LAcon V is a family-friendly convention that provides our attendees both a weekend full of fun and a safe place to socialize and have a good time. To that end, we have created and enforce the following rules of conduct that are in place for our conventions; these policies must be followed by all convention attendees without exception.

The purchase of a membership for LAcon V includes your acknowledgement that you will follow all of these policies at all times.

Code of Conduct

LAcon V exists for the enjoyment and enrichment of the fannish community. This Code of Conduct (CoC) ensures that the behavior of any one person, or group, matches the community expectations of the convention as a whole. 

This Code of Conduct applies to all LAcon V attendees – which includes Committee, staff, volunteers, and members. We will also expect those working for the hotels where our activities are taking place to act, and to be treated, in line with the principles of this CoC.

Broadly, we believe that codes of conduct and related policies enable, guide, and encourage safer and more secure relationships between convention members, participants, and volunteers. Encourage your friends and family to read this document. Discuss it with as many people as possible!

The Code of Conduct is a living document and we expect it to change over time. We welcome feedback and suggestions for improvement; please feel free to contact us at conduct@lacon.org so we can review your suggestions.

LAcon V policies published in the future will be considered extensions of the Code of Conduct and will be linked to directly from this document.

Code of Conduct: Principles

In reading this code and applying it to yourself or the behavior of others, please remember the following:

• Ask first! Before engaging in behavior that you are unsure about, check-in with the person you’re engaging with first. It is always easier to ask first rather than inadvertently harming, offending, or hurting someone. 
• We are a multi-cultural event with people coming from all over the world! Cross-cultural misunderstandings can and do occur. Consider whether your joke or interaction could be misconstrued by someone who does not share your cultural context. 

Everyone should feel welcome and comfortable at LAcon V and all related events, including any pre- or post-convention activities. We ask all our attendees, volunteers, media and staff to work together to achieve this goal. 

Discrimination (based on but not limited to, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, neurodiversity, physical appearance, body size, or physical/mental disability) will not be tolerated. 

Harassment of any kind will not be tolerated. If someone tells you no or asks you to leave them alone, you are expected to cease your interaction with them immediately. Because people may feel uncomfortable saying no or asking you to leave them alone, the absence of no is not sufficient to assume consent. Only yes means yes. 

LAcon V’s definition of harassment may not necessarily align with legal definitions of harassment. Behavior that will be considered harassment includes, but is not limited to:

• Verbal or physical assault
• Intimidation, stalking, or following
• Inappropriate sexual remarks or behavior
• Inappropriate physical contact
• Deliberate misgendering / deadnaming of people or continued misgendering / deadnaming after being corrected 
• Comments that belittle or demean others
• Non-consensual behavior towards another member, volunteer, or attendee
• Disruption of events
• Sexually graphic, racially biased, hate group iconography, or other offensive images in public spaces
• Costumes/Cosplay that are historically or otherwise offensive, including bigoted iconography or symbolism
• Attempts to weaponize this Code of Conduct
• Advocating for or encouraging any of the above behaviors.

LAcon V is committed to being anti-racist. Anti-racism includes working to exclude bias from our event, acknowledging our prejudices and benefits accrued from systems of power, and working to educate our members about racially motivated aggressions and microaggressions. Our full anti-racism statement is here.

Code of Conduct: Reporting Process (pre-convention)

If you feel that you are being discriminated against or harassed in a LAcon V space before the convention, or if you see someone else behaving inappropriately, please let us know. If you feel comfortable doing so, point out the inappropriate behavior to the person(s) involved; however, if you do not, that is okay, and a report can still be made.

To report a violation of this code of conduct, contact our Incident Response Team. You can contact them by email at conduct@lacon.org. 

When making a report, LAcon V staff will interact with all individuals in a respectful manner designed to center the experience of the individual making the report. Our goal is to listen to your experience and help re-establish your well-being. We will never move faster than what you are comfortable with. We will also tell you what our next steps will be and follow-up with you at your request. 

