Unbound Leadership - theory emerges!

Part 2 of the research findings conversation with Meryn Cadell

In this episode we talk about: 

• Unbound Leadership and reflexive praxis. 
• Pride and resilience as protective factors. 
• Pronouns as gender signifiers. 
• Non-binary, queer precarity as experienced by Unbound Leaders
• Gender spectrums, and not telling or identifying exactly where Unbound Leaders sit…
• Homophobic binary policing in the workplace, and how Unbound Leaders step up to facilitate HR and co-workers addressing it through calling in, training, and policy (including policy enforcement). 
• Research as a process that finds and builds solidarity, and how it can be used to raise awareness around homophobic policing in HR. 
• The importance of bystanders and allies (and friends and family and community) in challenging the intersection of misogyny and homophobia, and homophobic binary enforcement. 

Link to Tedx talk - https://www.nbresearchproject.com/research

Transcript

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SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hi, and welcome to the GNC Research Project. I'm Michelle Hamilton Page, and the episodes to come are essentially my doctoral research in podcast format. I used Grounded Theory to talk to 25 emerging leaders about what it is to be visibly queer in the workplace today. We'll talk about contested terminology like gender nonconforming. We'll talk about what it is to be non-binary, lesbian, and queer in the workplace today. I look forward to your feedback and to continuing the discourse about what this reality is like and what we're learning about what it is to be a true leader that can hold paradoxes. So what one of the things I wanted to pick up on around the leadership piece that you were talking about is this idea of how much these people to a person again, every single one of them, I started to ask, are you do you consider yourself a leader? Because it started to be clear that they were that the way that they navigate, because I'm always looking, so we're looking for action in granted theory, right? We're looking for how are people navigating within this, what we're talking about is a hidden structure of binary expectations, binary enforcement, binary policing, whether it's dress code or bathrooms, or you're the wrong kind of leader. You're not, you know, male enough or female enough, you're not strong enough, you're not whatever enough. Um, but to again, to a person, they came to the discussion holding the binary without having to define it, without talking about being male or female in their traits, like it very little did that come those two terms come up unless they were about like enforcement. So it wasn't it, it was as though individuals coming to the conversation were like, I can hold both these things, I don't need to name it for you. I've I embody it. Um, and then I asked them to name it. But this idea of a leadership that is able to hold that paradox, this idea of this, what what I've started calling the unbound leadership is fascinating in that at the center of it, I think it has that um collaboration, that navigation of what other people are feeling, reading the room, right? So the ways that um you're aware of the reaction and response to you in the bathroom comes with you to the boardroom, comes with you when you meet clients, comes with you to new workplaces. To the extent that when people talked about changing jobs, there was a concern about precarity. Like I've done the work to be seen and known here. The ground had been tilled in their workplaces by them. The softening of hearts and minds to who you are and identity had been done in those in those workplaces. So the precarity would come with I could I could be outgrowing where I am, or I might not be able to be, you know, becoming as where I want to go or growing in this role or this organization. But if I leave, I start at ground zero all over again with the navigation and the collaboration and the reading the room, with having to start from nothing, start from othering as opposed to your more known. And that that leadership piece, I think, plays it draws on that ability to read that room that way. And it's a it's an absolute skill to be able to hold, you know, I'm I'm using both hands, like you're in between the body, you're holding you're in the middle of those binaries, like you're you are you are all these things, and you're watching how that's working in each in everybody else's world and life in the stratosphere and the atmosphere of the workplace. And that's a that's an incredible leadership quality to be able to do Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

