There was a moment during WCEU that caught me completely off guard, in the best kind of way. The kind where you feel something shift quietly inside you. The talk was called Over the Rainbow: Talking about Inclusivity for the LGBTQIA+ Community in WordPress, and it did exactly that. It spoke to me, plainly and powerfully, about what it means to build spaces where people can bring their full selves.
Kirsty Burgoyne opened with a dream: “somewhere where everyone feels valued and welcome no matter their background.” That line stuck with me. Not because we’re there yet, but because we could be. We should be.
She asked the question I’ve been carrying quietly in my chest for a long time: is it as inclusive as it could be? Not diverse. Not colourful on the outside. But inclusive, deep in the bones of the thing.
And it made me want to speak, too. Not to echo, but to add. To let the conversation keep unfolding in my own way, from where I stand in the ecosystem. Because inclusivity isn’t just a policy or a rainbow logo once a year (I see you). It’s a practice. A pulse. A way of paying attention.
My place in the story
So here I am, showing up with my own story, still in draft form, still shifting in tone depending on the day and the people that I am talking to.
I write this not as an expert, but as someone who’s often navigated the edges of the conversation. Not quite fitting in, not quite standing out. A little queer, a little neurodivergent, a lot curious. Sometimes that’s made me feel like a footnote in bigger conversations. Sometimes it’s felt like an invitation to start my own.
The WordPress community has been many things to me: a playground, a proving ground, a patchwork of truly incredible humans. There have been times I’ve felt warmly held, and times I’ve had to shrink parts of myself to fit in.
And yet, here I am. Still building. Still believing that blocks and community can be shaped by care and inclusion. That we can make room not just for diversity in identity, but in energy, in expression, in how we show up and stay soft.
I’m not even fully out everywhere. My pronouns are they/them, and while some folks are trying, beautifully, awkwardly, lovingly, others slip back into what they’ve known. She/her. And I get it. It’s difficult to change a reflex. I have been guilty of it myself! It doesn’t wound me, not exactly. But it reminds me. Reminds me that being included isn’t the same as being seen. And that trying matters. That trying counts.
Kirsty said something else that hit me in the gut: “It really is easier just to not talk openly and hide in plain sight.” I’ve done that. Still do, sometimes. Not correcting people. Letting the mis gendering slide. Choosing not to mention it in certain rooms.
And that quiet omission, it accumulates. Not because I’m ashamed, but because the calculus of safety and ease still runs in the background. And the silence is its own kind of grief.
Inclusivity beyond the buzzword
Inclusivity is one of those words that gets said a lot and felt far less. It’s on posters, panels, footers of websites. But where does it live in the day-to-day? Where does it show up when no one’s watching?
For me, it’s in the micro-decisions. The language on a form. The pronouns in a dropdown. It’s in the assumptions we don’t make, the space we don’t take up, the way we listen without rushing to fix.
And also: it’s in the mistakes. Because real inclusivity isn’t pristine. It’s messy, ongoing, a series of tiny course corrections. It’s owning when we’ve got it wrong and trying again, publicly, imperfectly.
In the WordPress world, I’ve seen both ends of the spectrum. Welcoming contributors who go out of their way to ask, “How do you want to be included?” And others who assume the defaults are good enough for everyone.
But the defaults rarely work for everyone. That’s the thing. The centre is not neutral. So, we shift it. Slowly. Gently. Repeatedly. Until belonging isn’t a nice idea, it’s baked in.
Soft systems & quiet power
I think a lot about systems, not just the flashy ones with dashboards and deadlines, but the soft ones. The ones that hold us quietly.
Inclusivity lives there too. In the backstage decisions, editorial guidelines that nudge us toward more human language. In the plugin UX that doesn’t assume every user is cis, straight, or even neurotypical.
I’ve always believed in building tools that feel like an open hand, not a clenched fist. Something you can lean into, not wrestle with.
And maybe that’s where the power lies, not in the loud declarations, but in the gentle defaults. In the way a form greets you with your chosen name. In the way documentation acknowledges different needs, different paces.
It’s not about being perfect. It’s about being permeable. Designing spaces that shift when someone new enters, rather than expecting them to contort to the status quo.
We talk a lot about accessibility in WordPress. But what if we thought about inclusivity as a kind of emotional accessibility? A sense that your full self isn’t just tolerated, but welcomed, anticipated, woven into everything that we do.
That’s a system worth building.
An invitation, not a mic drop
Kirsty ended her talk with this: “Just because there’s a few of us open, doesn’t mean all of the work is done.” And that’s the part I want to carry forward.
I don’t have a neat ending here. No grand call-to-action or list of ten things to fix by next Friday.
Just a question: how can we keep making room?
Room for softness. For slowness, stories that don’t fit neatly in slides or sprints. For the people still figuring out how to show up, and the ones who’ve been here all along, waiting to be seen.
I think we build a better WordPress by building a better welcome.
And maybe that starts with talking. Not just in keynotes or on panels, but in DMs, in documentation, in the details we think no one notices.
This is me noticing.
If you’ve felt this too, or if you’ve never thought about it until now, I’d love to hear from you. Not because I have the answers, but because I believe in the kind of web where more of us are allowed to ask better questions.
So let’s keep talking. Let’s keep listening. Let’s keep the door open.
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