LGBT

I am deeply grateful that this has not been swept under the rug just because the thread was locked and dropped out of sight.

Personally, I was going to just step back - but decided that after my extensive participation in the thread about sexy images of men that I owed it to the group to at least share the impact of that thread on my feelings toward this group.

I was quite pleasantly surprised that it did not just generate another blast of anger - and even more surprised and pleased that there are steps being taken to address the concerns. It isn't a perfect world, and in any mixed gender group LGBT group I have ever been in, gender dynamics have been an issue unless (and sometimes even when) they are is intentionally addressed. I don't expect an instant sea change, but the recent responsiveness to the feelings I expressed in that thread (and to the specific steps I suggested were necessary to start undoing some of the alienation I felt as a result of it) go a long way toward demonstrating to me that the group is willing to try to be responsive to concerns about gender dynamics. I've got quite a bit of patience, and tolerance for the occasional unintentional jab in the rib, as long as it doesn't feel like I'm being told to shut up.

As to LLP's suggestion (below) regarding host hierarchy. In a perfect world, there would be no need to be concerned about hierarchy. In a striving to be perfect world - but not there yet - gender would be relatively and deliberately balanced. In my primary LGBT community, we removed our gender balance requirement 2 years ago, after a practice of strict equality that had been in place since around 1980. From a practical perspective, in this situation, I don't have strong feelings as to how necessary it is to rearrange host hierarchy, since the only practical implications I am aware of in connection with the hierarchy are the ability to terminate hosts below you and the appearance of power based on order in the list. I don't have the impression that host hierarchy played a role in the recent interactions, it seemed to me more a consequence of online presence and personalities.

As William769 pointed out the current hierarchy was not deliberately created. But if the group now decides it is important to rearrange the hierarchy, it is simple enough to accomplish. Just have hosts below DSC resign, and rename them in alternating gender order for as long as the alternating pattern can be carried out. (And if there are hosts who do not identify with one gender or the other, I would suggest putting those individuals in as every third host but otherwise continue the alternation - so the rotation would be M(DSC)-F-Z-F-M-Z-M-F, with "Z" for individuals not not identifying as M or F on the gender binary scale.) As a general principle, it isn't a bad idea. But I don't have strong feelings that it needs to be done or would have a significant impact on how the hosts function.