I think it's also um interesting. I've mentioned this to you before to some degree, that I think it's um well, a couple things. The world has changed so much in the last several years in terms of gender and and also in terms of the idea of binaries and how they may not how they're not the be-all and end all for lots of people, and where someone might uh follow along the spectrum, including just saying, I'm I don't, I'm not gonna tell you where I am on spectrum, I'm just simply non-binary, I'm not this and I'm not that. Um, and that has opened up, I mean, the number of people who have have transitioned or have called, you know, call themselves and claim a non-binary identity, has really opened up much more useful and for people who are different in some way, um so satisfying uh changes in the way that we think about um the binaries and about gender in in general and gender expression. And I feel like the this kind of work that you're doing um would have been really difficult to have people get behind even six, seven years ago. I mean, you would have known it at that point already, but people saying, like, yeah, that's a that's a gender identity. And of course it is, like that's but so it's I think that's so great that what's come around in other places. I mean, there have been gender non-conforming women working in workplaces forever, um, you know, as long as there have been whatever offices, office buildings. Um but it's become, I think there's a there's a much more useful conversation that can happen now in terms of HR departments and all that kind of stuff, um, in terms of how they view these women who've just been these oddities, they they didn't really know how to how to deal with before. Um, and I also think that this I was noticing in your research proposal there was some um recent literature, but a lot of it was older literature about lesbians in the workplace and that kind of thing, um, sort of early 90s and around into 2000. But it seems like no one has really been looking at this particular group, perhaps ever in the way that you're doing it, but also not in recent times when the definitions of gender um have so have written so broadened in the last few years. So it's it's more timely than ever.

SPEAKER_02 5:58

Yeah. Yeah, someone talked about, you know, for the most visible of queers, there's been so little done about us, right? When it talks like, you know, we are so visible, and uh and just you know, so much of the literature is about the ability to pass or the ability to like to fit into a binary, which is also part of it. And that's that's it, right? So it's it's both the binary and the sexual orientation acting together and being entwined again. Um I love I love what you said about um being on the spectrum around gender somewhere, somewhere between the binaries or on the spectrum, but not telling people that's that's huge. That absolutely was part of of the interviews. Like I probed for people to define who they were and what the terms were that they were using because that's super useful for us to talk about um, you know, to break coded language apart and then talk about how you know what's being done with that and and and how that relates to action and and again moving through the world and navigating and mitigation and all that stuff. Um, so that was fun to do. But uh yeah, this idea that no one talked that much about where they were around the binary because they didn't have to. They had read themselves into the call for uh research participants, which is the first question why do you want to be part of this? Well, I'm gender non-conforming or I'm a non-binary or I'm whatever, and we go from there about sort of digging into what that means. Um the but the freedom for everyone, like this is the thing too, right? Like it's not this is this is an identity that has experienced backlash, hatred, you know, sexual harassment, um, homophobia, sexual assault, um, policing, all the things that we're talking about. And those incidents came up, talked about how the homophobia or the harassment based on their gender or whatever, again, in that scale had happened to them. It's been happening for as long as gender non-conforming lesbians or non-binary lesbians or butch lesbians have been working. Often they were in fields where what we would hear, I've heard in interviews about, you know, on the shop floor, someone yelling out to someone in a factory setting that was one of the participants, one of the research participants, are you a dike? And their response was, Do I look fucking straight to you? And they were never bothered again. And then another person who was also a butch lesbian, who was also in that same workplace, didn't come out and was harassed the entire time they worked there, ended up leaving before this other participant. Uh fascinating, right? Where it's like if you're speaking directly to it, owning it, saying that yes, this is who I am, I'm proud and I'm resilient, and what of it? Like you're not blind, I'm not hiding, we're not playing a game here, and it's protective factors, fascinating to me. Um, and that and that can't that again, we don't know because I haven't gone probing for that particular thing, but that can't be unique in why people choose to stay in particular workplaces or in particular settings or why we're drawn to places where someone asks you out loud, are you this? And you're like, Yeah, I totally am.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

Yeah, I think um something that uh there's something I want to go back to, but I'm gonna go forward first with this. I hope I've written something legible here on the minutes. Um when you talked about um the woman who said, Yeah, do I look fucking straight to you? And then was was no longer uh bothered for the rest of the time that she worked there. Um there's a piece about it's a very strange thing, but there's a piece kind of about shame and um where uh the weather worker who's who had some co-workers say the most ridiculous things to them as a way to be like, we know what you are. Of course, no matter how many times she was saying in return, yeah, I know what I am too. They they didn't get it, but that's I think that's an interesting thing that people think there's something um like it's it's really almost hilarious um to think that a gender non-conforming woman, butch lesbian, whatever you want to call it, um, that anyone would think, yeah, I've got a big secret that I know about that you don't know about my knowledge.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Really, really?

