Creating Safe Spaces for Gender Non-Conforming People

(Brenna) #1

To continue the conversation started by @sujato a couple of months ago, we are beginning to see the importance of establishing features that allow for gender non-conforming people to feel safe on our forum.

One of the initial ideas that I had in entering this conversation, is to provide the option for people to list their preferred gender pronouns in their profile so that other people can know how they should refer to them. This is a very simple way to create a safe space by not relying on assumptions of gender.

I would also like to encourage other people to share ideas of inclusivity that they think would be beneficial. Thank you! :grinning:

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(Joshua Rosenfeld) #2

Couldn’t this be done with a Custom User Field?

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#3

It might help to provide a definition of “safe space” as you understand it. In my experience, this has meant different things to different people. It will just be hard to come up with some ideas without knowing exactly how you mean it. :slight_smile:

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#4

I was just thinking, and a bit off topic since this is in the “support” category.

But if there were specific sections of your forum that were concerning in terms of content. You could always add a general “Trigger Warning” as a thread template. This way anyone making a thread will automatically have that added at the top of their thread.

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Just a random idea. :slight_smile:

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(Brenna) #5

My definition of ‘safe space’ is an environment that is conscious of gender binaries and the ways in which they are harmful to those who identify outside of them; in essence, being considerate and not making assumptions.

Thank you for these ideas!

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(system) automatically bumped #6
(Jeff Atwood) #7

In addition to the custom user field, it might be good to have a public forum policy to avoid the use of unnecessary gendered pronouns as site wide guidance.

For example, I find that when I say “him” or “her” it is almost always possible to avoid that by specifying the person’s name (their preferred name of course, as it exists on their user profile), and it has a side benefit of making the discussion clearer and more precise.

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