"we thank you for respecting our need to keep this a 
    woman's only space."

As a pomosexual who generally views any gender-binary reinforcing mechanisms and institutions as part of the problem, I've never understood these kinds of efforts since they actively condone, lend acceptance to and legitimize discrimination based on gender identity.

What about queer and genderfluid individuals? What about cis-males who may experience a glass ceiling based on other criteria like race, national origin or sexual orientation?

A generalized platform for pairing mentors and mentees that allows mentors and mentees to each individually choose their own criteria (which could include identity politics boundaries, but isn't limited to that) for pairing seems like it could achieve the same goal without reinforcing a gender binary or being discriminatory.

It's bad enough that sites like Facebook require that you choose between male and female. It would be nice if more people followed the example lead by OkCupid in giving people more control over choosing their gender identity and what they are looking for within that context (online dating).

If anyone is curious about what OkCupid does, try signing up for a new account and you'll see "More options" under "gender".

https://www.okcupid.com/

Crime syndicates operating for more than 2000 years https://wh.gov/ivsip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_writings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominant_minority