Episode 114: Live From GeekGirlCon
In Episode 114, “Live From GeekGirlCon,” Elizabeth and Flourish take the show on the road and record their first-ever live episode—from the 9th annual GeekGirlCon in Seattle, Washington. They’re joined by Kristine Hassell, the con’s director of community engagement, to talk about diversity and inclusion at geek-oriented events, especially around disability, race, and gender. How can volunteer-run organizations with tight budgets make sure that everyone feels welcome and is able to participate?
Show Notes
[00:00:00] As always, our intro music is “Awel” by stefsax, used under a CC BY 3.0 license. This time we’re using it as the outro music as well. Learn more about GeekGirlCon at their website! And, you can find Kristine Hassell on Twitter or Instagram.
[00:01:53] Check out the “D20 Dames” podcast—they really saved our bacon by letting us use their equipment.
[00:03:03] The other con Kristine works on is Big Bad Con.
[00:03:40] If you are not familiar, these are kolaches (photo used under BY-SA 3.0; thanks, Chmee2)
These are Moomins:
[00:07:48]
[00:16:40] GeekGirlCon has actually done enough with NASA scientists that they have an entire NASA tag full of articles about the various goings-on!
[00:23:13]
[00:24:28] The wheelchair lift incident Elizabeth’s talking about happened at Netroots Nation. Neal Carter was the person pulled from his own panel, and he described what happened (and the response) in a blog post.
[00:42:22] The Seattle Mikado production happened in 2014. As one might imagine, lots was said about it, but we’ll just link to one notable editorial in the Seattle Times.
[00:44:49]
Transcript
[Intro music]
Flourish Klink: Hi, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth Minkel: Hi, Flourish.
FK: And welcome to Fansplaining! [cheers from the audience] The live podcast by, for, and about fandom!
ELM: Uh, yes! This is episode #114, which we didn’t title in advance. “Live From GeekGirlCon” is what I’m titling it right now.
FK: [laughing] That was a live decision that you just…!
ELM: Live! It’s live.
FK: Extremely live!
ELM: Very, extremely live right now. [all laughing] OK, so the thing about this episode, our first live episode ever, is that some people in this room may have never heard us before and probably everyone listening to this is deeply familiar with us, and probably not this con. So this needs to work on both levels. So, we are a podcast that’s been around since 2015. We met on a panel at San Diego Comic-Con. I’m a journalist, I’m Elizabeth, and Flourish is…
FK: What am I?
ELM: Uh, I dunno. A Hollywood sellout. So.
FK: [laughs] I study fan culture and do that for, like, big franchises. So. I mean I’m also like an actual fan. Like, I didn’t just like, parachute in here from Hollywood and like, start telling people what fandom is.
ELM: I too am an actual fan. [all laugh]
FK: I’m just saying! You’re like, giving me professional things and like, I don’t know.
ELM: So we’ve both been in fandom for about two decades and we both have very different perspectives on fandom personally, but we have pretty similar perspectives professionally. So that’s what we’ve been doing! So if you guys aren’t familiar with us, definitely check us out. We’ve had a lot of different kinds of guests talking about a lot of topics.
FK: Yeah. And, um, I want—before we do anything else, I wanna shout out the “D20 Dames” podcast, who have made this live recording possible by bringing their equipment, [laughing, clapping] and also their SD card. So go and listen to them at 2:30 p.m. in Samus today, because they are officially Good Eggs.
ELM: All right. So this is the first time we’ve ever had a guest we made them sit through our introduction. I apologize.
Kristine Hassell: No, it’s cool!
ELM: But…
KH: I liked it. I tried not to, like, chime in about “I saw your parachute,” and… [all laugh] “No! Be quiet!”
ELM: We should have the guests stay on for all the intros and just comment quietly in the corner, so.
KH: Like a golf announcer.
ELM: All right. All right. You are our third. Do you wanna introduce yourself?
KH: I didn’t know there would be a test! Yes, I am Kristine Hassell, I am currently the director of outreach and community engagement at GeekGirlCon. [cheers from the audience] Woo! Yay! The muppet arms! [laughter] Do you want me to like do a bio also?
FK: Yeah!
KH: Oh, OK, wow. All right. So…
ELM: Doesn’t have to be like your, you don’t have to tell us where you were born.
KH: Sure, it’s not like a dating profile.
ELM: [laughs] Oh, actually…
KH: Well… No, I’m joking. I’ve been with the con since the first year. I’ve done lots of different jobs with the con. I also work with another convention that I love, very near and dear to my heart, Big Bad Con. A really great inclusive tabletop roleplaying con in the Bay Area. That’s my little plug for them.
Yeah! I am a fan, also. [laughter] I, I speak a lot about, loudly and vociferously about representation because I’m a Filipino-American from Texas. So I’m the first one to put up my hand and go, “Mm, you know, the representation wasn’t right!” Or, “Oh yay it got—!” You know, “It was good!” So that’s, I love Moomins and kolaches and moonlight walks on the beach…
FK: Thanks, Texas. [all laughing]
KH: Thanks Texas, yeah! If you’re a Texan you know what a kolache is, so. And I’m done. Yes, see, a Texan in the audience! So, all right. I’m done. That’s it. And I’m glad to be here!
ELM: We’re so glad to have you! Um, so I’m wondering if we could start by talking a little bit about GeekGirlCon itself, especially for the listeners and readers. Just FYI, everyone, we have full transcripts of every episode if you are not a podcast listener. So just to kind of, a little bit of a background, I’m really curious about how, how this started out.
KH: Like an origin story?
FK: Yeah, yeah.
ELM: The origin story of this.
FK: The story of it and then also I guess a little bit about how you got involved too.
ELM: Absolutely.
KH: OK! So, I will give the, like, the shortest version because I am wordy. In I think 2010, there was a Scott Pilgrim panel at San Diego Comic Con, which was a huge panel, and programmed right up against it was a smaller panel that basically talked about female fans and their fandoms. And the room was filled to capacity, and so a lot of the people that either attended the panel or were outside just started talking about kind of the marginalization they felt in going into geek spaces as a woman, as a woman of color, if you’re LGBTQIA, and how kind of geek spaces traditionally are, you know, cis het white male. Right?
And so in their further networking and conversation, it was a lot of west coasters that were, “Hey! There’s not a convention that celebrates all the contributions that women have done, why don’t we do one.” And so the first year, and I’m terrible, I should know this. I think it was 2011. It, it’s just snowballed since then. I will say, like, at first the focus was—and it still is—women in fandom and their contributions in STEM and comics and kind of all of those realms, but it has in my humble opinion improved to include LGBTQIA, people of color. Because it’s just not like, you know, white folks and everyone else. And white feminism is a terrible thing, especially white lady tears, but… [all laugh]
GeekGirlCon, you know, we’ve, we’ve tried to improve every year and really listen to the community and like, this year I’m very very proud that we do land acknowledgments and you know, have the script that—not script. But what announcers can say before their panel. Because Seattle, I mean, Seattle is actually named after its chief, you know? So it’s like, hey!
