Code of Conduct

LGBTQ in Technology prioritizes marginalized people’s safety and well-being over privileged people’s feelings and comfort.

When Something Happens

• Let the person know that what they did is not appropriate and ask them to stop and/or edit their message(s).
• That person should immediately stop the behavior and correct the issue.
• If they don’t stop their behavior, or if you’re uncomfortable speaking up, contact admins by using the /admin command.
• As soon as available, the Admin team will engage, identify themselves, and take further action (see below), starting with a warning, then temporary deactivation, then long-term deactivation.
• When reporting, please include any relevant details, links, screenshots, context, or other information that may be used to better understand and resolve the situation.

The Admin team will prioritize the well-being and safety of those affected negatively by the violation over the comfort of the violator.

Code of Conduct

Note: “LGBTQ in Tech” in this document refers to the LGBTQ in Tech Slack organization at lgbt.slack.com. “The administrators” refers to the administrators on this organization; a list is available at the top of the Team Directory (you must be a member of the organization to view this list).

LGBTQ in Tech is dedicated to providing a safe and harassment-free experience for everyone. We do not tolerate harassment of participants in any form.

Members under 18 are allowed, but are asked to stay out of channels with adult imagery.

Some LGBTQ in Tech spaces may have additional rules in place, which will be made clearly available to participants. Participants are responsible for knowing and abiding by these rules.

Conduct

• No harassment.
• No questioning or challenging someone’s stated self-identity or chosen labels, even if they conflict with your own views. For example, discussions about bi vs pan, trans vs trans*, or whether grey/demisexual people are asexual, even if well-intentioned.
• No incitement of violence towards any individual, including encouraging a person to commit suicide or to engage in self-harm.
• No deliberate “outing” of any aspect of a person’s identity without their consent except as necessary to protect vulnerable people from intentional abuse.
• No publication of non-harassing private communication.
• No advocating for members to be banned, except in direct messages, or private discussion with admins.
• No unwelcome comments regarding a person’s lifestyle choices and practices, including those related to food, health, parenting, relationships, drugs, and employment.
• No gratuitous or off-topic sexual images or behaviour in spaces where they’re not appropriate
• No offensive comments related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, neuro(a)typicality, physical appearance, body size, age, race, national origin, ethnic origin, nationality, immigration status, language, religion or lack thereof, or other identity marker.
• No use or abuse of “Reverse”-isms, including “reverse racism,” “reverse sexism,” and “cisphobia” against marginalized members. “Reverse”-isms and any concept that uphold and bulwhark white and privileged supremacies out of the context of challenging it will be shut down.
• No debating the rights and lived experiences of marginalized people in the community.
• No racist, sexist, cissexist, ableist or otherwise oppressive behavior is allowed, casual or explicit. This includes any harmful language, behavior, or action toward people of color, trans folks, disabled and other marginalized identities in our community. These are violations of the Code of Conduct.

Harassment includes:

• Deliberate misgendering or use of “dead” or rejected names
• Physical contact and simulated physical contact (eg, textual descriptions like “hug” or “backrub”) without consent or after a request to stop
• Threats of violence
• Deliberate intimidation
• Stalking or following
• Unwanted photography or recording, including logging online activity for harassment purposes
• Unwelcome sexual attention
• Pattern of inappropriate social contact, such as requesting/assuming inappropriate levels of intimacy with others
• Continued one-on-one communication after requests to cease

For a primer on how people with privilege are expected to conduct themselves within the community, see https://guidetoallyship.com/

Recruiters and job ads must also follow these rules.

Reporting

If you see a violation or have any other concerns, please contact the administrators by typing /admin <your message> in Slack, or contact an admin directly via DM. If the violator is on the team, they will recuse themselves from handling your incident and will be investigated further by the rest of the team. We will respond as promptly as we can.

This code of conduct applies to all LGBTQ in Tech spaces, including public channels, private channels and direct messages, both online and off. This code of conduct also applies to non LGBTQ in Tech spaces when an LGBTQ in Tech member is involved. If you are being harassed by a member of LGBTQ in Tech outside our spaces, we want to know about it. We will take all good-faith reports of harassment by LGBTQ in Tech members, especially the administrators, seriously. This includes harassment outside our spaces and harassment that took place at any point in time. The Admin team reserves the right to exclude people from LGBTQ in Tech based on their past behavior, including behavior outside LGBTQ in Tech spaces and behavior towards people who are not in LGBTQ in Tech.

In order to protect volunteers from abuse and burnout, we reserve the right to reject any report we believe to have been made in bad faith. Reports intended to silence legitimate criticism may be deleted without response.

We will respect confidentiality requests for the purpose of protecting victims of abuse. At our discretion, we may publicly name a person about whom we’ve received harassment complaints, or privately warn third parties about them, if we believe that doing so will increase the safety of LGBTQ in Tech members or the general public. We will not name harassment victims without their affirmative consent.

Consequences

Participants asked to stop any harmful behavior are expected to comply immediately.

If a participant engages in harmful behavior, the administrators may take any action they deem appropriate, up to and including expulsion from all LGBTQ in Tech spaces and identification of the participant as a harasser to other LGBTQ in Tech members or the general public.

Culture

LGBTQ in Tech fosters a culture of community accountability and growth. As such:

• Discussions challenging privilege are encouraged in any channel. Redirecting touchy or difficult subjects to threads or other channels do not apply in these situations.
• Community members are expected to join and participate in #unlearn channels to unpack harmful biases.
• Linking news sources that have proven to be problematic is highly discouraged. (One example of this is The Guardian UK, which is a publication that repeatedly supports and promotes transphobic content.) Instead find alternative news sources or individual voices on social media to share. If you cannot find an alternate news source, use a link anonymizer (e.g. donotlink or DumpTheGuardian); add a content warning noting the media source and link in a thread; or copy/paste a pull quote without the preview.
• Doubling down, tripling down, and any deeply committed privilege-enforcing argument and discussion tactics is not condoned as they are counter to community culture. If you repeatedly and disrespectfully push back in discussions involving valid and reasonable dissent by members of the community, you may be asked to change your behavior and limit your engagement. Discussion tactics like tone policing, civility policing and other privilege-protecting rhetoric made outside of good faith are simply not welcome here. See Conduct section of the COC.
• For less policy-related culture information, see our dedicated Culture document
• LGBTQ in Tech will always honor the emotional labor of members who are marginalized. As such, we respect the time and energy they may, at their discretion, provide to help us better understand their experiences and educate us about our privileges. It is explicitly allowed for marginalized members to advertise payment and tip links on explicitly educational channels and in related instances where their labor is expended. Reparations of any kind, monetary, skill, resource, time-based or otherwise are highly welcomed and supported by the community.