Allegation: Y “knows” other women were “targeted” by me and has met some of them.

I did not, at any point, “target” any woman in the Scala community. I spoke to several women at conferences, and many are my friends. I know of three women who met Y at a conference while I was present. None of them recognize having been “targeted”. Two of them recall Y directing “anger” towards them.

In 2024, Daniel Spiewak told me that he had retrospectively reported something he interpreted as an “incident” involving me and another woman in 2017. This may have been classified as an instance of “targeting”. He did not check any details with me or the woman in question. She and I did nothing but speak, in public, and neither she nor I have any idea what was wrong with our conversation.

Targeting

For the purposes of this post, I will interpret Y’s use of the word “target” broadly to mean, identifying and pursuing someone with a view to beginning sexual or intimate or romantic interactions with them, or seeking a relationship of that nature. I believe that, given the context, this was her intended meaning. By taking a broad definition, I intend to show that I did not target women by any reasonable interpretation of the word.

Knowing that more women in the community were targeted recently, I realized that this type of behavior will never stop if people are not aware. Y, My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

My interpretation of her words is that she means that women were targeted by me. I did not target Y by this definition. I did not target any woman in the Scala community by this definition. Based on my conduct over several years, I dispute that Y can possibly “know” that “other women” in the Scala community were “targeted” (recently or otherwise), unless she means that the perpetrator in those cases is someone other than me.

Nonetheless, I had several conversations with female Scala developers over several years, some of which I initiated. Several of those women became my friends. I had technical conversations and non-technical conversations with them. Such interactions were no different from those I also had with male Scala developers.

Y claims that the alleged “targeting” had happened “recently”, and expresses her belief that it would continue without greater awareness. She implies a need for urgent action.

Yet, at the time Y published these words, everyone was in the fourteenth month of a worldwide pandemic. And moreover, I had been in a stable, loving and exclusive relationship for sixteen months. My then-girlfriend was an architect having no association with Scala or the software industry. Five months earlier, I had agreed to relocate to Germany with her, so that we could stay together after she started a new job in Frankfurt.

Diversity at Conferences

Before the pandemic, I had a professional interest in encouraging female Scala developers to attend or speak at my conference, Scala World. Unlike most other conferences, mine did not have a call for papers. Every speaker was personally invited by me. I wanted my conference schedule to be sufficiently diverse, but I was not willing to pick any speaker on the basis of their gender.

However, my invitations were not completely blind to gender because, collectively, I recognized the importance of representation, and I wanted a diverse group of speakers. But I refused to apply different standards to male and female speakers. I adhered strictly to this principle for the four years I ran Scala World.

Consequently, none of the women I ever invited to speak should doubt that she was chosen for any reason other than technical merit and an ability to deliver a great talk.

I had been aware for many years, through conversations I had with Heather Miller and other women in the Scala community, that the drive for diversity can put an uneven burden on female speakers. Dr Miller expressed her frustration to me, during a conversation in 2014, that she had received an invitation to speak at a media organization about Scala, where the host appeared uninterested in the content of her talk and unconcerned that she had no new material to present. She expressed to me that this led to her conclusion that she was being invited more for who she was and what she represented rather than her knowledge and expertise. I do not know if Dr Miller still holds these views.

The relatively few women in the community were invited to more conferences. I knew there was a cost to speaking at a conference, and I observed that it weighed more heavily on those women who were each expected to give more talks each year than their male counterparts.

So in addition to my professional obligation to curate a diverse program of speakers, I felt a moral obligation to avoid any action that could put undue pressure on any individual speaker, or cause them to question the reasons they were chosen. It was always my intention to talk to every potential speaker to make sure an invitation did not feel burdensome to them, before making a personal invitation.

Orthogonally to my friendship and subsequent relationship with Y, I was well aware that she had the potential to be a future speaker at Scala World.

Speaking at My Conference

The following is my best recollection of one of the most consequential conversations I had with Y. It happened over seven years ago, and while I recall certain details very clearly, I cannot recall every exact word that was spoken. I have indicated where I have doubts about my recollection.

On 15 or 16 May 2018, while we were sharing accommodation during our brief relationship, Y asked me about speaking at Scala World. I had already told her about the conference more than once, and she knew that an invitation carried prestige. It was already clear to me that she wanted to speak. At that time the next conference was over a year away (since I was not holding the event in 2018), but I had made some tentative plans already.

However, my conference was always marketed as “intermediate- to advanced-level”. I knew that Y was able to confidently deliver a presentation; she had demonstrated that already. But I did not believe she had the experience to present an intermediate- or advanced-level talk. There should be nothing surprising about this: she had been a Scala developer for just a few months.