So every year it’s, it’s that thing that we try to improve, especially the people in positions of power at GeekGirlCon. We’re like, well if we can’t—if there’s a problem, let’s fix it. So. Did that answer that question?
ELM: Absolutely.
KH: OK, good.
FK: Yeah, for sure, and I, you know, it was funny, I was a little bit—I have to say, like, as an non-binary person I had a couple of moments of like “I’m goin’ to GeekGirlCon, and…”
ELM: Yeah, actually—
FK: “…not a girl!”
ELM: That was my first question about this, because I feel like the, obviously there have always been non-binary and gender non-conforming people, but I do think in the last few years it’s really reached a real mainstream point. And I’m curious, it’s been an interesting decade in terms of like, how do you guys feel about the name itself? Do you think there’s a time when it might feel too exclusionary? It may already feel that way if people don’t…
KH: Actually, this is like a behind-the-scenes kind of thing.
ELM: Yeah, give us the scoop!
KH: [laughter] “What’s the goss?” The tagline used to be, I believe, “Celebration of the female geek.” We no longer use that. Because we, we want to stress the idea that it’s like, every geek, every body. And that means “everybody” as one word, and “every body” in two words. Meaning differently abled, sized—because that’s one of the things, like when we do our cosplay…not the cosplay but the fashion show, when we do have it, is we want to show different bodies. Because not everybody’s a size six petite. I mean, that’s awesome if you are, like, I’m not thin-shaming anyone. [laughter] But I mean, there’s, there’s, there’s fat folks too!
So we want, we want no one to feel like, when you come to GeekGirlCon, it’s not a space that’s not welcoming. So that has been a very passionate discussion, of people saying “GeekGirlCon makes people that are non-binary feel,” you know, they’re like “Well, I’m not a girl!” You know, like Janet. “Not a girl!” [laughter] Love The Good Place, by the way.
Anyway, but it’s, so it’s a conversation like, we’re thinking: should we maybe just go to “GGC”? Because that’s how, we refer to us that way. And we don’t want to just make it “GeekCon,” you know what I mean. So especially since next year’s our 10th year, and we’re nuttily enough already planning things for the 10th year. It’s like, we’re not even done with this one, but directors are like “No, for next year we have to…”
FK: That’s kinda how you have to do it!
KH: Yeah, you have to start early! So it is a conversation that is happening.
FK: Well I don’t, I don’t wanna like sorta just fluff you guys up. But I will say that I felt super super welcomed and also I do, totally, it’s easy to recognize that there’s a history behind the name and there’s a history of why it’s in there and there’s a reason for it, right.
KH: Yeah.
FK: But I was super pleased to find how, how inclusive it was in terms of gender identity.
KH: Whew! [all laugh]
FK: Yeah!
KH: It wasn’t the “I have notes.” [all laugh]
FK: Well, and believe me, sometimes I’ve gone to cons and I’ve come out and I’ve been like…whaaaaaaat…”
KH: Yeah!
FK: “Behold the notes!”
ELM: There was a large gesture of beholding notes…
FK: Sorry.
ELM: For anyone that can’t see us, so.
FK: For people who are, you know, listening to this asynchronously.
ELM: So something, when you were talking about the origin story, I’ve been really curious about coming here. So this is both of our first times here and it’s been great so far.
KH: Welcome!
ELM: It’s my first time in Seattle and in the state of Washington and I’m really enjoying it.
KH: I like it! It’s super small.
ELM: I mean—
KH: I mean, compared, I grew up in Houston, it’s sprawling, it’s like L.A. sized.
FK: This is like the perfect weather for Elizabeth who’s very much, like, a sweater wearer.
KH: It is!
ELM: I am a sweater wearer.
KH: It’s like scarves and layers.
ELM: I love layers.
KH: You end up like 20 hoodies. Like, why do I own so many hoodies?
ELM: It’s so moody here, it’s great.
KH: Cause, cause Pacific Northwest.
ELM: Love it, love it. [all laugh] But so I was really interested, cause I had, I had known of GeekGirlCon for years but I didn’t realize that when you were talking about women in STEM—and I’m really interested in that because I think this is something that I, I haven’t encountered a lot of cons that try to make that connection between “Oh, if you like science fiction maybe you’ll like science” kind of thing. And especially with somewhere like San Diego Comic Con, if that was the origin of this, that is not a space—that is so focused on the entertainment industry itself that I’m really curious about that. How did the origin…
KH: Like, how we got started in like, this, this STEM connection?
ELM: Even coming here, like, you know, I went to the welcome party at the science museum and you know, we were petting starfish and stuff. And I was like, and so many actually kids there too. And I was just like, this is really really interesting and I wonder, I wonder about those connections.
FK: Yeah, it’s also very age inclusive would be something that I noticed very very much.
KH: Yeah!
FK: And it’s interesting cause again, even, I used to run Harry Potter cons and we would sort of try and do things with that, but there was always a tension kind of there. We never really solved the problem I don’t think. Because there’s different things that different people want or are interested in, even if it’s a property that’s, like, appealing to lots of age groups, it’s really hard to sort of thread that needle. But I’ve been walking around and noticing the wide range of ages here and really, really been excited about that as well as the science connection.
KH: Yeah, OK, so, science connection: one of the staffers who actually started roughly around the same time I did, Dr. Raychelle Burks, she’s amazing! She started in social media like I did, and in conversations—and this is not me taking credit by any means—but she wanted to, as a black chemist, as a doctor, she was like, “I think that there’s, there is an area that we can like, reach out to kids and teens, kind of demystify science.” Especially STEM, especially since, you know, if you’re a woman in science, if you’re a black woman in science, if you’re a black queer woman in science, that Venn diagram just starts to get almost nonexistent where it’s like “Nope.”
ELM: Sure.
KH: No one’s there. So she came up with the concept of the D.I.Y. Science Zone. Basically she was gonna reach out to her friends and her network for people to come together, specifically scientists and educators, to have a space where kids could do experiments and things like extracting DNA from strawberries, mummifying sharks, learning how to tell phases of the moon…
FK: Wait, can I mummify a shark?!
KH: You can!
FK: What.
KH: There’s like a glitter experiment also downstairs? Glitter!
ELM: Oh, I’ll do that.
KH: Yeah, totally cool!
FK: [laughing] The two genders: sharks and glitter.
ELM: Sharks and glitter!
KH: So, so the funny thing is like, your interests, we noticed that the first and second year the experiments were not like…made dumber by, like, administering to children. Parents started to want to do it. And then the first couple of years we had lots of prizes to give away to kids, like, “Come! Do the thing! We have things!” But parents started getting in there. We’re like “All right, come on. There’s programming for you all and you’re clogging up this space!”
