zlacker

>>stable+(OP)
I expect this to be a controversial comment. I might just be overreacting.

  If you identify as a woman and are interested in joining Leap, 
  please sign up for our beta here.

I'm a trans woman who works in tech. I think it's dangerous to open a community for women to people who "identify as women". For one thing, there are plenty of women who do not "identify as women". For instance, older women may not really know what "identifying" is all about and just think "well, I'm a woman, what's to identify with?". There are also younger women who reject the idea that gender is an identity that you can choose at will.

Obviously the invitation is meant to show that trans women are welcome. That's... moving, but I think it will only cause trouble. First you create a place especially for women, which is needed because like the announcement says, many women don't feel welcome, comfortable or even safe in online discussions that tend to escalate to shouting matches, typically among men (since it's the women leaving). Then you invite in to the community people who have been socialised as men, have grown up as men, have spent most of their professional lives as men and who have often contributed to exactly the kind of working environment that makes womens' lives difficult as tech workers. That's defeating the whole point of a "community where the core culture [will be] set by women".

I'm not trying to say that trans women are not women (I mean, duh; I'm one. Of both). But it should be kept in mind that most of us carry a great deal of baggage from the time we lived as men. Baggage that's very hard to get rid of and that many of us are not even aware of. In light of this, I think this big-hearted invitation to everyone who identifies as a woman, should be revised to something more cautious. I'd think, if someone "identifies as a woman" and works in technology, they'd respond to an invitation to just "women" anyway.

To be perfectly clear, I'm totally not joining and I invite any other trans women who read this to think very carefully before doing so. Just think of all the times you had a civilised and polite debate with other trans women about trans stuff, or about anything.

>>konoga+YA
Ultimately, all in-groups are decided by the consent of the majority of members, since everyone will self-select in the end: those who disagree will leave, those who begin to feel excluded will leave, those who feel unwelcome won't join. You can factor in leadership change and continuity as an additional complication, and the names and labels attached to the group will change, but the phenomenon remains the same.

Societally, we have recently gotten to the point of being able to talk about the importance of having spaces where historically marginalized groups can forge a shared sense of belonging and build up the social support structures that historically less marginalized groups have long enjoyed, but I don't believe we've gotten to the point of being able to have a reasoned debate about edge cases where different groups overlap in some ways, yet diverge in others, along axes some might find incompatible.

I also don't necessarily think that this is for the group leader to solve: this is a process that will take years of successes and blunders, and cause everyone involved to tackle an additional layer of delicate subjects that they may not be ready for. It appears that the group leader has laid out their vision, so for now, the points you raise will likely be addressed in a distributed fashion, in the minds of every member or prospective member, as time goes on.