One of the few benefits of the pandemic is the accessibility of conferences now. Almost all conferences are being hosted online, which makes it much easier for Drexel to fund students to attend since there's no travel. It also makes it easier for me to find time to attend since there's no travel. I am very lucky that Drexel has funded my attendance of the Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference hosted by CMD-IT and the ACM. I'm super happy I get to attend this event because diversity in computing is a huge part of my life, and I also have been considering an ACM membership, as I plan to get my PhD in lower level computing. So, as I have for past conferences, I'll write a post about my experiences. I've been enjoying the process of writing on my blog. I recently read through my experience TAing a grad course over the pandemic. So I'm gonna continue doing what I'm doing. Also, the college is having a meeting afterwards between the attendees to discuss our experiences, so I need to take notes.
I had originally planned on making this one large blogpost. After attending the conference on Wednesday, I've realized this is going to be a lot longer than previously expected. I'm gonna break this up into a series of posts and update the "Navigation" as I go.
So I haven't even started the event yet, and I'm a little disappointed. When registering, I was faced with the question no form can ever get right.
What is your gender identity?
- Female
- Male
- Non Binary
- Gender Fluid
- Prefer not to answer
I have an entire separate blogpost about my opinions on this question and how to do it accurately, but its really disappointing to see how poorly this was done for a conference about diversity. So a quick run down of why this is bad. 1) You could only pick one option. 2) It treats gender identity still as a category to fit into instead of something that exists and can be described with given gender labels. 3) The options are extremely limited. You can go read my other blogpost for more information on how to do this right. It's clear there was an attempt to be more inclusive, however it's very surface level. It looks like an attempt was made only to say they are inclusive, but everything else shows there isn't a deeper understanding of the community.
Then after registration, there was a Community Data Collection survey done by the ACM to "better understand the diversity and inclusion of the ACM community." This survey included the question:
To which gender identity do you most identify?
- Prefer not to say
- Female
- Male
- Non-Binary
- Prefer to Self-Describe. Please Specify
So we've already done a much better job now. By using the words "most identify" shows that the list is incomplete and people can use more than one term to describe themselves. They included a box to self identify which makes up for the fact only three gender identities were listed. Even though this is better than the registration, there's so much more work to do. So I took this opportunity to make good use of the "Prefer to Self-Describe" box and wrote the following:
Transgender Man. Despite trying to understand the diversity and inclusion of the ACM community, this question doesn't accurately capture the diversity of gender identity. While you do include a Non-binary and self identify options, which are great starts, the rest of this question is not accurate to the way gender exists. Gender is a social and cultural construct. Different cultures place different roles on each gender. For example, before being colonized and having their culture stripped from them, Native Americans and Indigenous people had more than two genders. One of which being someone who is two-spirit. These two-spirit people still exist. In a more personal example, I am a transgender man. While I could identify as male in this question, I feel it removes an important part of my identity. I do not identify with cisgender men (men who were designated male at birth). My experience as a transgender man has impacted how I've grown as a person and has heavily impacted my experiences in the computing field. Despite the fact I am a man, I am frequently ostracized by cisgender men because I am transgender. In addition to this, I frequently identify with the non-binary identity. Despite identifying primarily as a man, I am comfortable with androgyny, femininity, and using they/them pronouns. I frequently consider myself a nonbinary man to accurately represent my relationship with manhood outside of what is expected of binary men. So the point of me explaining a very quick lecture in gender theory is to demonstrate that gender identities are both identities, but also descriptors. While I do identify as a male, in this context, I do not feel comfortable choosing only male, because I feel like it erases my experiences as a transgender male. If you would like more accurate data collection, I suggest having a question where a user can pick more than one option. Include descriptors such as "male", "female", "transgender", "cisgender", "nonbinary", "two-spirit", "intersex" in addition to options such as "Prefer to Self-Describe" and "Prefer not to say". This allows users to choose more than one descriptor for their identity, and leads to more accurate data collection, which can be used to improve the ACM. I am attending the Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity, and after looking at the schedule, I am disappointed to see the lack of events for LGBTQ+ individuals. Hopefully, more accurate data collection can lead to more accurate statistics about the ACM community, which will allow for more resources to become available to underrepresented members.
So my "self described gender identity" ended up being a large paragraph about gender and facing discrimination. Hopefully it wasn't all for nothing. Hopefully someone reads my response and the form is revised in future years. Or even better, more resources become available for the community. I need to write a separate blogpost about how badly the underrepresentation of LGBTQ+ people in STEM is affecting the community and the resources available.
In my response I did mention the lack of events at the Tapia Conference for LGBTQ+ people. Over the course of this five day conference, there are a total of 118 events, excluding networking sessions, breaks, ceremonies, career fairs, and poster presentations. There is one that mentions Gender Based Violence, but it still does not specific whether it includes LGBTQ+ people. There are no events that mention LGBTQ+ people in the titles or descriptions. While I am disappointed, I'm gonna try and stay optimistic that the general diversity events will be inclusive.