So it started to evolve into, well, teenagers and parents are finding this useful, things like learning how to, like, make a circuit with LEDs and so on and so forth. Which is how robotics started getting into it. And I saw photos that are—one of our photographers took of the robotics workshop space, yesterday. It was packed like wall-to-wall, and there was people on the floor. It was that, like, wow! We, we knew that there was, like, a need for it, but we didn’t think, like, we’d be like that much of a [gasps] kind of a, what’s the word? Like the dam breaking.
And it’s, through things like, we have an initiative with the Girl Scouts of Western Washington that I’m very proud of, because my husband who’s also on staff, it was something that he firmly believes in, because he’s like a lifelong tabletop roleplayer. So he was like, “I want to get into spaces to empower girls and women to roleplay, because D&D or whatever you play, again, it is the, you know, the land of white beardy guys.” [all laugh]
ELM: Sure!
KH: And there’s a lot of times if you walk into a space as a woman, as a girl or a non-binary person, people go “Oh, you’re a girl. Your dice are cute.” Or “Here, be the healer.” Or “Here, whatever,” and you’re like “I wanna be a barbarian and wield an axe!” So we get together every six weeks or so with Girl Scouts and teach them roleplaying, and he specifically looks for DMs and GMs and facilitators who are women, who identify as women, who are non-binary, so that it’s that idea of if you can see it, you can be it, much like what Dr. Ray does. If you can see a woman scientist that looks like you, it becomes possible. If you see a DM that looks like you—and one of our first Geek Girl Scouts, and I will stop talking…
ELM: No! Keep going!
KH: After her first event, like, her very first event, she ended up running games here at the convention, and she’s actually running a panel this morning. So we’ve seen some of these, these girl scouts grow up, and they ran panels, like, yesterday talking about the Disney princesses and how they wanted a non-binary prince, and like, they were fire! And I was like “I’m just gonna be up here crying, cause it’s amazing!” But yeah. That’s…
FK: That’s so exciting. I have to say I get, I get some jealousy, because man!
ELM: Cause you didn’t have this, yeah yeah yeah.
FK: I remember walking into those rooms and being like “Ooooooh…kay…”
KH: “Go away…”
ELM: Well it’s interesting too, not that, not to take a, to de-center the kids in this conversation, but the idea of you talking about parents and teens wanting to be involved in this, because you know, we talk a lot about fandom as being, you know, it’s a, often an amateur space by choice, right? We’re fanfiction writers and readers, you know, and we—I celebrate the fact that I can go home and write a novel and, and it’s fun, you know. And no one, no one—I don’t want anyone to tell me “go publish that.” And I feel like we don’t have a lot of spaces with science and tech…maybe tech a little bit, if you are kind of tech-oriented, people do projects, you know, programming projects for fun. But the science stuff that you could go in as a kid and be like, touch a, you know, touch a starfish…
FK: Touch a starfish!
ELM: Do a little thing, they don’t, like, adults don’t have those opportunities, right? And I think that’s really interesting, that’s like a really big gap that cons could be filling, because some people just wanna try stuff.
FK: Especially stuff like robotics, right, which is fundamentally really craft-like, you know what I mean? If you’re into any kind of fiber arts or whatever, robotics is not actually, like, that scary in any way, shape or form? And there’s a lot of physical crafting that happens in it, and you can also make some really fun stuff. But yeah, until pretty recently it was just not…
KH: It wasn’t a thing.
FK: You only did it if you were in like science club in high school, right?
KH: A “science nerd.” I used air quotes.
FK: Right, and the point of doing that was so that you could someday become [silly voice] a scientist. Not like a person who likes science, but a scientist.
KH: Yeah, and I think that we’ve had, like, as featured contributors we had some of the women from NASA who worked on the Mars rover, we have two women from NASA also? Like, one, I believe she’s a chemical engineer? But there’s my ellipsis cause I can’t remember? But it’s, yeah, it’s that, it’s the you know, we had an actual astronaut who has gone up into space give a closing thing. And to see kids and adults just be in awe of this woman because of all she had done to get there, it was just, it was like, don’t want to cry, but crying on the inside! Yeah.
ELM: That’s awesome. Well OK. So there are two big diversity and inclusion parts that we really need to talk about.
KH: OK.
ELM: Race and disability.
KH: Yes.
ELM: Cause I would say while big cons, definitely not welcoming to women, I think that often you’ll find those are the two areas that cons are…
KH: Fail? [all laugh]
ELM: Yeah! Or spaces run by white women, um, and able-bodied white women, often do not succeed at. So I’m wondering which one you wanna tackle first.
KH: We can talk about either!
ELM: All right.
KH: Let’s get real.
ELM: All right.
KH: It’s The Real World. [laughter] I might have aged some…no.
FK: Well I’m, I’m really interested in talking about some of the disability aspects, because it seems like it’s one of the categories in which often people talk about, like, the physical limitations of spaces and, you know, questions of like “Well, how many people are really going to use this, or that, or the other,” you know, it’s a case from like a con-running perspective which I think can be quite complicated, and I’m really fascinated to see how GeekGirlCon has negotiated some of those questions.
ELM: I also, I do find it interesting at a lot of cons I find—I don’t know if you have to go to conferences for work, but I have found professional conferences are often much…you know, they’ll like, because they have more money, often, some of the tech-oriented ones I’ve been to, they’ll hire sign language interpreters or they’ll hire someone to live-transcribe, and they’re things a lot of cons don’t have the resources to do. So then it’s like, it’s interesting to see, like, how maybe a con with a smaller budget and it’s more quote-unquote “for fun”…
KH: A non-profit budget, which is real small. [laughs]
ELM: Exactly, so I am curious about that, too, you know?
KH: Well I would say when we started, when GeekGirlCon started, again, some behind-the-scenes, we, we had to charge panelists for passes because we couldn’t give them away. We had to do things that maybe we didn’t want to do but our budget was, I mean, and our budget was really small. It still is.
So over the years, and as I feel like we’ve improved and gotten better, like, several years ago we were able to give panelists their badges, be able to pay for hotel and flight, be able to offer more other than the kind of concept “it should be an honor for you to,” you know what I’m saying?
ELM: Sure.
KH: That kind of, that kind of very “I am super privileged white lady” thinking that you can just drop everything at the last minute to come talk at our con when people are like, “I have ish to do.” Like… [laughter] “I can’t just drop it,” you know what I mean?
ELM: Right.
KH: You’ve got child care, you’ve got whatever. So we actually have now on staff a really amazing ASL interpreter if you, she’s been our ASL interpreter in the past, but she was like, finally, “I’ve been doing this so long for GeekGirlCon, I want to make it more of a thing.” So this year we actually have a Deaf meetup, this year she was able to offer financial compensation to our interpreters, because if you’ve ever known an ASL interpreter or seen them, it’s a lot of hard work. Especially in the spaces where they talk about progressive things and social justice things. It’s that idea of “I have no idea how to sign that!” You have to think on the fly, especially if you want to do service to who you’re translating for. So the idea of “No, we could just get like two and they can cover a con,” are you kidding me?! Just move your hands or, like, load something for like 20 minutes. After awhile, unless you’re swole, you’re like “I’m done.” [laughter]
So it’s, it’s the, I’ve always thought about the concept of when you’re constructing spaces and wanting to make an accessibility, if you put accessibility in the forefront, then people that need those services immediately know. They immediately just go “Oh, they really thought about me as a Deaf person, as someone that is mobility impaired, as somebody who maybe needs a space like Introvert Alley,” because people have sensory—
ELM: Yeah I, I wanted to actually ask you about that too because I find that interesting. At the big cons you have to make that space for yourself if you can even, you know what I mean? Which might be your hotel room, you know.
