Are there gay people at ETCON?
So first things first, after considerable soul-searching and fiddling around with finances I've found a way to go to Emerging Tech this year to cheer on my BBC other half's paper: Glancing: I'm OK, You're OK. Last year the conference completely blew me away and acted as fuel for one of the most creative periods in my working life to date (although unfortunately not all of that creativity ended up being expressed coherently or in the public domain). Hopefully this year's conference will be just as good...
One thing that I found last year that I wasn't expecting was how many like-minded people I met - or if not like-minded, how many people there I felt comfortable around. I felt that I understood their world-view even if I didn't understand anything else that came out of their mouths. That got me thinking about what particular elements or lifestyle attributes we had in common - and that in turn made me thing about all the things things that we might not have in common - and that in turn led me to think about whether or not these events are bastions of heterosexual maleness and whether many of the people present might be gay. So as a result of that, I'm putting a kind-of poll into the field to see if there are going to be any gay people at ETCon this year that would like to get together at some point for a drink and a chat.
Comments
Please stay on-topic, informative and polite. I reserve the right to remove comments for whatever vague capricious reasons seem reasonable at the time.
I thought about turning this into a participant session (at http://wiki.oreillynet.com/etech/pub?ParticipantSessions ) but it could remind me too much of the worst kind of university lgb group...
At least this year we're in a proper city, so there's the opportunity to explore the real world.
→ Posted by: Chris at January 15, 2004 8:24 AM
Is there a list somewhere of absolutely everyone that is attending? I would be interested to see that as well.
I am attending, but heterosexual.
→ Posted by: Ben at January 15, 2004 3:44 PM
Is a gay gathering open to the queer girls as well?
→ Posted by: zephoria at January 17, 2004 5:37 AM
oh arses. and not in a good way...
a year ago i promised myself i'd have my finances and generaly shit sorted enough to go to this. but, hey, guess what, it didn't happen. :(
speaking of things not happening, what came of the uk conference thing that was discussed at the photographic cafe, et al, a while back?
→ Posted by: jamie at January 17, 2004 12:25 PM
Absolutely! Would be great to say hi to some gay women at the event. I suppose I was rather assuming that they'd be an even rarer commodity in such a place, given how few women generally are normally there.
→ Posted by: Tom Coates at January 17, 2004 1:52 PM
Ben, why not add yourself to the upcoming.org event: http://www.upcoming.org/event/1602/ - already some netty people attending (istr that the official attendees list is only handed out at the event).
→ Posted by: Chris at January 18, 2004 12:02 AM
Chris, there's a participant list on the O'Reilly wiki, though it's not fully populated by any means...
http://wiki.oreillynet.com/etech/hosted.conf?ConferenceAttendees
While I fall into none of the above-mentioned categories, I am looking forward to meeting Tom in person!
→ Posted by: Liz at January 18, 2004 9:06 PM