More generally, I did not want the presence of a beginners’ talk amongst more advanced-level talks to be conspicuous to attendees, who could infer that it was only included because of the speaker’s gender. This would have been unfair on Y. More personally, I did not want anyone to think that I had made an exception to allow Y to speak because we were in a relationship. I did not wish Y to be judged on that basis.

So I told her immediately that I didn’t need her in 2019.

She was not the first person I had refused, or even the first woman. I had been asked several times before by people who wanted to speak at Scala World, and I was accustomed to saying “no”. But when I saw her reaction, I hastily added that I thought she would be “ready” to give a talk in 2020.

She appeared shocked by my response. Subjectively, I would describe her as mortified. I think she had taken it for granted that I would let her speak.

Perhaps her reaction should not have been surprising to me: her recent experience had been that every Scala conference organizer she spoke to had been enthusiastic to have her as a speaker.

Since we were in a romantic relationship, she may have assumed that I would be at least as enthusiastic to invite her to my conference. And when I said the opposite, this was probably a huge and unpleasant surprise to her.

Catastrophizing

Immediately afterwards, her demeanour became starkly different. The conversation had been pleasant and friendly, but she became indignant and brusque. She asked why I didn’t want her; I told her that I thought she wasn’t ready yet. She asked if I was trying to “demolish her”; I denied this. (This particular phrase stuck with me because she presumably meant to say, “demolish her confidence” or something similar.)

She then asked if I would ever do anything to harm her career “if we split up”. I was stunned that she even considered I would think like that, and I told her as much. She asked if I would ever tell another conference organizer not to have her as a speaker. I would never do anything to try to harm her career or anyone else’s career, and I told her as much. I had never given any indication to Y that I would do such a thing, and I could not imagine doing it.

I was shocked by how suddenly her questions became hostile. They seemed predicated on a hypothetical, unsubstantiated, and utterly false presumption that I would act with malice towards her. In mitigation, perhaps this was the only possible explanation Y could find to make sense of the rejection.

Y did not even seem to understand why her questions were unreasonable. Despite being unfounded, her fear that I might “harm her career” appeared to be something she genuinely felt. She was really hurt by my decision.

She continued by saying that if I said anything against her, she would “tell people” that I had taken advantage of her. (She may have used an equivalent phrase, but I recall that it was false and shocking.) She immediately interrupted herself to clarify that she would “tell Heather ⦗Miller⦘”, as if she had thought some more about it and chosen the best person to tell. She told me that she would cry, and people would believe her because she was “so innocent”.

The dramatic escalation made little sense to me in the context. My best interpretation is that Y got into a rapid spiral of negative thinking, for which it was clear to her that I was the cause. And she concluded that the best way to respond—perhaps as a means of defense—was with aggression.

If I am to trust the emotions she exhibited—and I do believe they were genuine—then she appeared to be catastrophizing. In my opinion, she imagined the situation, and her ability to handle it, as far worse than it actually was. She showed similar behavior, which I would also describe as catastrophizing, on at least three other occasions. However, I am not able to make a definitive clinical judgement of her state of mind.

I hid my emotions of shock, but the situation was surreal. I wanted to lighten the mood, and her last comment gave me an opening to do so: I casually joked that I “knew very well” that Y could cry convincingly if she needed to, and that I “should be careful”. The joke is explained below.

It felt important to me then that I shouldn’t show her that I took her comments too seriously, because that might exacerbate them. Humor was how I chose to do that.

Following this, the mood did lighten—externally, at least—and we talked about something else.

While there were other “red flags” during our brief relationship, this conversation was the moment I became certain that I did not want to continue the relationship with Y. I thought about it for about a day, then ended the relationship. I also told Y that I wanted us to sleep apart for the remaining days we were sharing accommodation.

It is notable that in her statement, Y does not say anywhere that the decision to end the relationship was my decision alone.

Crying on Demand

I joked about Y’s ability to “cry on demand”. She was proud that she had this ability, and told me she had used it before to inspire sympathy and to get what she wanted.

She shared this with me on the day we met, 18 March 2018, by means of a “funny story” involving a wooden musical instrument. She had, in her words, “pretended” to cry, and it had been so convincing that she got her way.

I found the story funny; I laughed when she told me. She even started giving me a short demonstration, but ended up just laughing at herself. It was nothing more than a jovial conversation between two people who had just met.

During later conversations, both Y and I recalled this conversation by making humorous references to her ability to “cry on demand”, which she referred to as ”a superpower”. Here is one such example which appeared in our chat messages, from 29 May 2018, approximately two weeks after our relationship.

The context of this conversation is that Y was worried that her visa application for travel to Portugal would be refused during an upcoming interview.

Interpretation

On several occasions during our relationship, I mentioned other women in the Scala community to Y, usually only in a banal context.

