| Thanks for your remark. I agree with you about the seriousness of this, and I am sorry if our language was imprecise. Please do not mistake any oddity in how this was written with the clarity of how we reacted at the time, our commitment to inclusiveness, and our complete agreement that this was unacceptable. It wasn't even an attempted joke. The person made explicitly transphobic remarks based on their own intolerant beliefs. What the person said was offensive and unacceptable, and I personally used those words, and I believe I made that clear to all involved at the time.
Rather than mionimize this, sweep this under the rug, or ignore it, I escalated this to all the other organizers immediately after I heard about it, and I am glad we wrote about it in the wrap-up. I also apologized to the students that this happened at our event, and asked what they would like to see happen, and what we could do.
As the transphobic person had already left, ejection was unnecessary (though would have been the next step), and they immediate suggested putting a better policy in place for our events - which we are doing.
We also 'blacklisted' the person from all future railsbridge events. We agree that transphobic/racist/sexist/homophobic remarks are simply unacceptable, and it was not about who happened to be sitting there.
I would say this about the students who happened to be sitting there - they stood up for themselves and each other, and are the reason the maker of the transphobic remarks left even before the organizers found out about it. - Andrew Kuklewicz |