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Um but yeah, it's it's for me to just to be able to kind of um own it back and say, yeah, exactly, that's exactly what I am. Let's get on with working, right?

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

Um to go back a second to um like now I can't remember the context, something you were just saying earlier. Um I can't think of the I can't think of what the context was, but um so I'll just say the thing that I was um yeah talking about, or the thing that I'm remembering that was really powerful for me, is um one of the participants saying, Oh, two things, sorry. No, I'll um I I did want to say also just about the participants, is how brilliant the internet is. And I think it's underrated for, and of course, there's reasons why uh you know academia is sort of um suspicious of the internet in ways in terms of community building, um, but it has to be acknowledged because it's too big not to be acknowledged. But what I really loved in your research was you were talking to people from all over the world who had, you know, like had seen one thing that was, you know, it wasn't just all like you had talked earlier um in your research proposal about the community around, which is not a dirty word, uh, which is great. And there are people that are part of that, but there are people who are not part of that, just that all that the cog and wheel thing going across the globe was pretty amazing. I really liked that. You know, I'm sure you had some question as whether you're gonna get end up with like 25 women you kind of knew or you knew someone who knew them, kind of thing, as opposed to people from all over the world, which I thought was fantastic. Yeah. Um, so one of the participants talked about there's a there's a resistance at so many levels, I think, in terms of trying to um manage um a butch lesbian in the workplace, or a not a gender non-conforming person or non-binary person. And uh what someone said so eloquently was I'm not talking to you about pronouns, I'm talking to you about who I am, I'm talking to you about me. Um and I think that's something that a lot of people don't understand because especially because there's a lot of and people are so um don't like to be doing new things that people, you know, people would say to me, because I'm trans, and be like, I they they them is not an appropriate pronoun. It's not proper proper English, and I'm not gonna hear that. And I would just look back at them like, okay, well, you shared that with a trans person. Who you you can um don't change for the times, but it's something um people I think there's a lot of people who don't like to be policed. Literally, you're just we've just been talking about the ways that queers in general and certainly gender non-conforming lesbians are policed and policed and policed in different ways. And yet the simple fact of saying, I would like to use they them as my pronouns can be like a no why kind of thing. Um pouch best, I'm not gonna do that, um, kind of thing, when it's literally their identity that they're talking about.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

Um, it's literally their the the core of who they are. And that it could be so summarily dismissed because it's oh, it's so inconvenient, uh, is um is troubling.

