Syrmor interviews DJ Soto, a Christian pastor who is looking to redefine what faith looks like. As Soto tells it, part of his interest in taking up a virtual house of prayer is that it opens up the experience to people who might otherwise be excluded from real-world congregations, such as folks in wheelchairs and recovering drug addicts. Soto describes one instance where he baptized a woman who couldn’t leave her home, and the experience was so intense that she started “bawling,” as she never thought she’d have the opportunity to do it given her condition. His service also allows him to reach people he couldn’t if he preached solely through typical avenues. He has been performing virtual reality baptisms for a year now.

One important strategy for being an effective ally is self-education. Women are frequently expected to teach introductory feminism and entertain discussions on “being a woman in tech” with anyone who asks. It’s a great burden to shoulder and frankly a waste of their time. You wouldn’t ask Rasmus to teach you how to write a Hello World program in PHP, right? No! You would go out and find the articles, tutorials, and forum threads that already exist for beginners. With that, we introduce our list of recommended reading for allies.

Relying on members of minority groups to shoulder the burden of diversity issues is just as flawed as expecting one person to do all the work to fix a broken deploy system. You can’t excel at your job when you spend half your time dealing with other stuff. We need ways of spreading the load. We need allies. And we hope that’s why you’re reading this now.

"Using that kind of language sends the message that it's OK to trivialize mental illness and lazily substitute real people's lived experiences for 'wild,' 'silly,' 'dangerous' or 'out of control,'" Lydia X. Z. Brown, an activist, writer and speaker focused on disability justice, said in an email. "For people able to change their everyday language, becoming conscious of how often they use ableist words like 'crazy' or 'insane' is one small way of reducing the stigmatizing effects of casually ableist expressions," Brown said.

The harm is that telling people to “assume good intent” is a sign that if they come to you with a concern, you will minimize their feelings, police their reactions, and question their perceptions. It tells marginalized people that you don’t see codes of conduct as tools to address systemic discrimination, but as tools to manage personal conflicts without taking power differences into account. Telling people to “assume good intent” sends a message about whose feelings you plan to center when an issue arises in your community. [...] If you want to build a culture of “assuming good intent,” start by assuming good intent in marginalized people. Assume that they already tried being nice. Assume that their feelings are valid. Assume that, after a lifetime of practice, they are responding to harmful behavior in the way that is safest for them. Prioritize that safety over the momentary discomfort people feel when they realize they’ve done something hurtful. Culture-setting documents like your code of conduct and corporate values should be designed around protecting marginalized people from harmful behavior. Leave out “assume good intent.” Instead, create a culture that recognizes and pushes back against the ways that marginalized people are dehumanized. Expect people to demonstrate their good intent by treating people with respect.