In the last few years the question of tolerance in geekdom gets brought up. As of late it’s been the ridiculous obsession some members of the geek community have with ferreting out the mythical “fake geek” girl. Other times there are questions of racism, transphobia, and homobpobia. The issue over “Ender’s Game” raised this specter again, and after reading this thoughtful post at Lady Geek Girl, I felt I should address this again in a slightly different context than I have previously.
By that different context, I mean in the larger sense of citizenship – both in the large and as citizens of our own communities. Also with a bit less of some of the snark that I’ve used in some of my previous writings.
So, to state it simply – intolerance of others in the form of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and the like do not have a place in geek life nor identifiable geek culture. Furthermore I will argue that this is important to geeks as citizens, both in their community and in the larger communities – and that in some cases, we should fully understand the impact of bias and its negative effects.