Once a report has been made, our team will develop a report of the incident, including speaking privately with those involved and any witnesses. Once a report has been developed, the Incident Response Team in conjunction with the Chair of LAcon V will decide upon an appropriate action.

LAcon V will keep private the identities of persons involved as much as possible, restricting identifying information to those parties with a need to know that information in order to perform their duties. 

If you are planning to attend a LAcon V event, either a pre-convention event or the convention itself, and have concerns regarding another individual who may be present, you can contact our Incident Response Team. We will listen to your concerns and discuss options that the event can provide to you.

Code of Conduct: Consequences

Anyone found in violation of the code of conduct will be subject to consequences. These include, but are not limited to:

• Verbal warning
• Revocation of membership in LAcon V
• Banning participation in LAcon V social media channels
• Banning from future LAcon V events
• Ejection from the current LAcon V event

LAcon V reserves the right to revoke membership and eject anyone at any time from a LAcon V event, including the convention, without a refund. 

Code of Conduct: Summary

LAcon V reserves the right to amend these rules at any time without prior or posted notice and the right of interpretation. We plan to make additions to this Code of Conduct closer to the actual convention, to cover at-con policies and procedures.

These rules and policies are not all-inclusive, and examples are included for illustrative purposes. Each infraction will be judged individually on its own merits.  

Additionally, LAcon V is prepared to deal with any issues related to this code in as rapid and efficient a manner as possible while maintaining a trauma-informed response approach.

Anti-Racism Statement

Racism is prevalent in all sections of our communities and society including fandom. LAcon V is committed to being an ally in the work of confronting racism and eradicating systems of oppression. This work includes examining our own bias and prejudice, the ways that we benefit from systemic/institutional racism, how privilege intersects with us and the lives of our members, and how microaggressions and macroaggressions impact our members from marginalized backgrounds and members of color. 

We believe that all BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) lives matter.

We pledge to work for equity, inclusion, and diversity for our event, and to use our platform as a space for historically marginalized voices to be amplified. For many years, fandom and Worldcon have ignored these issues, and at times reinforced the systemic barriers and racism that are part of our fannish community and history. We will actively work to do better. We will listen. We will take action and make changes. We will seek out input from the members of our community on how we can continue to become the ally we wish to be. This work occurs in our pre-convention planning as well as at our parties, events, and the convention itself. 

All of us, particularly those of us who come from a background of privilege, must stand together to denounce and dismantle racism, and to create better, more just, and more equitable communities for all People of Color.

At LAcon V, we want to ensure no one is talked over, ignored, or dismissed when speaking about their lived experiences in a racist society. Problems that people of color often reference, include but are not limited to:

• Having their lived experiences dismissed (i.e. “I’ve never seen that.” “That happens to others too.”)
• Unsolicited comments about their appearance or touching hair.
• Being expected to be an authority on non-white characters in various fandoms. (I.e. “You’re black so you must know all about Black Panther.”)
• Being talked down to or assumed to be less knowledgeable about topics.
• People critiquing their cosplay/costumes without being asked.
• Presuming that marginalized members do not belong and that they should not be centered in story-telling.
• The use of social justice warrior (SJW) as a pejorative term meant to demean or belittle the idea of diversity and inclusion in fandom and storytelling.
• The use of social media to target marginalized members and their allies for harassment and abuse as an outgrowth of their participation in our community and fandom. 
• Being targeted in person or through social media with acts of aggression, harassment, or as retribution for calling out harassers and abusive behavior. 

This sort of behavior will not be tolerated at any LAcon V event, either virtual or in-person. All of us must work to call out this behavior in ourselves and others. 

(This statement on racism was not written by a person of color, but was reviewed by multiple people of color (thank you all!). We are working to make our committee more diverse, and recognize that not all voices are currently represented. We welcome the opportunity to improve this document based on feedback, which can be sent to our Code of Conduct team: conduct@lacon.org)