I thought this Eastercon did much better on gender parity than the previous one's I had attended. I get the point about how panelists can only be drawn from volunteers.

As an aside I have a strange disconnect about the fact I was on a panel with, I later discovered, a GoH who had refused to be on any panels that didn't have gender parity. It made me start second guessing whether I was on the panel only to make up the numbers. On the other hand I am an expert in the relevant field so if my name wasn't down to be on that panel in the first place then it clearly needed a GoH making a point in order to get my name on the panel.

I think a good first step to encouraging more participation from non-white people is not to become defensive when the one's who are already engaged with the community point out problems that have arisen, understandable as it is to want to defend something you and your friends have worked hard to make as inclusive as you could. Everyone agrees, I think, that progress has been made, but I think everyone also agrees that there is a long way to go.