It's a new day, so I'm starting on a positive note. Hopefully today runs more smoothly than yesterday. The opening remarks were hosted and moderated by the ACM Diversity Chair. She had a really good opening paragraph about the impact of the pandemic. She talked about how it created larger gaps in wealth and access. It was a good way to start the day. Since the ACM Diversity Chair, she may be the person I should reach out to about the Community Data Collection form I had a lot of opinions on.
The next speaker I had seen at other events. She and I have had good conversations so far. I didn't know she was on the committee in charge of the conference. She identified as a cis woman. She is the first person I've seen do this so far and it means so much to finally get more recognition. Her work is mainly in accessibility. She talked about how with the world being virtual due to the pandemic, there have been benefits for disabled people. Disabled people have been asking to work from home for so long,now we finally have experienced that, and we know that not all jobs need in person action. However, it has created new accessibility issues. In reference to this conference specifically, ASL interpreters and closed captioning are necessary for people who have hearing impairments. For people with vision impairments, screenreaders can't read screensharings. Are you describing your physical appearance, even if your video is on. She invited people to look at the ASL interpreter, whether they need them or not. She invited us to open the closed captioning and think about how accurate it is. Is there a delay? Are they automatic or written by a captioner? I liked her presentation a lot.
The next presenter also introduced himself as a cis man, using he/him/el pronouns. Once again, I have so much respect for people acknowledging their cisgender identity. It normalizes gender identities and labels. I also liked him using non-English pronouns. I might start listing my pronouns as [he/they/lui] since I'm learning Italian. He presented an award to The University of Texas for their diversity initiatives and growth.
The keynote panel was hosted by a deaf woman at Microsoft and accessibility. She was a really enjoyable speaker to listen to. She made screen sharing mistakes and jokes at her own expense. When she had the slide show issues, she didn't realize at first. The moderator said to the ASL interpreter, "Can you tell her," before immediately being cut off by the speaker saying, "Speak to me, not my interpreter". I'm not aware if this issue was explicitly mentioned today, but a very common issue disabled people face is when people, either intentionally or not, dehumanize them. While the ASL interpreter is a person, they are a tool to assist the disabled person. The fact their interpreter is a human, does not take away from their value as a human, and the respect and treatment they deserve. You shouldn't say to interpreters, "tell them this, ". It unintentionally takes autonomy away from the disabled person. They're not a child with their interpreter acting as their parent. Speak directly to the person. The speaker did explicitly talk about her experiences being infantilized by others because of her disability. When grocery shopping, people have asked her interpreter if they'll be paying for her, implying that disabled people cannot handle their own money or cannot have a source of income. The pandemic has made grocery shopping as a deaf person even harder, since disabled people can't read lips with masks.
She had a longer presentation about specifics at Microsoft regarding accessibility. I don't care much for Microsoft, so I didn't take many notes. I still paid attention though. There were two more general takeaways I want to highlight.
First, we may ask the question, "How do I know if someone has a disability?" Not all disabilities are visible. There are physical disabilities, which may be the first disabilities that come to mind, like people who need mobility aids. There are also invisible disabilities that can exist in ways such as chronic illnesses and learning disabilities. So "how do I know if someone has a disability?" The answer is that you don't. You can't tell if someone has a disability by looking at them. What you can do is create an environment where people are safe to disclose their disability. It's important to create an environment that's as accommodating as possible. While it's difficult to create a fully accommodating environment without first experiencing issues, we must create a space where people feel safe coming forward with their experiences.
Second, just say disabled! Saying "disabled people" isn't bad. You don't need to say "differently abled" or "people with disabilities" or any variation. Being disabled is not a bad thing to be. It is a fact. In the speakers case, she is deaf and that is a fact. She needs to take extra steps to accommodate that. This doesn't make her less a person or more a person than anyone.
Here were the resources that were posted in chat during the talk.
I went to a workshop titled Conversations with Faculty about Student Mental Health. It was hosted by faculty and what they do to support their students and their mental health. As a student who faces a variety of mental health issues, and as a teaching assistant, I was interested.
Before covering the content of the panel, I have finally seen my first panelist who uses they/them pronouns. This was the extent of their description of their gender identity. Gender identity was not covered during the panel. On one hand, I'm glad I finally got that representation. On the other hand, I wish it was more than just a single person stating they use they/them pronouns.
Overall, the panel covered things I already knew, so I didn't take notes. I will just list general bullet points about how to support students mental health.
The most impactful thing was not part of the panel, but a question an attendee asked.
I have a question regarding female student's needs at the time of the month. I have never seen anyone discuss this topic but it affects so many of us when the students are in too much pain to go to class, especially in STEM when sometimes I'm the only girl in the class and we are too shy to always have to ask for our male friends' class notes. As professors how do you normalize and support the students in this scenario?
While I understand their concerns and issues. the language bothered me. I gave the following response.
In addition to (attendee)'s question, what about all students during that time of the month. People of all genders can have a menstrual cycle. In addition to the normal pain and stress of a menstrual cycle, this causes additional dysphoria for people who may not identify as female. Being the only transgender man in my classes, I spent four years trying to get transgender recognition in general and working myself into a position where I'm mostly safe to use the men's restroom, but even then, there are no menstrual waste receptacles. So in addition to normalizing this experience for women with menstrual cycles, but also normalizing the experience for people of all genders.
It's really frustrating to experience those same issues, in a more severe way, and not have that recognized. In addition to the pain and stress of a menstrual cycle, it causes me personal dysphoria[1], men's restrooms lack menstrual products and waste bins, and when the issue is brought up, I am almost always excluded. The question wasn't brought up by the panelists. It was grouped in with other questions and all given the blanket answer "we need to be understanding of all issues." One panelist did point out my comment, but didn't respond to or mention any of the content of my message, and applied the same blanket statement, which was frustrating.
The other attendee responded:
Thank you for calling me out on my non-inclusive language and mindset. I truly appreciate that and I'm so sorry to hear about the lack of resources that you're going through :(
I'm thankful they were willing to listen and not take my comments as personal attacks.
Another, unrelated attendee responded to my message.
Just wanted to say that I saw your message and feel your pain - it’s really frustrating to have to try and both advocate for yourself while also having to get the literal and metaphorical structures around you to even acknowledge you exist. I don’t have any snappy advice, but just a shout across the internet that I understand, and am sorry you have had to deal with all of that.
This comment meant a lot to me. It felt good to have my struggle acknowledged and heard.
I tried to attend other events later that day, but I just couldn't pay attention or focus. So I decided to stop attending the Thursday workshops after the mental health panel. It's been getting harder to be optimistic about each event. I'm getting really tired of having to constantly remind people that I exist in this field. The conference had become exhausting in a way where I was being drained, but not be able to have anything to show for it.
However, the one person who did respond to me earlier was very helpful. We connected over being trans men, our disappointment in the conference, and the exhaustion in always having to reassert ourselves. In talking, they mentioned they're 40 years old and working in academia. This single person has made this entire conference worth it. It's possible to be an adult trans man in this field. They offered me so much advice in my career goals. I'm so grateful I've found them. We're planning on writing letters to the event organizers together about the LGBTQ+ representation in the conference. It's really good to know I'm not going to do this alone.
[1]: gender dysphoria (noun) : the condition of feeling one's emotional and psychological identity to be at variance with one's birth sex Oxford Handbook