Re: [minor patch] Amend CoC

[Christine Lemmer-Webber <cwebber@dustycloud.org>]

Taylan Kammer <taylan.kammer@gmail.com> writes:

> On 20.02.2022 19:05, Liliana Marie Prikler wrote:
>>> Note: The upstream Contributor Covenant wouldn't want to include it
>>> because the author seems to have a peculiar world-view where they
>>> don't acknowledge that humans actually have a sex.  I hope the Guix
>>> maintainers are more reasonable than that. :-)
>> Sorry, but tracking down the issue you submitted towards the
>> contributor covenant, it appears to me that you are the misguided one.
>> The CoC already prohibits discrimination based on gender identity,
>> sexual identity and sexual orientation.  If you identify your gender as
>> your sex, whatever that might be, you are thereby already protected.
>> 
>> The wording you chose (intentionally or otherwise) tries to invalidate
>> other people's gender identity and thus violates the CoC.
>> 
>> Cheers
>
> I had really hoped this would be an uncontroversial suggestion...
>
> It might be useful to provide a link in case others want to take a look at
> the debate as well:
>
> https://github.com/EthicalSource/contributor_covenant/pull/548
>
> I've said everything there I'd say now if I were to argue back, and I really
> don't want to argue about this on a Guix ML anyway, so I'll leave it to the
> maintainers to decide what to do.  Just one remark for them: most women I
> know would think twice before spending time trying to get into a community
> whose rules intentionally don't acknowledge sex-based discrimination.

My first thought when looking at the top of this thread was, "well I
would be okay with adding a word if it isn't an *entry point* for
debating trans experiences on list" but it looks like it's likely to be
so:

  https://github.com/EthicalSource/contributor_covenant/pull/548#issuecomment-399692924

So I share Liliana's concerns.  I think it looks like the conversation
on-list is already going in that direction.  It looks like it did on the
referenced pull request already too.

I'm a transwoman with intersex characteristics.  I've certainly read a
ton about sexual and gender therory, have read plenty of books on it and
I can say without a doubt that I really just don't feel comfortable
debating these topics on a technical mailing list.

I don't want to put any assertions of intention in here either, but just
state that it looks like this is already opening that kind of experience
here, the concerns that this could be an "entry point" for that kind of
back and forth already seems to be playing out, and I that makes this
not a "minor patch" to me.

At any rate, the CoC already says "gender identity and expression" and
"sexual identity and orientation".  Seems that already covers a broad
ground to me.

 - Christine