That. Thank you.

That. Thank you.

Originally shared by Anna Kreider

My new policy: I won't be your token female panelist

(Reshared from Twitter, but expanded slightly. Writing all of this is hard and scary, because I feel like I'm probably burning at least a couple of bridges by saying this publicly. But those are bridges that would have failed when tested anyhow, so here goes.)

After FanExpo in Toronto this past weekend, I have a new "No Token" policy: I refuse to be a token female panelist at your convention.

White dudes, there's no way I can possibly explain what a mindfuck it is finding out you're there as a token representative of your gender as a panelist at a con. t's impossible not to ask yourself 'is this the only reason you invited me, to avoid the bad optics of having NO female panelists?'

Further, because I am a female game designer, I managed to become "one of the guys" - I'm one of the few women people think to invite to panels. But accepting these invitations means hurting the feelings of women who look at the scarcity of spots & KNOW they'll never be good enough to get an invitation, despite doing work that is JUST AS IMPORTANT, but not celebrated either because it is emotional labor or just because lots of awesome female game writers get ignored.

Accepting these spots tacitly signals that I am okay with the gender imbalance, because I am associating my name with it. And I AM DEEPLY NOT OKAY WITH IT. I'm not okay because of how awful it makes me feel about myself, and I'm not okay because I've seen how not okay other women are. A female friend I have great respect for told me how upset and angry she was about realizing that she's never going to be invited to be a panelist at a major con, and then apologized for venting. And all I could do was respond with NO DON'T APOLOGIZE BECAUSE YOUR FEELINGS ARE VALID AND CORRECT, THIS IS SHITTY.

I'm also not okay when it feels like by including me, the organizers get to tick two "diversity boxes" at once. ("Hey look! We get a woman and a queer/non-binary person! Cross those off the list.") Being asexual and genderqueer/non-binary already sucks because I get to feel erased by the LGBT community all the time; it double sucks feeling like I'm being used to erase other LGBT folks.

The argument that I'm sure I'll get back is "well they didn't mean to only invite mostly dudes - it was an accident". BUT THAT'S NOT AN EXCUSE ANYMORE. When major conventions like GenCon can change their tune and achieve gender parity in their GoH lineup... What's your excuse?

Don't tell me that it wasn't malicious. Not working to increase diversity of panelists is ALSO a choice. It's a choice to uphold status quo. Men are NOT the default - choosing to have mostly white men represent you IS A CHOICE, and an illustrative one at that.

Something else that isn't a valid excuse is "not knowing industry" well enough to know who diverse panelists could be. If that's a problem, THEN DELEGATE. Find a notwhitedude with the knowledge you lack to put together a diverse, compelling lineup of guests, if you can't do it yourself. I don't run cons, but I've volunteered at enough to know that delegating is a HUGE part of convention organizing.

I know that it's possible to have awesome and diverse panel lineups that still have great and valuable conversations. Being an Industry Insider at GenCon 2016 came with the honor and privilege of having conversations with awesome folks like Ajit George, Katherine Cross, Jessica Price, just to name a few. And at Breakout Con this past spring, I was on an all-female panel moderated by a woman that WASN'T about women in gaming! Shocker! It was actually a great panel about freelance illustration. It was a great panel that just happened to have no men. So I know FOR A FACT that it is possible to have panels that AT LEAST have an even mix of whitedudes and notwhitedudes, because I've been on them.

Tl;dr, I won't be your token anymore. I might not have the ability to change how things are done, but I can at least not be complicit.