Adding this as a reply since it’s a completely separate point but:

The idea of gender-specific events (as a generalization) is one that is conflicting to me. I certainly understand their value and importance, and as it stands today they are probably necessary. I, personally, am someone who benefits from them and enjoys them.

In the long-term though, as this event shows, it’s difficult to actually confirm that someone is the specified gender without being extremely invasive or excluding folks who aren’t performing the specified gender enough (whatever that would mean). The only unproblematic way to run an event like this would be to assume the good faith of the attendees, I think.

To me, in this situation, having a gender specific tech job fair feels like a bandaid solution to a wider issue that needs tackling: which is that we need to make tech recruitment less intimidating and more inclusive of women and non-binary folks in the first place. For example, how can we improve the existing mixed-gender job fairs?

I’ve also been seeing discussions that job adverts for tech jobs themselves are often worded in a way which is intimidating to AFAB folks. And I certainly feel like this is true based on my personal experiences.

For example: https://www.stemwomen.com/the-importance-of-inclusive-job-adverts

I would appreciate more detail on how they determined whether people were lying or not, especially considering there would be no advantage to lying since the article mentions that self-identifying men were permitted to attend the event.

Yeah, that’s extra sketchy. Gives me more of the impression that by “female and non-binary” they meant “cis women and some enbys & trans women IF they dress up feminine”. In an event that doesn’t bar men from entering, why would any guy lie about their gender identity? What’s the prize, getting to enter a convention that you could have entered if you didn’t lie anwyays? As a trans woman that still presents masculine and has not started any HRT, it wouldn’t be the first time someone assumed I was just lying about my identity to… I dunno, score brownie points I guess?

A lot of these conferences have contracts with conference venues that kinda locks them in for hosting the conference at that location multiple years in a row.

Now I could be wrong, but I think there’s probably one or two women and enbys in Florida :P They haven’t been completely outlawed yet

The next one will be in Philly.

People are upset because a lot of masc-presenting people crowded the job fair, cut in line, and shoved people out of the way. Others who were attending expected the conference to be a place safe from that sort of aggression & it wasn’t.

The people attending where mostly just cis men not non binary.

I don’t know how you get the idea that suddenly lots of people start identifying as non binary when the event is open for men.

Is there any way this can be prevented in the future?

Unfortunately, I can’t think of any way to add prevention measures that wouldn’t also open the door for some insanely transphobic practices. I think this is one of those things where you have to really rely on good faith behavior from the local community/people signing up for the event

I’d need to know more. A lot of people in tech are assigned male at birth, but identify as either non-binary or trans. There is also another lot of toxic “tech bros”, but unless this was specifically a “woman is only one that can give birth” event, or the ones sneaking in were of the toxic kind, I otherwise don’t see the problem.

Agreed. Desperation or entitlement (the admission fee makes me think the latter)? Either way, I don’t think I could imagine being at a level of either to intrude like that.