Guest post by Chris Brzuska: LGBTQIA Meeting at Eurocrypt

[I was delighted to receive the following guest post by Chris Brzuska about a meeting that took place last week during Eurocrypt in Tel Aviv. This piece will also appear in Omer Reingold’s blog. Let me take this opportunity for a couple of shoutouts. Next week it’s going to be two years since Italy, last among Western European countries, has instituted same-sex civil unions (yay!) and the parties that opposed it now have an absolute majority after the last elections (boo!). The Berkeley EECS department has an LGBT+ graduate student organization called QiCSE that organizes a very visible breakfast meeting during the visit days for prospective grad students and regular meetings during the school year – as much as I value Berkeley exceptionalism, think about creating something like this in your own school. It would be great if there was a LGBT+ meeting at STOC this year; I am not going to STOC this year, but maybe someone else can take the lead. And now, on to Chris’s beautiful essay. Congratulations, Chris!. — Luca]

I gender-transitioned two years ago, and Eurocrypt 2018 in Tel-Aviv is the first major conference I attend since then. I am a bit nervous. How much time does it take for 400 people to update my name and pronouns to use “Chris” and he/him? Two years feels like an eternity to me, but surely, some people will not have heard about my gender-transition. I will need to come out to some people.

Coming-out is very empowering, but after two years and uncountable coming-outs, I really wish that everyone knows that I am trans and gay.

A gay friend of mine remarks that when being bisexual/lesbian/gay, coming out is really never over, and one needs to come out again and again, to each new person. And really, he says, there is rarely a good time to bring it up.

“How come you didn’t know I am lesbian/gay?”, I heard from several friends, in shock, worried I might have wrongly assumed they are heterosexual.

How many LGBTQIA people are in our communities? I know some LGBTQIA people in the community, but how many more are there, and how can I find them?

This simple question leads to something which would become more important to me than I expected initially.

In the rump session, I give a coming-out talk, combined with an announcement for an LGBTQIA cryptographers meeting during the rump session break ( https://eurocrypt.2018.rump.cr.yp.to/4f756d069387ee90de62454a828a3b9b.pdf).

Giving this talk in itself was very nice. I enjoyed sharing my happiness with the community, see my happiness reflected in other people’s eyes. I enjoyed the many positive comments I received during the hours and days that followed, and the recognition of daring to be visible.

During the break, I am excited and nervous. How many people will come to the meeting? And who? More than 10 people come, most of which I knew without knowing they are LGBTQIA. We walk into the room, one by one, each with light in our eyes. We came out to each other, all of us, in that moment. It’s intimate, moving, exciting. Coming out remains deeply personal. It can be daunting, even in a warm, progressive environment such as our research community and even to an LGBTQIA subgroup.

After the rump session, we go to the gay-lesbian bar Shpagat in Tel-Aviv, in happy excitement. We are the last customers that night. The next day, during the breaks, we often find ourselves with a majority of LGBTQIA people in a conversation, we sit next to each other during talks. Something important happened.

In light of our increased visibility (to each other and to the community at large), there were more opportunities for coming outs the next days (or so was my impression, although I am only conscious of 2 explicit cases…). It was very liberating for me to share many of the following conference moments with LGBTQIA cryptographers who would add additional views to a heterosexual, cissexual perspective, and who would help me explain the sensitive issue of coming out to other caring members of our research community.

The research community is my permanent country of residence, my frame of reference, the source of almost all my long-term friendships – and enfin, in this country, there live quite a few LGBTQIA people, and the research community encourages us and shares our happiness.

We are going to organize more LGBTQIA meetings alongside cryptography-related conferences. I hope, there will be more such meetings inside and outside of CS. And we look forward to see the number of LGBTQIA researchers (that we are aware of) grow.

If you are an LGBTQIA researcher who wants to get in touch with us more discretely than at a public meeting (to talk to one of us, e.g., in the beginning of your PhD etc.), you can send an eMail to queercrypt@gmail.com. You can also use that eMail address to join our mailing list (for event announcements) and/or our WhatsApp group (include your phone number if you want to join the WhatsApp group). While the group centers around cryptography-related events, the group is not limited to researchers in cryptography.