SPEAKER_02 13:49

It is, um, and that I I think the quote from that participant is when I'm telling you about my pronouns, I'm not just telling you about my pronouns, I'm telling you about my gender. Right? Okay, yes. Which is like there are laws about that in the place where it's like, you know, not everywhere, but there are also policies about that. Um, yeah, that was an amazing conversation with that individual. There were a couple of people talking about changing their pronouns over the course of having just changed them or being about to change them, several participants actually, that that soon thereafter, or they were in the process of it during this interview, um, which was really interesting too, because it uh it was it was cool to hear what they were doing to enact that. Signatures at work are big in terms of email signatures. Um they talked about the feeling of being misgendered when the wrong pronoun was used. Someone talked about um having that happen in a workplace, having a manager do that, they felt on purpose, and actually saying to someone else, I refuse to use their pronouns. Um and again, when we're talking about an identity that is that has an entwined sexual orientation, visibility around queerness and gender identity, it's homophobic. Like it is a problem around the gender identity, but it's also a refusal to acknowledge this intertwined this connection of this identity that makes you visibly queer. So let's come back to that. So you're refusing my my um my pronouns, you're refusing to acknowledge this, but I'm already visibly that thing that works here. So it's almost, you know, and it's like it comes back to some of that shame stuff you're talking about, because that's I've absolutely had that happen before too, where and sometimes it's happened around culture or religion, and we heard that from participants as well, where someone has just said, Don't talk to me, I don't want you to talk to me. And it was clear that what was happening when they were looking at it, and HR was looking at it, was that there was something happening around uh homophobia in relation to cultural their cultural norms, and the person left that uh that department and and and working in that with that individual. Um, but there's something going on in terms of that shaming, that shame-based. Um, the one thing I think you were talking about was two people talking about whether their shoes were gay and the individual to each other with someone who, as you've mentioned, is visibly queer and is like, in no way am I trying to like they were dressed up for a you know a more formal event. But yeah, but it's the stereotype of a lesbian and comfortable shoes, too, right? Like we know that some of these things go back to these shame-based stereotypes that are also about getting arrested for not having female clothing on. So it comes back to these cultural norms around the binary that also signal homophobia. And this is a thing that's so important around, you know, like you're talking about saying I'm talking about to someone about being trans, and they start talking about sex. And it's like, what I was talking to you about being trans, that's not, but it does come down to this enforcement that underneath this gender enforcement and this policing is this not so subtle homophobia that in talking about the shoes and the gender of the shoes isn't what was happening, they were talking about sexual orientation of shoes, which the participants said, right? The research, they were like, I didn't know that uh the shoes have a sexual orientation. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

But they also knew that it wasn't right, it wasn't it's could not be acceptable on in company policy or under human rights code generally. What you just mentioned about the um idea of someone saying to this butch dike in the workplace, I don't you can't talk to me anymore. When they were like the administrator, it made absolutely no sense. And the interesting thing about that situation was um a couple things. One, that um management, it was a small organization, and the management and the interviewee were close, like knew each other. Um, and the first response when the interviewee brought it up with management was, I think that's just her, that's just Sheila, whatever the one same you said, don't talk to me anymore. It was sort of more like, you, you know, it was sort of saying, Can you just deal with this? I think that came up a lot in various ways, where the person, the people who were interviewed would say that in one way or another, someone said to them, Can you just like just overlook it, or could you like talk to them about it? These things that were completely inappropriate and did not give the person who had just been harmed any acknowledgement that they had been harmed or that the and or that and that they had their back, that they would, you know, help them through the situation. And I think that's a really interesting piece in terms of how often a butched lesbian will be seen as a pillar of strength in every way, meaning they're they're kryptonite, you're that you're right, they're bulletproof, and um and they don't need support, or they don't need um, or there's nothing soft about them, so they don't have feelings almost, or something like that. Um, when in fact, and and the person that interviewee for me, something happened so many times during the course of these interviews that you did with them, where their own realization of how much they had accepted uh pretty crappy treatment uh really became apparent to them. They were they were allowed to actually feel it and think, yeah, that was not a great situation that was put in there. There's been quite a lot of um managing, um, accepting in a sense, uh, sort of um treatment that's not that that would not be uh admissible even in a different kind of personality, um and uh just sort of uh living with it and taking it, even though sometimes I mean, and one of the one of this another situation I'm thinking of where um the interviewee, although at first would just be like, Can I just not be the complainant? Do I have to also be the mediator, the everything else? Um did in fact help in, you know, talking about like, well, let's uh why don't I help you write policy on it? And it was really, and I I think what and you talked to them about just saying, you know, you're you are the wronged party there. You are the or that there are two different people involved who are sort of the wronged party. And it took a while for that person to really see that um in the discussion that you were having. But in the course of those interviews, also there was increased solidarity, there was increased understanding of their identity in terms of how it worked in the workplace, which means how other people viewed them. None of them had any questions about the I their identity in their in and of themselves and the world. They had worked through that and they knew what that was. And as you're saying earlier, they didn't they couldn't, they didn't have to name it necessarily and say it's this or that, it's just who they are, um, kind of fully realized. But in the workplace, it's still a content a contentious issue in ways that uh a lot of a lot of gender non-conforming lesbians have just simply tried to live through, you know, uh and continue with the work that they were doing. And that and if someone doesn't see that that's a real need for this research to be done and for um uh suggestions being made to HR, uh I don't I don't get it. I don't know why this isn't wouldn't be a a tremendous um concern. And and the the idea of bringing your best self to the workplace in the end, what is it about? Uh I mean, why do we have what what when someone has a job, what is that about? And it is performing uh their tasks to the best of their ability, um, including if it's part of the job description to um conceive of new ideas and new ways of making things or making new connections, that sort of thing. And if there's so much uh distraction in um all of this mitigating, all of this navigating. And um trying to anticipate um they're not going to be bringing the their best selves all the time.

