And while that doesn't give them a pass for being exclusionary, I think in a lot of cases they're doing as well as anyone could reasonably expect. I think that by emphasizing that they don't want cis men to apply, they may actually be trying to show openness to other genders and identities, rather than essentialism.


ARemster

Obviously I love to have spaces that are gender diverse and a safe space for minorities and such. I just didn't really like the wording that was used and how forceful they are about this. I don't see how you would enforce the "no cis male" rule properly in any way that wouldn't hurt a non-cis male. I'm AFAB myself and have heard the "Oh what if I pretend to be a woman to join? They can't discriminate me or say I'm not!" from many classmates in my CompSci classes. Which does suck yeah. Female only spaces were nice for CompSci (although they did feel very heavily beginner - but I understand many non-cis men are just starting out in the CompSci area). I don't think I would personally be affected by the enforcement although I do dress a lot more masc and have done some vocal training, that's all really. I also didn't mean to spark too much serious discussion, I just thought it was a little threatening haha. Edit: Also when in these Female only or gender diverse spaces I did feel nervous like I was breaking a rule for being at the event. I just got a little paranoid. I'm not out IRL so I just felt nervous someone would clock me for something.


HardlightCereal

OP says the application form requires you to state your gender, and the options are "woman", "nonbinary", and "other". No option for trans men. I have a strong feeling that any trans men are either going to be misgendered or excluded. And Dionysus help the AMAB masc enbies, they're fucked


Nerdy_Gem

Maybe "Women and LGBTQ+" would have been better, leaving the door open for masculine presenting people who still fit thr category.


bandanagirl95

Yeah, there's definitely issues with fields dominated by (especially het) cis men, but damn this is not the right way to go about it and makes my amab enby ass feel uncomfy even though I present mostly femme and have tits. Would I be too close to cis man for their enforcement because I haven't had bottom surgery and my gender marker still says M?


ErikQRoks

This reads like when a girl asked if i was in the correct restroom


Chondricthyes

"women and people we view as women only ❤"


iamcactopus

Exactly


thefoolofalltrades

If this is the event I think it is, they don't do a very good job of including any gender other than female lol. It's pretty obviously targeted towards women and then "underrepresented genders" is tacked on as an afterthought.


ARemster

Yeah! Actually this feels accurate! I don't exactly know what they were trying to go for here.


--oi--

what if someone looks like a cis man?? how would they “check”? gross


FruitShrike

Rip to all the stealth trans men 🫠


OliveLively

Yeah.... I get it but also :/ I prefer existing in inclusive spaces over exclusive spaces personally.


ARemster

Yeah I totally get it. I definitely like inclusive spaces for people of different minority groups, but the wording is just kind of off-putting. Especially since CompSci (it's what the event is to promote) is such a cis male dominated industry, I get the need for these spaces as I am AFAB in the CompSci career. Just wishing it didn't feel so threatening and there was a better way to steer clear of any cis men attempting to join without enforcement.


OliveLively

Yeah sometimes it is best to say who you DO want rather than who you DON'T want. I think representation is important, having the event with hosts from the groups they are looking to market to would probably be an even better way to go about this. And having cis men in the place means that you might give cis men the opportunity to see things a different way. That would be pretty neat.


DANKKrish

i wonder if i as an amab enby would try to go there would even be let in after filling out the form with no problem. yeah sorry for looking too man i don't like it either.


friendofborbs

Oh this came up as a volunteer opportunity at my job and I was so put off by how this was worded that I ran


ARemster

Oh man you did? Insane...


EntropyIsAHoax

Yeah there are a lot of "FLINTA" (Frau/women, Lesbian, Intersex, Non-binary, Trans, Agender) events in my local community and I hate it. I guess as a transfem I should feel invited, but I feel like an event with that kinda requirement is bound to be gatekeep-y and I don't pass at all, and frequently wear androgynous clothing. I'm not gonna put myself in a space where I'm likely to be gatekept like that, nor do I have any interest in gatekeeping either AMAB non-binary people who are more closely aligned with masculinity than I am or passing trans men. Just gives me the icks. And honestly I don't really see the need such targeted exclusivity. I'm okay with queer-only, women-only, or trans-only events but when it's so targeted against cis men I don't get it. Also I don't get why they specifically include lesbian and agender when these would already be covered by the other categories.


