Re: Some thoughts about Diversity and the CoC
> If it turns out that […] what I think […] is unacceptable
> rather than the way I express it, I will not post any more.
Well, that’s the crux of the problem, isn’t it?
On one hand, there is a clear consensus in the community that
misgendering someone is something we —Debian— do not tolerate.
That we’ve chosen to respect the gender identity of our members,
and prospective members.
On the other hand, someone wil inevitably say: so in order to meet
the letter of the CoC on this point, it should be enough not to
misgender any one person in particular, right? Not quite so, in my
opinion.
The following sentence, and the whole paragraph that contained it,
said on a Debian mailing list is, in my opinion, in full violation
of the Code of Conduct, no matter how politely expressed:
> I do not feel that I should acknowledge people’s requests to
> refer
> to them by their preferred pronouns […]
Why?
We —Debian— haven’t chosen to respect gender identity as a mere
courtesy to some members, but have —hopefully— integrated it fully
into our ethos, the one which wants our members to feel not only
welcome, but safe. And that must come with consequences, if we
want to be coherent and not merely pay lip service to diversity.
In my opinion, writing such sentence on a Debian mailing list (in
fact, the mere choosing of that example to illustrate a point) is
a full-front attack on a set of members whose gender identity
we’ve specifically vowed to protect—and every one of us ought to
be defending them when a paragraph like that is posted on a list.
Instead, it’s those people themselves (Tina, in this case) that
have to do the fighting on their own, and they are entitled to
defend it as they see fit—because it _is_ a personal attack. And
they are doubly entitled to it: first, because nobody else seems
to be doing much; second, because they’re not only fighting for
their own safety, but that of other members, and prospective
members who may be unsure whether to join the Project. An incident
like this is never about one particular person only; we’ve all
lurked.
I salute and thank Tina for defending the safe space we’re trying
to build here for a diverse set of people—particularly in the face
of endless concerns about civility, and blatant tone policing.
Honestly, and with few exceptions, she puts us all to shame.
-d
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