SPEAKER_02 22:07

There were there are a few things that I want to pick up on what you've said, and I'm this is why I wanted to have these conversations with you, because it's just so helpful to see your lens as you've as you've heard it, the conversations. One is the transformative nature of even just doing this kind of an interview for for participants that wanted to go there, and for me, right? There was a there's a witnessing, there's a seeing, about being visibly queer, about being asked what your experience is, about someone caring about it, about doing research about it, and then about them holding me to account for what I produce and and how I talk about you know their their experience. Um behind each and every one of those situations where you're talking about how they like the maltreatment, there is pride and resilience as well, right? So um no one was bleeding all over. They had done work around integrating that because this is this is an everyday thing in terms of you know how they dress, how they look, taking up the space and moving through the world and being visible. It happens, we're walking billboards.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Um yeah, and I just want to interject with like in fact, the um one of the one of the interviews who had something quite heinous done to them by someone else uh who would sort of reject them in a very kind of public way and made working almost impossible, um took away from that. Is there anything I could have done differently? Which was so like in a way it was it was heartwarming, but it was also like it was tragic in the sense that this was they'd worked so hard to make things open and communicative that when they were actively harshly attacked for simply being, you know, one of what one of what one of the things they took away from that was well, could I is there something I could have done differently in this space? And I I hope I'm not making that person sound like foolish. I it's it's actually uh if everyone did that, it would be an amazing thing. But yeah, just the level of kind of cooperation and um openness and a kind of sharing of uh responsibilities and that kind of thing, which are uh qualities that came up in a lot of these discussions, um is being thrown away in a sense because there's just too much else to kind of navigate and juggle.