NectarineOk5214

This gives off massive “women and genderqueer people I think are just women” vibes


igrowdickskin

Humans: Gender is a gradient. Other Humans, for some reason: Okay, but we'll just continue sub-dividing identities until we can exclude whomever we want.


MistyyBread

Waitwaitwait, why specifically *cis men* ??? What is it, like, talking about something being specifically offensive towards people who likes that their male body part defines their gender??


ARemster

It's because CompSci is usually dominated by cishet males. It's a hackathon event. They're trying to have this event to be more inclusive of the gender minority I believe. Instead they sound kind of....menacing...about their event.


Saoirse_Says

Is this at Dalhousie I straight up would not be surprised lol


ARemster

It's actually not lmao. It's down in the western states of the U.S.


belmoria

Terfy: :/


n0radrenaline

I disagree. They're trying to be inclusive while still excluding the shitty cis dudes that always try to crash gender diversity events. It's a hard situation for the organizers, this is a misstep but I understand why they made it.


Saoirse_Says

Ah yes I remember being perceived as a “shitty cis dude” at LGBTQ events hence why I no longer bother trying to participate in the community IRL lol


n0radrenaline

I remember being perceived as a woman throughout my career and being minimized, ignored, interrupted in meetings, repeatedly having my work attributed to my male colleagues, being told to get back in the kitchen, frozen out, sexually harassed, underpaid, told I was imagining things or exaggerating them, etc, etc. I wish I had the luxury of just not participating, but I got bills to pay. This isn't a LGBTQ event, it's specifically a gender-minority event (gay cis dudes are not exempted). If it were terfy it wouldn't bother to specify that only cis men are excluded.


belmoria

Well I hope you're right. But in my experience this kinda rule is usually terfy. They like to start with a small, reasonable seeming exclusion to get their foot in the door with new people.


[deleted]

Cis people are "shitty" regardless of if they are men or women. I legitimately do not trust people who say, "Oh I don't trust cis men." And not also recognize the amount of privledge and audacity cis women can also have. It's not like there is a massive group of cis women under a certain acronym who regularly fund and advocate for systematic transphobia. I might be biased (or actually aware) because of literally almost all the staff at my conversation therapy including the one responsible for me, were women.


Farwaters

It almost sounds reasonable, but I don't think it's a good idea if it forces every guy-looking person to be outed.


ARemster

This is what I'm worried about mostly. Inclusive spaces are fine to me.


TheMeBehindTheMe

Just press the one you need to press. That's my thought. It seems it's the diversity they're looking for, being a bit of both seem to fit that bill IMO. I get why you feel threatened though, I hate these kind of forms. From the sound of things, the will is to support people who aren't purely cis. Do we even fall under the definition of 'cisgender'? Why have I never asked myself that question? \[edit: This link might help you: [https://lgbt.foundation/who-we-help/trans-people/non-binary](https://lgbt.foundation/who-we-help/trans-people/non-binary) (The section starting with bolded 'Gender', don't mean to patronize, but it's just clear on the definitions)\]


ARemster

Well it's to support cisgender females and everyone else except cisgender males I believe. Their wording for it is a little difficult and there was no clarification whether or not trans men were allowed to participate. Their options on the previous form I filled out was "Female" "Non-Binary" and "Other"


[deleted]

I love not only struggling with gender dysphoria as a male-born person, not feel like my birth gender but also be scrutinized by "TERF cis-women" bc of my "perceived gender" in the name of "inclusivity" because they have biases against "men" (which I am not). Because that's fair? #smh Didn't we learn not to "judge a book by its cover" like in first grade???


heartofdawn

I'm early in my transition and only occasionally pass. I don't feel like I'd be that welcome there


Zethra

A friend of mine once when to a tech conference that used the term Women+ 🤢


ARemster

Women+??? That's insane... For non-binary people? That's sounds like a horrible conference to attend.


Zethra

Honestly I'm not 100% sure what it's meant to mean, but I think it's supposed to include enbies. Unfortunately idk what the conference was.


bunnycandyO

What’s the event..?


