Last month’s Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC) — a prominent annual recruiting event targeting “women and non-binary technologists” — is under fire after attendees complained that large numbers of men showed up and dominated the job fair portion of the conference. “pov: you’re at a women in tech conference watching the men take the jobs meant for the girlies,” reads the text of a viral TikTok video showing lines of men (mainly of Indian and Chinese origin) waiting to talk to tech recruiters at the conference, where the cost of admission ranges from $650 to $1,200. One female attendee posted that “two men tried to follow her to her hotel room,” while others reported that men were “talking about how women looked in their native language[s] so that others could [not] understand.”

After the first day of the conference, which ran from September 26 to 29, a petition circulated calling on GHC to refund “all female attendees who have paid registration fees under false pretenses” and “establish clear guidelines stating that only self-identified women or non-binary individuals may participate.” “It has come to our attention that a significant number of men are participating in this event, which contradicts its purpose and undermines the opportunities it aims to provide for women,” wrote the author of the petition, which received over 2,500 signatures before it was taken down the following day.

Rumors circulated on social media that many men at the conference had chosen not to identify their gender (or had identified as “non-binary”) on their registration forms to justify their attendance. They “finesse[d] the system by choosing ‘prefer not to answer’ on their pronouns, getting scholarships to cover their costs, taking up space that could have gone to intelligent women who worked tirelessly to get this amazing opportunity,” wrote one attendee. The author of the petition proposed that GHC “implement a thorough verification process during registration to ensure compliance with the event’s intended audience,” a suggestion which triggered debate among attendees on Reddit. “do you want GHC staff to check each participants [sic] genitals or something?” wrote one user. “How TF are they gonna implement this? Penis inspection? DNA sample and checking blood for testosterone?” wrote another.