SPEAKER_02 24:31

So that actually is one of the things that comes up in terms of the unbound leadership. So that ability to have that self-reflective practice um is huge. And it and it's part of a fantastic leader. So with the identity and with the identity formation and knowing who you are and being visible and navigating everyone's response to you, comes that in these cases, and this in the leadership that we're seeing with these individuals, these 25 individuals, is this self-reflective practice. How am I moving through the world in a way that's impacting other people? And how am I navigating that on the regular? Um, from a feminist perspective, how am I taking up space? How am I sharing space? That came up again and again in terms of people's um navigating both the workplace and the bathroom. Um, so that self-reflective piece is is huge. Um, and I think it's a it is a big that's a vulnerability. There's a lot of stuff that Brene Brown talks about in Dare to Lead when we're talking about an emergent leader, an emergent leader that in this case I'm saying is an unbound leader that is so far outside of any box that they're they're not even naming on the spectrum where they are. They're holding all the things, they're walking with all of those truths. But I think the other thing I wanted to say about the shame and the dirty secret thing is that when you're so visible, it's almost like a well, what did you expect? Like you're at a 401, and these people are in reaction to you. So can you just try a little bit harder to understand that it's hard for them to be in the same space as you? Someone talked about uh the practice of staff watching um drag race together and that there was some trans misogyny that happened. There were a couple of things that were super problematic around gender identity and sexual orientation, and they were basically asked by um by HR to suck it up and and um deal with those individuals with compassion um rather than having someone say, Yeah, this is a problem, and that went on for some time and became a bit of the workplace culture in that in that example. Um, and we've heard about it other places as well. One of the things that was really interesting that came out of one of the um discussions with a participant was their sense that they felt that colleagues, upon seeing them, upon getting to know who they were, felt disgust. And this is a thing that's that came up a couple of times as well. And um, when I've talked about it with you before, and you've read this in the work that I've done before, I haven't talked much about it since, but I'm thinking about Uncanny Valley, was thinking about when we enter the workplace, we know that mentorship happens in a homophilial way, men mentor men, women mentor women, very, very uh little crossover happens in mentoring in the workplace. And so, if you're not those things, who are you going to be mentored by? And so, this concept of being um, you know, in some way repulsive, like with uh, you know, the zombie or the humanoid in uh Maury's um Uncanny Valley, this is something that I sort of had conceptualized and had felt that it's that's where that nexus of homophobia and misogyny is, and it comes too with men around are you also sexual competition? Because that's the where the homophobia is. So it's an interesting concept around you're visible, what did you expect? Um, and this concept of disgust, like it's disgusting. And then when we had the conversation in that in that interview, um, I stopped recording and we came back to the person saying, but the other thing I want you to talk about is that it's a complex identity, and then one of the things we're asking people to do is have their own self-reflective practice. Absolutely, and that complexity is something people will not do, and we're pushing them to have to do that, to look at their policing, their enforcement, the binary, the disgust, all of that thing. And that complexity is an incredible, it's a beautiful thing to have navigated and to develop that self-reflection, to have know who you are, to be able to proudly move through the world with that, to say, no, I am a professional and I do look like this, and I will bring all of these skills. And you can't tell me it's not male enough or female enough or whatever. I will continue to excel and be this, and it's complex, and that's really what the problem is.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

Agreed. Um, and I in terms of not them not uh refusing to do that kind of work to do that comp to do that complex study of uh what they're actually responding to. Um I just, you know, in terms of thinking thinking about going forward, um I I just wish there was a way because with if that refusal is is built in and it's it could you could basically say like in a lot of workplaces, then women's lesbians are just gonna be out of luck because people are not gonna do this this difficult work. Um so partly I think you know in the HR uh kind of uh world, it's something that's to be considered and and try to make people more self-reflexive and go through some of that work. But I also think I hope that there's some way that if if if not that, or in combination with that, um some better understanding of if you don't like this, uh I mean it should be a given, and that's sort of how why there are laws around this kind of thing. But it's um the level, I think again, because of homophobia, even though things are changing, they're not changing this a lot of things are not changing, especially in the way that religion views um homosexuality. Um in that in those kind of settings and in those kinds of minds, uh nothing has changed much in the last 50 years or more, I would say. Um and I I don't know what the kind of I don't know what the workaround or the or the the the solution is in that regard, but to just simply do you know what I'm saying? Just talking about the fact that people this this came off of what you were saying about disgust, which makes just kills me. It breaks my heart to hear that kind of um uh talk. I'm sure there's some people you'll never reach. But I just I I would hope that there's some kind of training that can happen through HR that is that at least allows people to say, okay, you like to separate themselves and really understand what a workplace is, and that a workplace is a bunch of people, a constellation of people who are who are together because they've been hired to be in this space together, although with COVID, who knows? But it was even then, it's a it's a it's a psychological um space as much as anything. Um, and they will not be the same, and that's never going to happen that way. And that's what's important is the work is your product or your service or whatever it might be, and that you you must leave, especially if you're in a kind of any kind of position of power, you must leave your other stuff to out, you know, behind your your front door. Go go into your house, then you think what you want, but it has no bearing on the way that you act or the or the the um suspicions that you have or the um assumptions that you have about another person. And I think it's I think it's a huge thing. Like uh something in your something you wrote, I think, in your in your uh uh proposal was something about um that there's still a prevailing view about homosexually being homosexuality being uh morally wrong.

