Inclusive practices during check-in

🍎 Photography Permissions

  • Managing photography opt-outs:

    • Badge lanyard at registration should be made available to indicate photo preferences (green = photos fine; yellow = ask first; red = no photos)

🍎 Pronoun Pins, Buttons, or Ribbons

  • Indicating pronouns:

    • Select a pin/button/ribbon for your lanyard to communicate your pronouns. Using a pin even if you don’t feel like you need one helps create a welcoming space for attendees who do.

    • Color-coordinate the pins by pronoun for quicker recognition and processing by those who see the pins. This lowers the barrier to checking (look at the color).

      • Be sure to choose colors that works for folks with color-blindness. With color-coded pins, needing to actually read them is a stress case rather than the norm. Because people are used to the ease of the normal case, they’re more willing to take a little extra effort to read for the stress cases. (purple: he, yellow: she, green: they, blue: ask)

      • To be aware of: Make pins large enough to be easily seen. Make the pronoun itself the largest text, rather than the word “Pronouns”.

    • Another option for pronoun indication is ribbons.

      • Have custom ones printed for Zi/Zir and a “Fill in your own” ribbon. For fill in your own, make sure you provide fabric markers. (h/t @oxinabox)

Further reading:

Welcoming New Attendees

  • Ribbons for badges can be useful, e.g. “First-Time Attendee.”

    • Consider what visual cues would encourage people to engage with one another and go out of their way to be friendly to someone.

  • Consider running a mentoring program that matches experienced attendees with first-timers for networking and to provide a friendly resource to get to know the conference.

Social Events

  • “First-Time Attendee” lunch/dinner/coffee-break as a welcome and safe place for attendees to ask questions.

  • Consider diversifying the time of day that social events happen.

    • Not everyone is available (physically or mentally) in the evenings, when social events are typically concentrated.

  • Alcohol Considerations

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