I would appreciate more detail on how they determined whether people were lying or not, especially considering there would be no advantage to lying since the article mentions that self-identifying men were permitted to attend the event.

Yeah, that’s extra sketchy. Gives me more of the impression that by “female and non-binary” they meant “cis women and some enbys & trans women IF they dress up feminine”. In an event that doesn’t bar men from entering, why would any guy lie about their gender identity? What’s the prize, getting to enter a convention that you could have entered if you didn’t lie anwyays? As a trans woman that still presents masculine and has not started any HRT, it wouldn’t be the first time someone assumed I was just lying about my identity to… I dunno, score brownie points I guess?

I can understand that sentiment. Plenty of things running on good faith have been chugging along just fine, and considering this conference has been happening annually since 2006 without any prior issue like this worth noting, it seems like that’s been doing a pretty good job up until now. Again, not sure what measures could be taken that wouldn’t also be incredibly invasive, transphobic, or a combination of the two.

Is there any way this can be prevented in the future?

Unfortunately, I can’t think of any way to add prevention measures that wouldn’t also open the door for some insanely transphobic practices. I think this is one of those things where you have to really rely on good faith behavior from the local community/people signing up for the event

Now I could be wrong, but I think there’s probably one or two women and enbys in Florida :P They haven’t been completely outlawed yet

No.