KH: Oh yeah, or it might just be like “I have to go sit in my car, because there’s so many…” and that’s, like…
ELM: So for people who weren’t here do you wanna talk a little bit about that? These spaces for people who…
KH: Oh sure, sorry.
ELM: Who need more solitude or quieter spaces?
KH: So, because also you know, we’re recognizing that people who are neurodivergent or that have sensory sensitivities, when you go to a con space—if you’ve ever been to PAX and Emerald City, which I have been to both…yeah. Sigh. There is a, it’s a sea of people. And it’s a lot of jostling and it’s a lot of people that maybe don’t care that you with a cane need to walk out of an elevator first. No, they’re gonna barrel by you. Or you can’t take strollers on the floor, or you can’t take like a rollator or an assistive device.
And sometimes it’s a lot. It’s a lot if you have a teenager or an adult, and sometimes you’re like “There’s too many people elbowing me, misgendering,” whatever it is. So we created a space that’s Introvert Alley where specifically, you know, we keep the lights low, we request that no one speak above a whisper. It’s not a place for—and we’ve all done this—we’ve all gone to like a panel that’s not heavily attended or like an area of a con and just kind of, “Well, I’ll pretend to be here but I’m really here to charge my phone and have space.” But Introvert Alley is like not that space. It’s a space for if you just need to opt out for a little bit, it’s like an oasis. And we try to, like, the agents who are in there are really fierce about “Nope! Please be quiet.”
ELM: The quiet car.
KH: The library shush.
FK: That’s fabulous, because I think it’s a perfect example of something that is an m that some people need in order to be in the space but that actually a lot of people might want.
KH: And they don’t know how to ask for it, or sometimes—
FK: And they don’t know how to ask for it or don’t feel like it’s appropriate. I mean, one thing we discovered, we have always had full transcripts, and something that we’ve discovered is that obviously that’s good for people who can’t listen to our podcast, but we’ve actually gotten so many people who are like “I just don’t like listening to podcasts, and I would never have engaged with it, but I really enjoy reading this transcript.” So you know, fine. And it turns out there are all these people who really really find that valuable and it’s not just for, you know, the relatively small number of people who actually completely and 100% could not engage without it. It’s for a lot, it’s for everyone.
ELM: Yeah, that’s great. I haven’t been to, I mean, we’re extroverts.
FK: Yeah, we… [laughs] We don’t have this problem, I’m just gonna crowdsurf at San Diego Comic Con.
ELM: I mean we say this but at San Diego Comic Con often I’ll be like, we did this this past year, we like went to the pool one afternoon cause I was like “I am not going back there.”
FK: It was great, the pool—I recommend if you’re ever at San Diego Comic Con and you’re staying at a hotel with a pool, like, often…
ELM: It wasn’t even a good pool.
KH: Really?
ELM: Yeah it was not a great pool, but it was a pool. And I was in California, so.
KH: So nice. So you’d be like “This is my pool.”
ELM: Yeah, that’s how I felt. Then a child showed up and I was like, [sighs] Jesus Christ.
KH: I thought you were gonna say it was like a sea of, like, cosplayers.
FK: No, no no no, because they were all at the con.
KH: Oh! I mean like—
FK: It wasn’t the central con hotel, so like…
KH: Oh I see what you’re saying, OK.
ELM: Yeah yeah. This is what happens when we go there for work and we’re like “OK. This is the moment where we’re not gonna participate.” [laughing]
KH: “Let’s hit the pool.”
FK: Sometimes you really need it, right? No matter what, you can, you can enjoy all the stuff that’s going on, but then you’ve hit your limit, and nothing else you do after that will actually be enjoyable, so…
KH: “I just need to go back to that hotel and, oh look, The Big Lebowski’s on!” Or whatever it is.
ELM: Yeah!
KH: “Let me watch something terrible on TNT!” Law & Order or something. [ELM laughing] Not really. But.
ELM: So, I mean, going back to thinking about the limitations of—the financial limitations in terms of accessibility…
KH: Oh yeah, I didn’t mean to gloss over this…
ELM: No no no, when we were talking to, before, there was an incident recently, I don’t know if anyone followed this. It was at a big political convention, do we want to get into this? It was like, I don’t know, do we want to get into this? There was like, the actual incident of it where it was a, a panelist who used a wheelchair, and they interrupted him in the middle of this panel to tell him there was only one wheelchair lift. And that they needed him to leave the stage. Which is, like, completely egregious, right?
FK: Because he was going to be, like, stranded on the stage.
ELM: Yes.
FK: Cause there was no other…
ELM: Right. And so we were discussing this, and obviously it’s horrific and it was so dehumanizing for him. Even if he hadn’t been a panelist it would have been if they had said “you have to do this because.” But we were discussing the limitations of physical spaces when you maybe, I mean, you guys probably know this convention center pretty well at this point, but.
KH: Yes.
ELM: But I wonder for a lower-budget convention, you know, if there are the sort of like—oh, there is only one machine that we can use for this capacity, or whatever. How do you address those challenges? Do you say like “If we can’t afford it then we can’t,” you know what I mean?
KH: I would like to err on the side of, I don’t think we would ever say “We can’t afford that so we’re just not gonna do it.” We would, we would carve or whittle away whatever budget to make that thing happen. Especially cause, again, if you’re the one person who needs it, you’re already—like, and I, I tried to convey this, not that staff is ableist, but I was trying to convey this idea that like, if you use a cane or any kind of device, and you’re a person of size…like, if you’re a fat person with a cane, hello, me, and you walk into a space, there’s times when you don’t want to take up the space because you already feel like, “People are looking at me.” Ha ha, I mean, I dyed my hair this color red because, people are gonna look at me cause I’m tall, but…
ELM: Yeah, it’s beautiful!
KH: Thank you! I just got it done.
ELM: Looks really nice!
KH: You’re already very cognizant and aware of the, your imprint. So if you have to be the person to raise your hand and say “may I have something,” like “may I have an accommodation that maybe I shouldn’t have to ask for,” maybe it should be there, you’re already feeling self-conscious. And if you have somebody go “Well, like, do you need something for the handicaps?” Actually heard that on the phone.
ELM: Uhhh…
FK: What?