Knowing how he described our situation, and learning about narcissism and gaslighting, I have reasons not to trust his characterizations of his interactions with these women. I have met some of them in-person at conferences before. Y, My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

I did not, at any point, mislead Y when I described my interactions with any other women in the Scala community, or indeed any women outside the Scala community. Whatever reasons Y may have had not to trust these interactions, my descriptions were accurate.

I stand by every description I shared across the 20,377 messages I exchanged with Y in 2018, though all are just fragments to which I could add more detail. Since those descriptions refer to third parties, I will not reproduce them. For Y’s reference, if she wishes to check my characterizations, this expressly includes messages sent on 23 April, 13 May and 4 July 2018, about which she might have speculated, as well as everything I said about V. I was open about my past, and was never in the habit of misrepresenting any detail of it.

Y’s claim that she has “met some of them in person at conferences” allows me to work out the likely identity of three such women, because I was also present when she met them.

While Y writes that she met some of these women, this should not be mistaken to mean that her meeting or conversing with them informed her choice not to trust my characterizations. I cannot account for Y’s interpretation of conversations she may have had with the three women, but all three women have confirmed to me that they said nothing to Y that should cause her to believe they had been “targeted” by me.

Y initiated a conversation with one of these women (whom I shall call F) who had been a friend of mine for about a decade, over Facebook Messenger on 21 March 2021, just over a month before my cancellation.

Y stated that she had been “harassed and taken advantage of” by a “known public person in the Scala community” whom she did not name. Given that information, she asked F if she knew who she was referring to. Y claimed she was looking for “women who had a similar experience”, and was happy to connect even if she didn’t know.

F’s response was:

These were the last messages F sent to Y. They have been reproduced with permission.

Y replied to these messages offering thanks, and reiterated that she was open to talking to and supporting women in the Scala community who had experienced harassment.

I didn’t experience anything like this, neither that time in Krakow, nor since, but it’s true that i haven’t been active in the community a female Scala developer, when asked if she was “targeted”

On 28 April 2021, the day after my cancellation, Y contacted her again to share links to her publication and V’s publication. Furthermore, Y reiterated the allegation she made in her publication, that I “bragged about close interactions” with “many women”, and furthermore identified F as one of those women. She added that she had “no reason to believe any of the characterizations” I shared.

This contact appears to start as an earnest attempt by Y to investigate whether any other women recognized the behavior she described. But F’s response is unambiguously clear that she does not recognize it. Y’s subsequent response on 28 April 2021 does not appear to take F’s response into account.

”are you always so nice to everyone or just especially nice to F” Y, in a direct message to me

Furthermore, it appears to contradict Y’s own observations about an interaction she saw between me and F at a conference, which she asked me about on 23 April 2018.

I stand by the messages I sent to Y as accurate portrayals of my interactions.

I have spoken to all three women in the last few days. None of them spoke to Y about being “targeted” by me, and none of the women recognize anything about my interactions with them that would justify the label of having been “targeted”.

Directed Anger

The other two women confirmed to me that they distinctly remember occasions when they met Y.

The first of these happened on 17 May 2018, after Scala Days in Berlin. I unexpectedly encountered a female friend while I was walking along the street with Y. We greeted each other with la bise—a brief kiss on each cheek—as we had on previous occasions. At this moment, she noticed that Y was “glaring angrily” at her. It is possible that Y did not understand that it was a typical French greeting. I did not see Y’s reaction.

My friend tried to talk to Y at the Typelevel Summit, which took place the next day, but she got the impression that she was avoiding talking to her.

The second occurrence happened on 19 June 2018, at Scala Days in New York. I was talking to a female Scala developer, whom (at the time) I had met only once before, but who is now my friend. Y walked over to us, interrupted us, and asked sharply if I was “demolishing more speakers” and “refusing to invite them to Scala World”.

This was the second time I heard her use the verb “demolish” in this way. She used it this way once again in a private conversation with me on 18 September 2018.

My friend was annoyed that Y campletely ignored her when she interrupted. She was confused by the interruption and kept out of the conversation, but asked me later if Y and I had some “history” because Y’s apparent resentment suggested it.

She has confirmed to me that her recollection of the interaction is the same as mine.

Both women perceived Y as angry towards them, and characterized that anger as likely to be jealous.

Confirmation Bias

Following the outcome of my legal action in 2024, which I announced on 26 April 2024, Daniel Spiewak, a prominent Scala developer (who had been a friend from 2010 until my cancellation in 2021) commented on Reddit.

In his comments, he justified his decision to sign the Open Letter, by saying that he had seen something that concerned him (without elaborating), but he had not done anything about it at the time.

