The importance of creating safe online spaces for LGBTQ+ people, and why that work is not a side project, it is core community infrastructure.
Why This Matters
People of marginalised identities continue to face discrimination in professional environments, both in cyberspace and in meatspace. These barriers increase the friction they encounter when trying to succeed in our industry. By creating safe spaces for folks regardless of their identity, we can help tear down some of those barriers and foster a healthier culture.
Online platforms such as Discord or Reddit also offer a certain level of pseudo-anonymity. That means a space like a Discord server can give people room to safely explore their identity. It was the encouraging community I found early in my career that let me find my own identity and my path toward happiness in life.
Roughly 3% of our industry's workforce actively identifies as LGBT, but 46% of the folks who would identify do not feel safe to do so. That 3% could be as high as 6%.
By cultivating inclusive and public tech spaces, we open doors for the next generation of developers: the LGBT folks looking for mentors or role models "like themselves" can find those people and engage with them in a safe community.
How To Build an Inclusive Community
Pronoun Roles, Made Mandatory
Provide pronoun roles for members to self-identify how they wish to be addressed, and make them mandatory for everyone. That normalises the practice, so no one is "outing themselves" just by selecting a role.
Offer a decent array of options, too. Too often roles are limited to "she/her", "he/him", and "they/them". As the community grows, you will see folks using pronouns like "it/its" or neopronouns like "fae/faer" or "ze/zyr". Cover your community's less common pronouns, and offer an "ask my pronouns" or "I use neopronouns" role for anything you have not accounted for.
Policies That Actually Say Something
Write community policies, such as a Code of Conduct, that specifically enforce an inclusive environment. That means explicit language against challenging or questioning someone's identity (things like "those aren't real pronouns"), and against debating the rights of marginalised communities (things like "trans people don't need to use the restroom they identify with").
Enforcement With No Exceptions for "Jokes"
Policies are meaningless if they are not enforced, and enforcement decisions need to account for how they will look to the rest of the community. If someone uses a slur and tries to justify it as "I was just joking", it can be tempting to let them off with a warning. Ban them instead. That sets the precedent for everyone else that toxic behaviour will not be tolerated, even as a "joke".
Model the Language You Want To See
As a community leader, you set the example for the rest of your members. Be aware of things like people's pronouns, avoid language that has a history of being used to harm people even if it "seems okay" now, and consider dropping defaults like "hey guys", which implicitly treats "male" as the default gender.
Make Room for the Uninformed, Not Just the Bigoted
Someone who says trans people should not have bathroom access is bigoted. Someone who asks why the bathroom legislation seems like "such a big deal" might just be uninformed. Creating a space where people can ask their questions and get educated turns potential harm into potential allies, or even helps someone discover their own identity.
The Business Case
One of the biggest benefits of curating these communities is avoiding negative optics. Take Hyprland, a Linux window manager that gained real popularity for its feature set, but whose community developed a rough history of bigotry and harassment toward marginalised people. The fallout got bad enough that the Arch Linux Discord had to explicitly ban discussions about the controversy, because every mention of Hyprland turned into arguments about whether using it meant you hated LGBT people. That is not a phrase you want associated with your project.
On the flip side, curating your community well earns you real word-of-mouth advertising. Members of marginalised identities who feel safe in your community are far more likely to become evangelists for it, sometimes even choosing your product over a technically superior competitor's, because they felt safe in your space.
That safety also trickles up into hiring. When marginalised folks feel safe in your public communities, it creates the impression that your internal teams are safe too. LGBT people become more likely to apply to work for you.
All of it, in the end, creates opportunity for revenue: comfortable users convert, and safe communities capture talent that other companies miss out on.
Who Can Help With This?
Your community leaders are the most important champions. When leaders conduct themselves in a way that embodies the inclusive environment you want, they set the standard the rest of the community will follow.
Your members help too, by following the guidelines you have set and keeping their own behaviour in line with them. And when a community is truly successful at inclusion, members start informing each other about opportunities to improve and grow.
Really, the answer is: everyone can help with this. Even people outside your community can be a valuable source of information and growth.
Always Keep an Open Mind
None of us will have all the answers. It is simply impossible, even for someone who lives these experiences daily. Give yourself the space to be wrong, the opportunity to improve, and the grace to handle your missteps well.