KH: Yeah, that’s a side note. I called San Francisco, of all places, to ask if there was accessible tickets to Woodkid, a DJ, French DJ that my husband and I really like, and the guy on the phone—bless his heart—he didn’t understand and I said “I walk with a cane, do you have accessible seating cause I can’t stand for four hours in a flat area,” and he went “Oh! You mean for the handicaps.” And I just, it was like a—I just sat there going “Did he just say…what I think…” And then he said “One second” and put me on hold and a minute later a woman comes on the phone and says “Are you calling about accessible seating?” I was like, “Your manager heard you.” [all laugh] Cause you got on that phone fast. But yeah, so it’s, it’s, that was a side note but that always makes me chuckle.
So if you’re the one person that calls for something, we don’t ever want that to happen. We don’t ever want somebody at GeekGirlCon or like an agent to go “Oh! For the handicaps,” right? Again, relaying a story, not anything anyone at GeekGirlCon said. We want somebody to feel like if they ask for something, like, we will work on it and make sure it happens, or if something happens and it’s a failing on our part, we will apologize, we own it, we will make it better for next year. Or, like, can you give a suggestion. And not like “give us emotional labor and do the work,” just if you see an area that you’re, that we are failing, please like, tell us. We wanna know.
Cause we have made mistakes. I won’t say we’re perfect. We have made some mistakes!
ELM: Right, but I feel, it’s tricky because it’s, ah, when you have something that’s mostly volunteer-run too I think—cause I think of, I work for, listeners of the podcast know that my side job for the last 16 years has been working at a thoroughbred racetrack taking bets. And this is, you know…
KH: That must be so interesting.
ELM: It is very interesting.
KH: The people-watching!
ELM: Um, oh my God, some of these people! [laughter] They’re great, I love my customers. But. You know, we had an incident a few years ago and I don’t know the details of it but it led to a big lawsuit under the, you know, the ADA. One of my coworkers, and there’s big federally-mandated disability sensitivity training. And it was actually really good training because it was talking about, you know, like, what you should do, how to not stigmatize people who use service animals and all this stuff. And I hadn’t encountered that before, even though I’m sure when I’ve worked in other companies there’s something HR. But they kinda gloss through it. This was actually, they made us go for two days and sit through it.
But when you have a volunteer base, you don’t, you know, so you might get that guy on the phone who like… [laughs] says offensive things…
KH: Truly, really offensive, by the way. It’d just like to say that, horrible.
ELM: Genuinely. And then it’s really hard cause there’s not a lot of recourse and not a lot of oversight. Like, how can you know that everyone working, working on the staff is gonna be sensitive and inclusive and not make somebody feel that way. It’s just really hard I think.
KH: It is hard and that’s one of the things we’ve improved, and like especially our—I will say GeekGirlCon is 100% volunteer-run, like, from the people that are on staff, I would love it if we got paid but we don’t, to the agents who you see in the teal shirts. Everyone here is volunteer, like 100%. So when we do our, again, making the gesture for air quotes, when we do our “hiring process” for staff, you know, there’s a—we post the jobs, we encourage people to send in résumés, send in things. We no longer have the “you need to be based in Seattle,” because we have, what’s the word. Teleconference in? So that means if you live in like Chicago, as long as you can make it out for the con, sure, we’d love, you know. As long as you can make the meetings that’s cool. Please be a part of GeekGirlCon!
And as the years have gone by, we no longer just kinda have boilerplate questions, it’s more like, what—like, what do you do in your, in your job that maybe, do you think this is, you know what I mean, we’re not trying to trap people. We’re not—
ELM: Are there things in your job that could, you know, make the right job here…it’s hard to articulate, we’re having trouble together! Yeah, I got it, I got it.
KH: It’s that idea. And like, if we, if we, if somebody is very well-intended but they’re, their push is, you know, “Oh, I’m a lady and I’ve gone into geek spaces and I haven’t felt safe and et cetera et cetera,” and if like the follow-up question is the idea of, “What about black women? What have you done to elevate black women? What have you done to elevate LGBTQIA?” And if, if their answers come across as “Well, like, I have a black friend,” we’re just like, “Ah, no.” You know what I’m saying? [ELM laughing]
It’s, because I don’t believe in the idea of “Somebody messes up, they’re canceled, they’re fired.” If somebody is, it’s intent and it’s very hard to presume intent. It’s very hard to like, go, “Oh, you aren’t racist unless, you know, clearly, clearly you’re racist,” or you’re ableist or you’re whatever. So if somebody is maybe well-meaning but they’re like in the beginning of their kind of progressive social justice? And maybe they don’t have the words for it, but they understand it? It’s that, I find, like, especially as a person of color, especially in navigating spaces…
Like, for example, when Iron Fist came out, I got a whole lot of “Oh! What do you think about…?” And I’m like “OK, are you asking because I’m a Marvel fan or are you asking me because you know the fact that Danny Rand is white is gonna make me mad?” Like, why, like why is that, what—leading with that. And it’s like the, going to your black friend and saying “Is this racist?” It’s like, no! You don’t, you know what I’m saying? Don’t tokenize, don’t do those things. So.
FK: Not to mention that there may be a wide variety—probably not about Iron Fist, let’s be honest—but there may be a wide variety of perspectives on things, you know? It’s not like there’s a monolith. It’s not like someone anointed you the Asian and Pacific Islander Person Who Knows Everything.
KH: I am not the face of the race! Yeah. And so like, doing things, we don’t—cause we’ve all seen, like, the photo of the panel that talks about diversity and inclusion, and it’s like five white guys. And you’re like, “Who did the panel, who greenlit that panel?” And we also don’t want, you know, people of color or marginalized anyone to be that representative on the panel.
ELM: Right, right.
KH: To be the “I am the Asian person talking about Asian things.” Now, it’s something that’s near and dear to my heart and I choose to do it, but don’t ask me to be on the panel to be the face of the race. Cause then it’s like—well, I also like Moomins, you know, they’re Finnish! [laughter]
ELM: Moomins!
FK: It seems to me that one of the things that you’re sort of talking about in this is the continued, actually centering the continued conversation about finding the ways that, that as a community people can find the right…the right ways forward. Because obviously everybody has personal limitations, every human being has personal limitations, and the con has monetary limitations, and people have time limitations, it’s not as though we’re magically going to be…we can dream of the day in which we’re in the perfect world and everyone is able to do everything, but it’s not gonna be possible, but—but! Maybe some of the times when people inevitably mess up or when choices are made that don’t work out, the ability to continue talking about it, to learn from it and to feel like “OK, that wasn’t great but we didn’t just,” you know, “it wasn’t just not great and then I howled into the void and had to leave because I just can’t,” it sounds to me that that’s sort of a central aspect of the way that GeekGirlCon is being run.
KH: Yes, and it’s what, like, I had one of those moments. Cause my husband always goes, “You intimidate people because you are the person to not call people out, but just go ‘Eeh, really?’” You know what I mean? “You’re the person that kinda has your finger on the pulse,” and in no way am I saying, do I know all things, but I had one of those moments and I try to tell people: it is a journey. Because language evolves, people evolve, gender is a social construct, you know what I’m saying? So we all learn. So we all make mistakes.
