I hope not, John, but I'm afraid I see it inevitably spiraling in that direction.
Suppose there was a hypothetical announcement of a Swift conference that was exclusive to people with a certain immutable characteristic (sex, race, sexuality, disability, mental illness, criminal history, veteran status, age, wealth, or one of the many other ways to categorize people)
- It could be announced on the "public" section of the forums, and certainly get push back from people who aren't okay with exclusivity of this kind.
- Or, it could be posted to the private section of the forums, with universal appraisal from a like-minded set of people. "Preaching to the choir", so to speak
The temptation would be towards the latter, as a path of least resistance.
There are people who think this kind of exclusivity is useful, positive and trying to making up for inequalities past and present. There's also a large group of people who seem them as prejudicial and discriminatory, and especially frightening when endorsed by a professional organization like a big company or this community. Regardless of where people might stand on these issues, I guarantee you these disagreements won't be happening if they're siloed off in immutable-characteristic-specific private forums.
Edit: naturally, people have the freedom to organize such things in private messages, other forums, etc. I think it's different when such an event gets officially endorsed by an entity like "the Swift Community", whatever that is.