(Sorry for breaking thread; my Undigestify plugin tells me "no preamble separator" which I shall have to investigate realsoonnow.)

Thanks to everyone who takes the time to address this important topic.

It's also often the case that it takes just one or two toxic people to make groups toxic, and sometimes the only way to make a healthy group is to rout them out. Yes, you want to be inclusive, but that doesn't mean you should allow inappropriate behavior, because that ultimately kills a group. I've seen it happen too many times.

My recommendation, based on my experience, is to confront the offenders and if necessary, give them the choice of behaving appropriately or leaving. Set and enforce boundaries; if they refuse, kick them out of the group. This is necessary if you want your meetings to be safe places for everyone, men and women.

Christine User:Figureskatingfan

I concur. If you need a policy for a local chapter to grab and re-use, https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Friendly_space_policy may help. But of course the actual event organizers have to *actually enforce that policy*, which includes sometimes telling a longtime community member, "that's not cool, and you're going to have to leave now." If you need to practice that on someone, so that it feels more do-able at that ugly moment when you have to do it for real, then maybe I can do a phone call with you, or step aside for a rehearsal at Wikimania. :)