Paizo Paizo Leadership Team Update

[Morrus]

Yeah I've never been on a work thing which gave everybody separate hotel rooms. I don't know how common that is outside the UK, but shared rooms are the norm for that sort of thing here.

 

[ReshiIRE]

Yeah I've never been on a work thing which gave everybody separate hotel rooms. I don't know how common that is outside the UK, but shared rooms are the norm for that sort of thing here.

If the USA is culturally similiar when it comes to that practice, that would point to the somewhat damning conclusion that the policy put into place after Crystral's reporting of the incident was somewhat transphobic in the least; rather than recognising that consenting adults, regardless of gender, should be able to share a room, they decided to put everyone in single rooms, to 'seemingly' avoid a similar incident from occuring.

An incident that the company themselves caused.

Perhaps I am reading into it too much, but it certainly wasn't a well considered response to it, and didn't deal with the actual problem - transphobia. And I still think they're not properly apologising for it.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

Room sharing on business trips is not illegal in the USA and happens. I have always refused when it is a business trip, but it does happen.

 

[gss000]

If the USA is culturally similiar when it comes to that practice, that would point to the somewhat damning conclusion that the policy put into place after Crystral's reporting of the incident was somewhat transphobic in the least; rather than recognising that consenting adults, regardless of gender, should be able to share a room, they decided to put everyone in single rooms, to 'seemingly' avoid a similar incident from occuring.

An incident that the company themselves caused.

Perhaps I am reading into it too much, but it certainly wasn't a well considered response to it, and didn't deal with the actual problem - transphobia. And I still think they're not properly apologising for it.

Just when it comes to the room situation, I think you're reading too much into this. When working at conventions, I've seen or experienced companies putting one, two, or even four people in a room. A one person per room policy isn't that strange or an admission of fault if this is the route they took to prevent future problems, especially if they also decided this was a way to prevent any sexual harassment or worse in rooms.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

I've travelled many times for various healthcare organizations (and the military, come to think of it) and I've never had my own room.

 

[ReshiIRE]

Just when it comes to the room situation, I think you're reading too much into this. When working at conventions, I've seen or experienced companies putting one, two, or even four people in a room. A one person per room policy isn't that strange or an admission of fault if this is the route they took to prevent future problems, especially if they also decided this was a way to prevent any sexual harassment or worse in rooms.

But... that's not at all what prompted the change.

The timeline is this. Crystal Fraiser (an openly out trans woman) and another collegue (a cis woman) of hers wanted to go to a con and share a room. They both wanted this and consented to it.

It was not allowed by HR or management (I am unsure why), without explaination. Both women objected, and (I again stress) said they both wanted to share a room and were okay with the arrangement. But the company wouldn't meet this arrangement. Because of this, I believe Fraiser was unable or was too uncomfortable with the situation to attend the con.

Then, after this was brought up after Sara Marie's firing and the troubles at Paizo began, Paizo explained they had changed the policy to one person per room, seemingly in response to this, without further explaination why.

And now they've announced that people who do want to pair up can do so at future cons.

So... sexual harassment or worse never came into it.

If that was what management was thinking of when a cis woman and a trans woman, and I stress again, wanted to pair up in one room in a con together... then that sounds absolutely transphobic to me.

Maybe I am reading too much into it, but their reasons just don't make sense to me considering the situation that prompted this.

 

[payn]

I find it hard to believe a company would be transphobic and actually hire someone trans. I would assume there was a policy in place that bars non-married cis folks from sharing a room. When leadership was presented with the request to bypass the policy, they had to make a decision. Allow this exception and create a precedent for it, or just stick to the blanket policy and deny it. Of course, there was a third and better option to amend the policy to allow for a transfolk room policy, but Paizo leadership missed this opportunity.

Since its a D&D website, I'll just say companies often take on lawful alignments. They like tradition and are ridged, it helps protect companies and employees, but is often bureaucratic and slow to adapt. Our entire society is trying to learn how to accept and mend our traditions and norms to allow transfolk to exist in an equitable manner. Social change is difficult and doesn't happen overnight. That doesn't excuse Paizo leadership, they made a bad call here, but I do think it explains how they are not specifically transphobic. A policy that says "no transfolk can represent the company, and thus cant attend cons period" would be transphobic. This just seems like leadership pointing to a policy and shutting it down to not deal with it. Which they are now.

 

[ReshiIRE]

Transphobia, like all bigotry or attitudes, is not merely something outloud, or indeed just concious. Nor does one incident mean a company is transphobic at a whole.

But them hiring and having Fraiser as a writer and contracter doesn't mean there are not transphobic elements in the company; nor does it mean that policy itself wasn't transphobic, especially because everything I have read lead to me believing that cis people absolutely were allowed to share a room even if they weren't married. In addition, part of the early defense that came from the president themselves referenced the 'I have gay friends' excuse, which doesn't even make sense in the context.

They didn't need to create a policy dealing with trans people. Heck, them sticking to a single room by default unless people explicitly agree to double up policy would have solved the issue, if they then apologised for the trouble they caused and the fact that, whatever reason they had or not, it seemed pretty damn transphobic.

Perhaps, I should have started with this (I admit I have followed this pretty closely), but from the woman herself:

"Jess hasn't even talked about how Paizo explicitly laid out different freelancing rules for their only transgender employee at the time solely because a queer employee made that manager uncomfortable and she didn't want her having outside opportunities."

"Or how Paizo made employees double up in convention rooms, and refused to bring transgender employees to conventions (limiting career development and networking) because they wouldn't room a cis woman employee with a trans woman coworker even when they both said it was fine."

It seems pretty blunt to me.

 

[dave2008]

I must be the exception. Huh? Do I snore that badly?!

Different companies do it differently. I've never shared I room when I've traveled for work and was equally surprised to here it was a thing. Of course, I do snore so....

 

[TheSword]

Yeah, I’ve shared rooms at several companies.