I know people that I’ve known for years, that have changed their pronouns. I no longer call them “preferred pronouns” cause I think that’s B.S., their pronouns are their pronouns. They don’t prefer it, it’s their choice, you know what I mean? And so I sometimes misgender, accidentally. The thing is you apologize, you move on. If you keep doing it and you’re being wilfully ignorant of their choices and you’re hurting them, like, maybe examine yourself. But I try to tell people: it’s a journey, like, maybe you do the work before you ask that other person the “is this racist,” “is this whatever,” you know.
And I had one of those moments actually during the con where I pitched a panel and it was selected. I wanted to celebrate women of color cosplayers, specifically black women cosplayers. Because I knew several. And I’m like “You are all amazing and you’re all on the spectrum of, like, technical ability. Like one of you just loves to go to Target or whatever and just roll up in Steven Universe stuff that you just made on the fly, and one of you has like a team of people that you work with to build like LEDs in your stuff and amazing.” So I’m like, “I wanna celebrate what you do so that maybe you can demystify it for people that it’s really cool if you are a black woman cosplayer or a black nonbinary cosplayer navigating spaces that traditionally are like, ‘You’re a great Sailor Moon for a black girl,’” that kind of idea. And I didn’t want it to dwell on kind of the downside, I wanted to elevate.
So as we’re sitting there talking and I’m asking their questions and I’m like so excited, and an audience member asked a question and I had—because I’ve cosplayed like twice, it is hard!—but I had like a story! And I went—and in that moment, in that exact moment I went “We are not here to listen to you!” While I am a woman of color I am not a black woman, right? So I can step back from that space and not go “But why? I’m an ally,” or that kind of stuff.
ELM: Sure.
KH: I realized in that moment, oh! This is about someone else! Right?
ELM: And on the panel you pitched too!
KH: On the panel I pitched! [all laughing] So it was one of those moments I thought, if someone knew me they would probably see me go “Ahh!” Like, do that ka-ching! That level up. But I try to tell people like, even I learn things as an old person. I mean, I am old. [all laugh] Even people that have been doing it and been fighting and been so, like, impassioned about it, even I mess up and even I do things, but you just apologize, not “I’m sorry you’re offended.” The actual “I am sorry I hurt you.”
FK: Yeah.
KH: And then maybe let them yell at you, give their piece, you know what I’m saying?
ELM: Yeah.
FK: Totally.
KH: Just take it!
FK: The other thing I wanted to pull out of that which I thought was really interesting and cool was the idea of having a space that’s not just about, like, bemoaning how difficult things are, but instead just like…
ELM: “The diversity, how do we solve like the diversity problem?” How many of these panels are gonna happen, you know.
FK: And, and that is something that I think is—I was trying to explain GeekGirlCon to one of my family members and I was like “Yeah, you know, because often if you’re in a space that’s not centering,” you know [laughs] “that’s not centering the white male nerd,” you know, excuse me, if you’re in a space that is centering the white male nerd, then you sort of inevitably are always put into the position of not only just “why won’t you be the face of the race,” or the face of nonbinary people or the face of women or whatever else it is, but also like, you know, “and then we have to talk about, will you give us a critique,” you know? And it always turns into this sort of negative space as opposed to something where there are, you know, shockingly everyone has positive contributions that have nothing to do with the struggles that people are facing. And I think that’s one of the things that actually kind of—I guess I shouldn’t say surprised me about GeekGirlCon…
ELM: Why are you pointing at me right now?
KH: I know!
ELM: “Hey, you!”
FK: “Hey, you!” [all laughing] I don’t know why I made that gesture. I just made an awkward gesture. People on the podcast, you’re lucky you didn’t see it. Um, but this was one of the things that kinda surprised me, because again, I wasn’t sure what I was gonna come into, and I wasn’t sure what it was gonna be like, or if it was just gonna be like a sort of “rah-rah, us power, hooray” sort of situation, but it really felt like it’s gone beyond that and it’s, I don’t know. Like, just more of a “here’s a bunch of nerds together, and we can sort of get past the,” you know?
ELM: Yeah. I mean, I, my question in terms of—if we stay on race, is: I am very interested to know your thoughts about, OK. So putting together panels, and we put together our first panel for San Diego Comic-Con this past year.
KH: Nice!
ELM: Thanks. And like…
KH: Well done! [laughs]
ELM: We’ve been on panels, but this is one we put together, and obviously we’re thinking a lot about both racial and gender diversity. Because I think in particular, while I want all kinds of diversity there’s also an optics element too and I’m not gonna—this is a professional panel, we don’t want people to disclose all the things about their personal lives. But you know.
And it’s something that I see in conferences too for professional things, people obviously are much more mindful about having a gender and race balance. But that doesn’t solve the problem of having a diverse audience. And I’ve been to smaller cons where the panel is a beautifully diverse, you know, lots of people, and then the audience is all white people.
KH: So like how do you fix it?
ELM: And, you know, or like, I’ve been in audiences where I’m the only woman, this is real awkward, I don’t love this, guys.
KH: “Ugh, a sea of dudes!”
ELM: Yeah! Like academic conferences too.
KH: Oh God.
ELM: And it’s like, I, you know? And I don’t…like, I wanna feel like there’s at least two other people where if someone says something sexist we can be like “Excuse me?” You know?
KH: That thing, especially cause I grew up in a small Texas town, I always joke if you’ve watched Friday Night Lights, that was my upbringing. [laughter] With a little bit of Hank Hill, and yeah, King of the Hill. So it’s like when you navigate a space where you look and no one else looks like you, but then you see maybe the one Asian or the one person, the one other, you kinda do either the head-bob or it’s the high school like “Oh, I’m gonna make a beeline to your lunch table.” [laughter] Because if nothing else, we can like, at least form a unit of two. Yeah.
So in—here’s my preface: I love Seattle. But. [laughter]. #SeattleSoWhite. Seattle is very white, and when we relocated here—cause I grew up in Texas. My high school was really small, majority of my friends were either Mexican-American, black, or Vietnamese. Because there’s a huge Vietnamese community in Houston. So to me, being like multi-cultural and seeing all these different, different people, wasn’t a big deal.
Then I moved to Phoenix and like, OK. Got a little whiter. Not so much. When I moved to Seattle I was like “Damn!” Like… [laughter] And everyone who lived here would say slightly uncomfortable things like “Oh, if you want good Mexican food, you have to go to Tacoma,” or “If you want this, you have to go to here.” And after awhile I’m like, “So are you saying there’s no people of color in Seattle proper?” Like, are you saying that like, everyone has been pushed out of the edges? And the longer I lived here I realized that is a problem with, like, gentrification, and I could talk for hours on that, the idea of pushing out people of color, pushing out people who have lived and made spaces and so on.
