>Would they come after you if you brought your same sex partner? If you had a rainbow pin? Does it really matter where the exact limit goes? Would you feel safe being in a country where your sexuality was illegal? No way I would take that chance for a python conference.

Are all conference participants also lgbt? Nobody forces lgbt individuals to travel there.

Why should a conference be held somewhere where people will be excluded by virtue of their existence?

because that would limit conferences in a lot of places.

people everywhere should be able to hold their own conferences.

the question is, should the PSF fund them? that should be answerable with a clear yes or no in a timely manner, and not like it happened.

holding a conference named pycon requires permission from the PSF trademark workgroup. that permission has obviously been given. giving such a permission but then denying funding would be contradictory, but still be better than delaying decisions.

further consider that the people organizing the conference are not the ones making the exclusions. those are beyond their control. supporting the organizers might actually be a good thing. at least it is worth a consideration.

I don't disagree with any of this. People in those areas should be able to hold their own conferences, and should get questions on funding answered in a timely manner. The point I wanted to make was that there are valid reasons to not hold (or fund) a conference based on local laws.

right, but those reasons could have been considered when the permission to host an event called pycon was sought and given.

i'd like to assume that once i have permission to organize a pycon, then funding is a mere question of how much, and whether the expenses are appropriate, not whether it should be funded at all.

I don't disagree. Communication is important and allowing use of the name but withholding funding, unless something was communicated beforehand, sends mixed messages.

> Would you feel safe being in a country where your sexuality was illegal?

The answer seems to be yes for at least some number of travelers. I have traveled the Muslim world and sub-Saharan Africa extensively and I have met plenty of fellow travelers who are gay, whether individuals or even gay couples. The couples simply don’t show affection in public, but heterosexual couples shouldn’t either. Even sharing a room as two men or two women is no issue, because the locals will assume you are friends unless you explicitly, deliberately, tell them otherwise.

And twice when I got the contact info of local Europeans living in the region who were known for extending hospitality to any travelers coming through, I arrived to find that it was a gay couple who had been there for decades. I must say, this whole thread is full of uninformed stereotypes, and posters would benefit from firsthand experience of the world.

> I must say, this whole thread is full of uninformed stereotypes, and posters would benefit from firsthand experience of the world.

LBTQ and HR activists often protest international conferences and events held in countries with lacking human rights. To be frank, I don't think that is because we are uninformed.

Of course the risk as a caucasian traveller to get life imprisonment in Tanzania is very low, but life in prison is a risk I would avoid even if the risk is low. Since you have traveled so extensively what would your advice be to my gay friend who had to flee for his life from a neighbouring African country. Is he safe to visit this python conference?

I’m not interested in giving advice to individuals about whether they can travel somewhere or not, though in your case the question immediately arises as to how authorities would know that your friend is gay if he kept his orientation to himself. My post above only emphasized that when gay travelers look at the situation and make their choice about whether to travel to certain countries or not, obviously some of them choose to go regardless.