Unfortunately, I think this is far from being political bullshit. I can see why it would look like from the ground, but in the end, that’s not exactly where it would matter.
For a start, due to local laws (HB 1557), if the event is hosted in a university (like Flock 2014 in Prague, or various proposal in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018), this would prevent a D&I meeting , or at least, would be limiting some topics. I want to point that we have a newly formed Pride group, and it wouldn’t be able to meet (if that’s in a university or school, due to local regulation)
And I am sure RH Legal wouldn’t be thrilled dealing with the risk of being in the cross-hair of a Republican controversy during a election year.
Then there is plenty of research on the impact of anti-LGBT rethoric (which is hard to deny in Florida) and increase of violence for LGBT folks.
For example, in Russia, the passing of the “do not say gay law” in 2013 resulted in a increase of violence, this paper clearly say there is a before and a after .
Another example, 10 years ago in France, the protest against same sex marriage resulted in a documented increase of homophobic violence (source in French among others ).
And that’s also what happen in the USA, again according to people who study that.
And since we are speaking of Orlando, FL, I want to point that the last time I heard about the city, it was for this news yesterday. Yes, I know that’s a minority, and I have been to Orlando, folks were nice.
But I do not think we want to take the risk of the same groups deciding to up their game and disrupt a small event like Flock. If their goal was to be a mix between a cosplay group and a hiking club and nothing more, I think they would wear more practical outfits.
I agree than during the event itself, that’s unlikely anything happen. If Fedora pay for it, money will talk. But attendees tend to go out after the event (or at least, we did when i was going to Flock), and that’s usually where things can go wrong.
And finally, it would also be bad for the image of Fedora. I kept track of that kind of discussions in various communities (Wikipedia, OSM, etc) for a talk I gave this year at Devconf.cz. And my conclusion is that the push for accountability increase year after year.
For example, in 2008, few people protested when Wikimania (the Flock of Wikimedia movement) was in Egypt, while it was still under a dictatorship (and LGBT rights weren’t better than now).
This year, the event was in Singapore, and the location was announced around beginning of august 2022. At that time, homosexuality was still illegal in the city state. So people from the community started to plan making a real life protest during the event. I was in the chat room where it was discussed, but as the law changed a few weeks after the announce, nothing happened. Had it not changed, I am sure the event team wouldn’t have been thrilled to deal with that.
In fact, i say nothing happened, but there was a online controversy due to toilets changes for diversity. That’s a change I have seen in several events in the past such as Write The Docs, OSS Summit, Chaos Computer Congress, and one that is popular because that’s a inexpensive way to be inclusive.
There was plenty of people protesting Linux Foundation choice to have a even in Texas last year on Twitter/X. Again, the organizers had to quickly react before it became a problem and people started to contact sponsors (which would result in budget issues). Again, I am sure they would have preferred not having to deal with the controversy, but they had no choice due to contracts being signed before.
So there is plenty of risks increase on various axes.
But even without that, that would also go contrary to the value we push, and undo lots of hard work made by people since years.
Some US states are becoming toxic and create reputational risks, and that’s a unfortunate fact.
Yes, that’s deeply unfair for people living there who are most likely fine and welcoming in their majority.
But that’s also unfair for people who would feel unsafe during a whole event (or more likely, just not come due to a problem that could have been avoided ). That would be unfair to subject the event team to extra stress and more work. That would be unfair to have one group be potentially unable to do a meetup. That would be unfair to undo the work done to be inclusive.
So I would strongly think Fedora should look at the policy of Openstreetmap.
This resulted in plenty of discussions such as:
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/osmf-talk/2021-October/008148.html
In the end, we can’t just handwave around “diversity” and “being safe” and not add it to the processes somewhere, and have this discussion every year (because yes, I can predict we will have it year after year and louder and louder, because that’s what happened everywhere.
We say we want to be welcoming so it is time to show it. Because even with inflation, talk is still cheap.