Mar 5, 2019 2:08 PM

The Conference Where Diversity in Tech Is Celebrated

The Lesbians Who Tech summit creates community for folks who can feel marginalized in Silicon Valley.

Two Lesbians Who Tech attendees stand next to each other — Samantha Cooper
Black Futures Lab principal and #BlackLivesMatter cofounder Alicia Garza (left) and TransTech Social Enterprises founder and *Pose* actress Angelica Ross were both speakers at this year's Lesbians Who Tech summit.

Two Lesbians Who Tech attendees take a photo together — Samantha Cooper
Black Futures Lab principal and #BlackLivesMatter cofounder Alicia Garza (left) and TransTech Social Enterprises founder and *Pose* actress Angelica Ross were both speakers at this year's Lesbians Who Tech summit.

Living and working in Silicon Valley, especially in tech, as an LGBTQIA+ woman or person of color can be lonely. Even as the industry works to expand its ranks, the statistics on diversity in tech are staggeringly bad. But one place queer women and nonbinary folks can go to feel less alone? The Lesbians Who Tech conference.

Now in its sixth year, the event—technically called the Lesbians Who Tech + Allies Summit—brings together folks from around the world to the Castro Theatre in San Francisco with the mission of increasing visibility and providing community to LGBTQ people in tech and tech-adjacent fields who can feel marginalized in work environments. (Last year it was also a testing ground for Full Frontal With Samantha Bee's get-out-the-vote game.) WIRED senior photo editor Samantha Cooper, who shot portraits at the summit last weekend, noticed right away that the event wasn't like many Silicon Valley conferences.

"Normally tech events are filled with white cis men, and for many of the events, coordinators will hire white male photographers to shoot," Cooper says. "It was great to show up to an event that not only had a diverse group of panelists and attendees, but also hired talented photographers who are queer or women of color—like Meg Allen and Ashleigh Reddy."

This year's Lesbians Who Tech panelists and speakers included Georgia politician Stacey Abrams, Laurene Powell Jobs, Pose’s Angelica Ross, and activist Alicia Garza. According to organizers, 80 percent were queer women, 50 percent were women of color (25 percent black and Latinx), and 15 percent were transgender or gender nonconforming. And for Cooper, one of the most significant parts of the summit was capturing the interactions among everyone who attended, all of which showed that the summit was a chance to share their experiences, not just another networking event. "It wasn’t just like, 'Let me talk,'" she says. "There were hugs."

The other thing that stood out? The pieces of flair. Speaker Alexandria Butler wore a jacket that read "Queen. Don't be afraid to rule like a king" on the back. The clever buttons, shirts, and keychains were a perfect reminder of the whole point of the weekend's events: to create a space where LGBTQ women and nonbinary people in tech feel comfortable being their whole selves.