SPEAKER_01 32:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

And I found that so repugnant that if people are really at that level, it's kind of what I was saying right near the beginning about people having the most simplistic views of like, oh, there's a butch dike, like she wants to rule the world, she wants to be a man, all these like simplistic things. But if they aren't addressed in some way and that person is in a position of power, it's incredibly destructive, even if most of us who are queer and have gone through a lot of uh soul searching and and working out who are what who and what we are affected by it.

SPEAKER_02 32:51

Yeah. And I and I think I mean it's an interesting, it's an interesting point, right? The idea of like who who does who does the consciousness raising, who does the training? And so many times from participants, we heard they did the own, they did their own training. They had to do the consciousness raising, and then they were responsible for being training in. In one case where there was training around homophobia, the the feedback in the workplace was that the trainer was too gay, and that was allowed to stand, right? So, and this is someone who is experienced both homophobia, where someone quoted a Bible verse to them about so religious-based homophobia, and HR sent both of them the same letter and was like, you know, you gotta go along to get along. So the person who'd had experienced the homophobia, and then that same individual in dealing with um a gay male boss who was enforcing dress code and enforcing uh a binary in terms of how they looked, and they were wearing exactly what male colleagues were wearing in a place where you know they they do work that makes them dirty, yet there's no uniform. They had coming from uh someone who's conceivably part of the community and possibly has done some of the self-reflective piece, but has left this other part out of it. So within that one organization, in another one where someone did the training uh around these issues, where who is going to do this consciousness raising? And it begs the question. Sometimes it's HR, but most of the time when we heard about HR, it it hasn't been anyone who's taken the lead and done the training. There was one individual who said that someone circled back to them and said, You were injured by that. I'm sorry that I didn't handle that better. One incidence of that when when it most of the time, the participants that I talked to don't complain. When they have raised it as issues, most of the time, what the issue was is that the HR really didn't handle it well, nor did senior leadership handle it well, or it was actually senior leadership, a manager or their manager's manager that was the problem. So it isn't that we're seeing, okay, well, here's how it's being handled well in the workplace that I can point to out of this research. I know of one place that I've worked where the trainers, the access and equity department, people who didn't necessarily do that full-time or that were trainers, included a scenario around gender nonconforming lesbians as leaders where they actually talked about this concept of like, is she aggressive or is she a leader and exposed it that way? Um, so it it begs the question who's gonna make the change? Like, where does the change come from? And it's anyone that's listening to this, you're an ally, you're a bystander, these things are important. And we know this from watching with the Black Lives Matter movement. She's gonna say the same thing, right? We know this from watching with other human rights movements. What can we learn from that? And let's be clear like there are people of color with this intersecting um, you know, identity where you're talking about you're a person of color and you're queer and you're in the workplace and you're visible. So this stretches across this concept of of you know intersectional identities. And so it it's relevant. Look to other movements and say, allyship might not be enough. It is not enough for me to be an ally in in situations where racism is happening. I need to be anti-racist, and what that means to me is that I'm interrogating my own racist bent, my own the learning that I've done, how it's integrated into who I am, how it's in the systems that I function in and that I'm part of, and what I'm propping up, and all of that. And so it's it means looking at the patriarchy, it means looking at colonialism, it means looking at white supremacy and saying, How am I part of that as someone who's white, and how am I propping that up? And what it is, what am I doing to um dismantle that with other kinds of issues around again that intersecting, interlocking systems of oppression? What are those other ones and how are we dismantling those? And so people were clear that they weren't thinking that change was going to happen as a result of a complaint. They were moving to doing education themselves or trying to bring in others that align. They looked to policy some of the time, but most people didn't. Most people said that that they didn't expect that to be where the change happened. So that they're leaders, so it comes to leaders further up the chain. It comes to us as individuals and leaders to mentor people that look like us, and that put that challenge to everyone that said that they didn't, they'd never been mentored. It's like, okay, well, it's on us to mentor. We need to be the change, and and in part because there is this idea that you know there's disgust or it's too complex, or you know, this kind of homophobia and gender-based um discrimination and harassment continues to happen. So, how does that get disrupted?