So I would say, older iterations of GeekGirlCon, where we did have not a lot of diversity out there, and we, you know, we’ve struggled to want to learn how to improve it, what we’ve done is—and what I’ve tried to explain—is when you go into a space and you are the only woman, or you are the only person who identifies as queer or maybe Mexican-American or Filipino-American, and if you don’t see anyone else who looks like you, you might not want to return. So that’s one.
Second, if everyone is very welcoming, maybe the next time that event comes around then you would tell a friend. It’s like that idea of you tell it to a friend, they tell it to a friend, and so on. You have to wait. You cannot go “Come on! We need you to come and show up!”
Several years ago in Seattle there was a blow-up about, one of the theater companies did The Mikado. [groans from the audience] Yeah, do we remember that? And they did yellowface, and they were trying to defend it cause “that’s how it was written,” more air quotes from me. And they did a, like, a town hall with like, “Let’s address these concerns, and people in the community can come.” And they webcast it.
And one of the people on the stage is a Native, she works in—and every time I tell the story I forget the name of the theater company, but basically it’s a theater company for Natives, Native Americans, teenagers and 20-somethings to basically act. Like, here’s a space you can do this thing. And she was saying, what she said really impressed upon me. She said, “It’s amazing that all of your organizations tell us, ‘We want you to come in, here are free tickets, here’s this.’ But you need to realize that when we come into your spaces, we already are very self-conscious. If you really want to make an effort, if you really want it to not be performative, why don’t you come to us? Why don’t you come into these spaces where you are the minority face?” And it’s not a taste-of-your-own-medicine kind of thing, but maybe it’s, then you can understand why the trans woman doesn’t feel so comfortable just goin’ to a game night. Maybe you can get that, because maybe…somebody, like, multiple times will misgender them and they’re just like “No, eff this, I’m not gonna do it because you didn’t respect the fact that I told you when we sat down this is my name, these are my pronouns.” You know what I’m saying?
So we can’t, especially as staffers, especially as people that do things, we cannot expect this to happen overnight, especially if we don’t put any effort and we don’t do the—sometimes we are the ones that have to do the 90%. Because expecting them to do the thing is, is—can’t curse cause of my little thingy here! [all laugh] But it’s beep!
ELM: It’s PG-13 so we’re allowed one curse word, right? Isn’t that the rule?
FK: Do you wanna, one f-bomb I think.
ELM: That’s the rule in Hollywood!
KH: It’s fuckin’ nonsense!
FK: There we go! [all laughing]
KH: OK! I’m done.
FK: We saved the one.
KH: Been holdin’ that in.
ELM: So we wanna, we wanna see if anyone in the audience has questions, but I have one last question for you, could we do one more from me? Me! Me.
KH: Yeah.
FK: I know you love interviewing people.
ELM: I love interviewing people!
KH: I’ll give a shorter answer.
ELM: No no! These are great answers, don’t worry. So I feel like a lot of my questions have centered around like “What do you do about this small con that has no money and means well,” you know, which is, I said that in a patronizing tone, I don’t mean it that way. Cause I have been to some smaller cons that have had some issues with diversity. I’m wondering what you guys, what GeekGirlCon and your experience with them, would give if you were asked to advise San Diego Comic-Con, or something large and corporate?
KH: Oh, we would be doing the, what is it, the Mr. Burns cathedral fingers?
ELM: Yes, yes.
KH: “Yes, excellent!” I think if we were asked to consult, right, if the big powers-that-be, say the folks at ReedPop—and this is, this is no shade on ReedPop, but they are, they own like New York City Comic-Con, they own PAX now, they own Emerald City. They are like the Microsoft of cons as far as, you know? So if they came to us and said, “Hey! We wanna do this thing right,” I think like, I think if I was asked—and so let me speak as Kristine and not as representative of GeekGirlCon—well, kinda both. What I would wanna know, why are you asking? Are you actually going to listen to the things I suggest?
If the governing body that picks programming or that picks guests are straight white guys, you all need to step aside. Because you, I don’t, like, I don’t care how many people say, or if you tell me you’re an ally, you can’t, that’s not something you can go “I’m an ally, look at all the things I have done.” That is something a community kind of tells you because you’ve done the right thing and you have learned when to step back and step out of a conversation that maybe you don’t…like, your proximity to the thing, a friend of mine always says things like—especially when talking about matters of race, you know, “kinfolk doesn’t necessarily mean skinfolk.” Just because you’re married to, say, a black man, gives you no right ever to like, drop something racial or whatever or say “My wife says it’s cool,” or whatever. I don’t care. I literally don’t care and I won’t engage with you further. No. There are certain things it’s just like, you don’t do it.
So if we were asked to do that, I think we would really wanna know, why are you asking? Or are you just asking so that we can say “Well, we reached out! And we’re trying!” Because a con like that, or con of that size, clearly has the budget to bring like huge names, like, I got really excited because Dante Basco released a book and just like—I reached out, I was like “It’d be so cool, can I get his rates?” And he replied. Rufio replied! And I like sat at home and went “Eeee!” And then went [deep calming breaths]. So for our convention, he gave the rates and stuff so I was like “OK, let me see,” and that’s not like, don’t tweet “Dante Basco’s coming to GeekGirlCon!” Even though it could be like “Dante Basco please come to GeekGirlCon.” [all laugh]
Cons that have bigger budgets and have more money to bring out, the San Diego Comic Con massive Hollywood budgets kind of stuff, they also have the money to improve things. If we had, like, a 25th of their budget, we—a sliver of it, like: if people knew, I think, our operating budget, they’d go “How do you do it?!” And it’s, it’s because, thankfully, featured contributors and people that come to the con, we don’t take advantage of the fact that they wanna do it, because that’s a grey…you know what I’m saying, they do it because some, some of the bigger names are willing to do it at a very reduced rate. Because they believe in what we do.
Like when Jane Espenson came. And like, if you don’t know who she is, she’s like written for Buffy and Battlestar Galactica and she’s awesome and she’s awesome on Twitter. She’s come to our convention more than once, Gail Simone has come, people like that because they love what we do and, yeah, they’re, they’re gonna knock down their honorarium for that reason. But you can’t expect that of everyone, cause they need to also make money.
ELM: Right, right. I feel like that answer is so interesting because I feel like you’re right, it’s that they’re choosing not to—I mean like, San Diego Comic-Con has that kind of corporate like, you know. They know that they’re gonna get called out if they put together an all-white-guy panel at this point, right. And they do occasionally still screw this up, but I think they’ve, they’ve been called out enough times on Twitter that people now know this is such a big spotlight. But in terms of making people feel safe and making it feel truly inclusive on all fronts, I don’t think that any of those big cons are…
KH: No.
ELM: Succeeding at it.
FK: Wait wait wait. We wanted to have time for questions.
ELM: Oh, come on, come on, all right.
FK: And we already got the 10 minute warning, so we really ought to, if we’re have a question…
ELM: All right.
FK: At least one, we should…
ELM: Fine, Flourish.
