One of the world’s largest conferences for women in computing careers made headlines recently due to an unexpected influx of attendees who identified as non-binary but were biologically male.
The Grace Hopper Celebration is a career fair that began nearly 30 years ago to promote women in tech careers. While the fair was initially designed for the benefit of biological women, it has recently broadened its opportunities in an attempt to promote “non-binary” tech workers as well.
However, at this year’s conference, organizers found themselves overwhelmed by a large number of biological males in attendance. The nonprofit organization behind the conference, AnitaB.org, stated that it was “committed to providing a celebratory space for women and non-binary technologists” but admitted that this year’s conference saw “an increase in participation of self-identifying males.”
In response to this incident, AnitaB Chief Impact Officer Cullen White explained that many of the men in attendance had lied about their gender identity in order to obtain opportunities provided solely to female and “non-binary” attendees.
“Yesterday, it became clear that there are a far greater number of cisgender men attending than we anticipated,” White explained. “Simply put, some of you lied when you registered. And as evidenced by the stacks and stacks of resumes you’re passing out, you did so because you thought you could come here and take space to try and get a job.”
This incident, while unfortunate for the biological women in attendance, is not surprising. When we have a society that argues men can identify as women or an individual can identify as “non-binary,” it should not be surprising when people use that to their advantage. We have seen this happen numerous times in professional sports, as biological men claim to be women so that they can compete in the women’s category and win.
According to the U.S. National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, only one-third of individuals working in STEM fields are women. Career fairs like The Grace Hopper Celebration are designed to help ensure that qualified women who choose to enter STEM fields have the best chances possible at succeeding in such a male-dominated field.
However, many of the women who complained about the number of men in attendance at the conference would have had no issue if these men honestly believed they were women. The only reason they spoke out was because it was obvious that these male attendees were lying in order to gain an advantage.
If feminists actually cared about the success of women, they would advocate for conferences like these to remain solely for women. Real women, not men pretending to be women or people claiming to be “non-binary.”
This piece first appeared at TPUSA.