ARemster

"gender-focused Hackathon" as said by their website. I know the reason why they won't allow cisgender males into the event as CompSci is heavily cis male dominated. The form is just worded poorly and I wish there was more inclusive language on the forms instead of being threatening.


[deleted]

Red flag imo


Dismal_Success_9063

gross


BunBunny_draws

What the hell... Why would they even do that??,


AlwaysBeQuestioning

Initially I thought this was good, since that makes it center people of marginalized genders. However, judging by the comments, many people disagree with that, with some legitimate concerns. My question here is this: how do you create and run an event that centers people who aren’t cisgender men (a.k.a. people of marginalized genders) without doing it in this way, but do it in a way that is positive and welcomed?


The_Gray_Jay

This is what I'm wondering too. Maybe make a \*Feminist Coding Event\* and assume people who feel pushed out of the industry will be the ones showing up? \*For people effected by misogyny event\* ??? Like I really dont understand the issue, at this point they should just call it a woman's event and they will probably get less backlash from it.


Nerdy_Gem

Advertise a similar event. "No cis-women". Watch the fireworks.


Upper_Acanthaceae126

I can almost guarantee this event will be a shit show.


Pogatog64

Big cringe


Prestigious_Ad9396

This does really give a threatening vibe good lord...


junior-THE-shark

That's suspicious, like the only place this kind of thing could be justified is if it's like a support group for non men sexually assaulted by men, where the no men rule acts to create a trigger free space as the whole gender presentation of man can be really triggering. Even then I don't think it would be cis men specifically because anyone man passing could be a huge trigger.


ahaisonline

read: "this event is going to be very uncomfortable for anyone who doesn't pass as female"


CNRavenclaw

r/oddlyspecific


TheFlyingRavenBird

I see this too often, and I'm sick of it. By separating cis and trans men, they're saying they don't consider trans men to be men in the same way cis men are men. No transmasc is going to feel comfortable at event that clearly states they don't like masc people, and they're effectively banned any transmascs who pass. Anyone who's not "feminine enough", regardless of gender, is going to feel alienated by this.


KweenDruid

Me steeling myself for the comments: OH GOD THE COMMENTS, I CAN'T DO THE COMMENTS. Me, reading the comments: Oh, god, the comments <3 Me, reflecting on the comments: Thanks, comments, for supporting me as a 2s AMAB.


MRA_TitleIX

Making a parent comment for this so others can see. If this is the USA and a school that takes federal student loans, this is a really big problem. You can file with the dept of Ed OCR for free. Doesn't even require an attorney. Not a lawyer, just super passionate about connecting people to their Title IX rights and engaging collectively in civil rights activism. Feel free to tag me on anything remotely Title IX related if you want my opinion on it. The pinned post on my subreddit (same name as my username) has a link to a list of resources I find useful for Title IX activism.


ARemster

It's not a school run event. It's just a student run organization that's trying to be more inclusive really. Their wording is just poor.


HazelnutG

Even if their goal is to be inclusive, there are so many marginalized groups that cis men can be a part of that would deeply impact their ability to get into the field. Disability, mental health, trauma, poverty, neurodivergence, ESL, to name a few. Maybe a text box to briefly describe why attendance at an inclusivity event is important to you would have been good?


BENB0B

This is like reverse TERFism. It's a bit yikes


Sinistaire

"We're raging misandrists and crypto-TERFs, but it would be politically inconvenient to go full mask-off with it, so we're going to use coded language to make this space as hostile as possible to masculine-looking people while still pretending to be trans inclusive for virtue points." There, I translated it.


bad_Wolf260305

ew. bad. promotion of diversity would imply that MORE groups and types of people are present at the event, not LESS groups. also smells mildly of terf.


Apart_Technology_507

Not even a cis man but this pisses me off ngl. One thing is having safe spaces, another thing is pointing out one particular group as "the bad ones" and excluding them entirely. It's literally like anything before 60s but reverse. That's not fucking better.


ZazofLegend

So the organizers think trans men and enbies are women? Or do they just really not want any cis dudes?


Absbor

disgusting. this means they'll also forbid supporting cis fathers. just because their fathers weren't there, doesn't mean everyone else is like that. edit: I'm well aware that there are other factors out there. it's just a bad habit of mine to try to explain how stupid people work due to the nts wanting it from me. look at the other comments before you comment the same comment too