FK: Does anybody—I mean…
ELM: Won’t it be amazing when no one has a question? Won’t you look foolish? [sputtering from other panelists]
FK: So, dear audience members… [all laughing]
KH: You just guilted them!
FK: Someone stop Elizabeth from dragging me and have a question please!
ELM: Does anyone have a question?
KH: Anyone?
ELM: Ha-ha! Ha-ha!
FK: Oh my God. Oh my God really?
KH: No?
All: YEAH!!!!!! [laughter]
FK: All right!
Audience Member 1: [inaudible]
FK: Just say it and we’ll repeat it.
Audience Member 1: OK.
KH: Is that Twin Stars? On your thing, is it the Twin Stars? I can’t see. Oh, super cute! Oh sorry. Nice.
Audience Member 1: [inaudible]
FK: All right, so the question was, for people who are in the room or on the podcast or anywhere else, if you’re in STEM and you wanna get involved in small cons like GeekGirlCon or other things like it, then how would you go about getting involved?
KH: I would say, you can honestly like email me. And I will route you to the right place.
FK: What’s your email address?
KH: It is Kristine with a K, so K-R-I-S-T-I-N-E, at GeekGirlCon [sputters] at GeekGirlCon.com. Wow, I really ate that word. And that way I can put you in contact, I can route you. I will be the traffic cop.
FK: Cool.
KH: Cause I want better improvement everywhere, why not? So.
FK: Sweet.
ELM: Another question?
Audience Member 2: [inaudible]
KH: Yay! Thank you.
Audience Member 2: [inaudible]
KH: Nice.
Audience Member 2: [inaudible]
FK: OK. So the question was, if people have suggestions about programming or ways to expand, what’s the best way to send that information to GeekGirlCon?
KH: Kristine at GeekGirlCon.com. [all laugh] Again, like, especially when—cause I ran our Twitter feed for many years and I did, you know, Facebook, and one of the reasons that I kinda evolved into outreach is because everyone’s looked at, all the people that know me are like, “Everyone knows who you are. Cause one you’re real loud, and two…” Like, the red hair and tall and lots of gesturing. It’s, in no way am I the face of GeekGirlCon but I’ve been around so long that everyone knows that I at least know somebody in that field. Or, I want the improvement over there, so I’m willing to do the work of emailing. Like, I’m willing to get people in the right rooms to get, you know, to, I don’t wanna sing Hamilton songs, but you wanna be in the room that it happens!
ELM: We can do that if you want.
KH: I can put you there!
FK: Yeah yeah yeah, do you need to sing us out that way?
KH: No, no. [all laugh]
FK: Any questions? We’ve got some more time. We do!
ELM: Oh, yeah?
Audience Member 3: [inaudible]
FK: So the question was that cons—and please correct me if I missed something—that a lot of cons, this con is good as far as physical accessibility for people with wheelchairs, but a lot of cons are not so accessible, they don’t have for instance elevators. So what are your suggestions to how you can make change in those, in cons where there’s a problem?
KH: Yeah. I, I would say, and this is like—again, I don’t wanna make it seem like “do the emotional labor,” but you, telling those con organizers and telling people this isn’t fair, this is exclusionary, this isn’t right, cause as a fan, you deserve to go to that convention. That’s one of the reasons I love this space, because attendees already know that elevators, like, they yield the elevator space for somebody in a wheelchair. You won’t have somebody say “I need to get to my panel!” If they can walk around they’ll take the escalators, sometimes they’ll take the stairs if they’re able to do it.
So telling those other con organizers in spaces and just because that hotel con’s been at that hotel for so many years, they can move if they have enough people that go “This is crap. I wanna attend your con, but I cannot,” you know. “There’s stairs! I can’t even go to the vendor hall because of this reason.” And it is hard because budgets and cons and existing spaces—
ELM: I feel like people’s, I’m curious about that because I feel like some of the mid-sized and smaller cons say that “Well, we’ve been in this hotel for years.”
KH: Move!
ELM: “OK!” I don’t know.
KH: You can’t tell me that another con, or another space, might not want your money.
ELM: Right.
KH: To me, it’s like, really? There’s not—like, I’m gonna, I’m gonna namecheck Big Bad Con. Because they are a hotel con, they’re based out of Walnut Creek which is outside, in the East Bay. And it is a hotel con. And since especially as they’ve been growing and doing amazing things with inclusion, other cons have been like, you know, kind of circling. And our, our founder Sean is like, and he is a cis het white guy, is like “No, because this space has been so inclusive and so understanding and so accommodating, unless another convention—another space can either be better,” cause they’re also a nonprofit, he is very reticent to want to leave that space to go to somewhere else. You have to, if you wanna improve it and offer more in the sense of making it accessible, then we would consider it. You know what I’m saying? It’s got to be a priority, there’s, I—I don’t mean to, I almost started bangin’ on the table. I’m like “Don’t bang!” [all laugh] You know what I mean? It has to be a priority and if it’s not then you’re being hurtful to those who have to voice why.
And if you have to ask why, then you need to check that privilege, right? If someone goes “Well, why?” it’s like “Well, let’s change this conversation!” So.
FK: Well, I fear that we just got the high sign. We gotta, we gotta wrap up.
KH: No!
FK: So what I will say is first of all thank you so much for coming on Fansplaining.
ELM: Wonderful. Thank you!
KH: Yay!
FK: Thank you everyone for being a wonderful audience and for your questions! You can find all of our over 100 episodes on fansplaining.com.
KH: Go, listen!
FK: You can communicate with us on social media at fansplaining.
ELM: We also have more than podcasts, we have articles, just kinda deep dives into fandom, so fansplaining.com.
KH: It’s pretty cool!
ELM: I’m hand-selling this to you right now.
FK: Yeah! And not to be gauche but we are completely supported by our listeners…
ELM: Not to be gauche. [laughs]
FK: Not to be gauche, but I’m gonna be gauche right now. We are completely supported by our listeners through Patreon, patreon.com/fansplaining, that is our only source of support for the podcast which as you’ve said includes articles, research, transcripts for everything. So if you have enjoyed this and if you listen to more of our podcasts, if you enjoyed that or if you’re listening right now from asynchronous land, wherever you are, that’s a wonderful way that you could show your support.
ELM: Absolutely!
KH: Plus isn’t it cool, Patreon, like, you can—and this is again the preface: if you can afford it, like—
ELM: Absolutely, absolutely.
KH: If you can afford it, right—as low as a dollar—
FK: Absolutely!
KH: I feel like this kind of telecommercial or those commercials that say “for only 32 cents a day!” But if you and your 10 friends give a buck a month, that’s $10 a month towards that fandom!
ELM: Absolutely!
KH: Give up that one coffee! You can do it! [all laugh]
ELM: For Fansplaining…
KH: You don’t need that $5 coffee! Just forgo it and be like “here, creator! I love the content you produce for free! Take $5!” I’m sorry.
FK: I’m getting stared at by the agent…
KH: I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. [all laughing]
FK: Thank you so much everyone!
KH: Thank you! Yay!
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