@pldi and FCRC are being held this week, & one of my students mentioned to me that she was considering attending the conference. But she is a transgender woman and Florida has passed laws that make traveling to Florida unsafe for trans people.
🧵& blog:
https://jonathanaldrich.github.io/2023/06/14/conference-location-and-inclusion.html
In Florida, trans people cannot use bathrooms of their gender identity in any state govt building or school–& given risks they would face entering a bathroom that doesn’t correspond to their gender, in practice this means they have no options at all.
Laws allow doctors to deny care based on "moral concerns" and ban gender-affirming care. In an emergency, they may worry about receiving care at all--or retaining access to their meds, from which a withdrawal could have immediate & severe consequences.
The Senate Rules Committee voted today to pass Senate Bill 1580 (SB 1580), which would allow healthcare providers and payors to refuse to provide healthcare services to Floridians based on their “moral,” “ethical,” or “religious” beliefs.
Ensuring people from affected communities are involved in planning conferences is one way to avoid this situation. Is your conference’s steering committee exclusively ex-officio past conference organizers ? Is it therefore mostly cis straight white men? You should change that.
For US locations, there are also resources tracking anti-trans laws that are passed or are being proposed.
In the last few years states have advanced a record number of bills that attack LGBTQ rights, especially transgender youth. The ACLU is tracking these attacks and working with our national network of affiliates to support LGBTQ people everywhere.
Going forward, the ACM, IEEE, and other organizations in Computer Science should not plan conferences in events with laws that threaten the safety of the members of our community–whether transgender or otherwise.
I call on leaders at SIGPLAN, the ACM, the IEEE Computer Society, and other conference sponsors to come together to discuss this issue & to create policies to ensure that all members of our community are safe and welcomed at our future events.
Full post: https://jonathanaldrich.github.io/2023/06/14/conference-location-and-inclusion.html
@JonathanAldrich Counterpoint: while the conference excludes Trans people from out of state, trans people within the state probably appreciate a safe environment where they can participate without going through the risks on flying through airports etc where they have to navigate the dangerous laws of their own state.
I’m not saying you’re wrong overall, but I don’t think anything about this issue is simple.
@JonathanAldrich @pldi I've been pushing the tech group I'm in to only meet in safer states or countries for trans, gay, pregnant(*), etc. people (no FL, TX, Hungary, etc.). That's well-received and I think we'll do it. But a nonbinary member from outside the US is advocating for no US meetings at all, and that's a logical next step.
(*) Important to include that being pregnant in some states could be a literal death sentence, unable to access required medical care.
Jonathan Aldrich
Alley Stoughton
Naman
Rob Ricci
Jon