He also said that the evidence against me was like an “iceberg”, by which he meant that the “evidence” published on 27 April 2021 was a small fraction of the total. I do not believe this. After I challenged him on this, he also commented, regretfully, that his decision not to ever speak to me about it as “a miss”.

It was on this basis, and to his credit, that he agreed to speak with me privately, and we had a video call on 2 May 2024.

During this call, Mr Spiewak listened to me, and offered a qualified apology. However, he shared his belief that two people can have different interpretations of the same objective reality, and for each of them, their interpretation can be ”equally true”. I was skeptical of this characterization of objective reality, and remain so. So I asked him what happens when the perception of one of those people does not correspond to documentary evidence, and he did not have an answer I found satisfactory. I offered to show him some of my documentary evidence (which I have shared in my earlier posts on this website). Mr Spiewak declined, saying, “no it’s okay; I believe you”.

He furthermore told me that he did not pay much attention to the statement made by V, published alongside Y’s, saying that it contradicted conversations he had had elsewhere. It had been irrelevant to his decision to sign the Open Letter.

I asked Mr Spiewak what he had seen that he had found concerning. He told me that he saw me talking to a particular female Scala developer at the Scala Wave conference in Gdańsk on 8 July 2017. He told me the name of the woman, but I did not get a satisfactory explanation for what he thought was concerning about our interaction, which took place in public.

Without greater clarity, I am making the presumption that what Mr Spiewak saw was interpreted as “targeting” the woman in question.

This woman is not one of the three I identified previously, and I had not considered her significant in my cancellation until Mr Spiewak mentioned her. I have also spoken to her in the last few days.

She was a friend of mine at the time, and remains a friend now. She and I had already met at several Scala conferences, and have had several conversations before and since that time. I recall talking to her on at least two occasions at the event where Mr Spiewak saw us talking.

In addition to speaking at the venue, I believe we went for a short walk nearby, and then came back to the venue.

There was nothing inappropriate about our interactions. There was nothing remotely romantic or sexual about the conversation we had or the walk we took that day, or at any other occasion in the time we have known each other. Nor did I hope for there to be. Our friendship has never been anything other than platonic. She agrees with this characterization.

Furthermore, at the time of the conversation in question, I was in a relationship with V. I considered that relationship to be exclusive, and I had no interest in doing anything that would betray my then-girlfriend.

Mr Spiewak told me that he later reported his interpretation of what he saw to other people (though I do not know exactly whom), but he had not shared the name of the woman in question. She was therefore not identifiable to them.

Since Mr Spiewak had apparently made a subjective interpretation of an observation, I asked whether he had checked that his interpretation was correct with the woman. He had not. He explained that he didn’t, because he thought she might be uncomfortable talking about it.

After our call, I emailed Mr Spiewak to ask him to reach out to the woman in question and find out from her what happened, and then (if he was satisfied with her answers) to take steps to correct the damage I felt he had done.

First email from me to Daniel Spiewak.

Mr Spiewak did not respond to my email after ten days, so I made a second request.

Second email from me to Daniel Spiewak.

As of 30 August 2025, Mr Spiewak has not responded to this email either.

Several months later, I asked the woman in question to try to contact Mr Spiewak on my behalf. She attempted to contact him via two different means, and he did not reply to her. As of 30 August 2025, he has never responded to her request. He remains a signatory to the Open Letter.

During the call, Mr Spiewak twice made the point that people in positions of power, such as he and I, have a duty to hold themselves to a “higher standard” than other members of the community. This may be true.

But since Mr Spiewak, who remains in a position of power, participated in my cancellation not only by signing the Open Letter, but by misrepresenting his observations to my detriment (even if he did so unwittingly) as evidence of something sinister when it was nothing of the sort, he should recognize his duty now to correct that mistake.

Addendum

I sent Mr Spiewak an earlier draft of this post to give him the opportunity to correct any errors, and he responded to say that he now believes that his observation in 2017 had been a mistake.

To avoid misrepresenting Mr Spiewak’s response or omitting critical details, this is his full response.

Correction from Daniel Spiewak

I appreciate this correction.

I have nevertheless retained this section of my evidence because I believe that Mr Spiewak’s claim did contribute to an overall perception that more “unseen evidence” did exist, and his corrections in private have not received the same publicity as his original comments made in public.

My Request

If you signed the Open Letter in 2021 because you found Y’s publication and Daniel Spiewak’s comments compelling, please reconsider their words in light of the evidence above.

Their publications were hugely damaging to me. The complete absence of due process meant that none of their claims were ever verified with me before they were published.

If, like many others, you feel like justice may not have been rightly served, you can make a meaningful step towards helping me get my life back by removing your name. I am grateful for your consideration.

❧

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