SPEAKER_00 37:49

But Michelle, I do think it's it's um, I agree with what you've just said, very much so. Um, and but I think it's also it can be incredibly powerful for anyone to hear that like when you talk about allyship and and I think it's an interesting time. There's so much that's gone on in the last five, six, seven years. Um, and and right now, I mean, please God, right now, in terms of um the murder trial, the murder of George Floyd, but also everything that came around that, that there's it feels like there's actually been a shift around the issue of black racism. Not not not black racism, it's racism itself. I don't think that's changed. I think the awareness of the what of what allyship is, which isn't simply being not racist yourself, it's calling out people wherever you find them. Don't get to just say, well, yeah, it's a terrible thing, that racism. Um, and I think the same thing is true about the cut the work that you're talking about with gender not performing women. When you talk about the interviewees having done that, having had to um uh a lot of the time ra doing that education themselves, but there's first of all, that's an onerous task on someone to have to do that in their own workplace. But also it smacks, it's easy for someone to look at that and think, well, I mean, she's terrifying that's why she's just complaining. What wouldn't have someone else, um, you know, a a great white man higher up in the company who said, This is how people can be treated, and this is how people can't be treated, or or and in a particular situation where harm's been done, that they say, I'm sorry this harm has come to you, like you talked about in one situation in the interviews that you discussed. So I while I think it's true that it, you know, it's important for um the people that you've talked to and the kind of community you're building to make sure that they mentor and they help to change things, it's not too much to ask that there be allies who will also do that speaking for the person who's been harmed, instead of the person who's been harmed having to kind of make the whole, you know, uh do all take on all the roles of um, you know, of you know, tiptoeing forward and you know, talking about policy change and like all the wearing all the hats. Yeah. When in fact, a lot of people who've been, you know, harmed in the workplace just can live with, not live with, but are the are just harmed, and people kind of swarm in to talk about how to make that better. Um, it's a lonely road, it seems, for a lot of of butch lesbians who are and I come back to the idea of bringing great work to the companies that they're in, but not as great as it could be, because time-wise, mental capacity-wise, there's a lot of other crap that has to be, you know, uh dealt with.

SPEAKER_01 40:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:38

I wanted to come back around to that that last piece about the um when you you said earlier about, you know, talking about uh sort of the future. Um want to get back to that. Um but yeah, I will say one more thing. I love what you said about the something that I think we that can be taken away from this research. I don't mean the main um thrust of it and where you'll be taking it in terms of what your thesis uh portfolio describes, but something that even that I find I find very interesting and I think it's important really in terms of um community building, it's when you you talked about the interview processes, like talking for an hour, hour and a half, whatever, um, with another gender non-conforming woman who'd been through some of the same stuff, how transformative that was for the interviewees and sometimes for you. Um, they literally, I I heard it, I heard it with my own ears as I'm sitting there transcribing people latching on to this notion that, oh, that is as bad as I thought it was. Like there's there's just a lot of stuff that has been taken on without any um repercussions in the workplace uh against butch lesbians. And um and I just it would just it it seems so simple. It's kind of like going back to the idea about um you know single person restrooms and um non-gendered restrooms. Okay, that's such an easy fix. It seems an easy fix to me to just, or at least it should be an easy fix, but hopefully it can be worked towards that that isn't it's not the gender non-conforming lesbian's job to work as hard as they can, uh you know, take it, take it on the shoulder or take it on the other cheek or whatever when harm comes to them, and then you know, illustrate and educate on why that harm was wrong. You know, it's a lot of jobs.

SPEAKER_02 42:38

It is, and and because some of the harassment discrimination is coming from the queer community, some of it is coming from religious-based homophobia and harassment based on gender identity, um, cultural harassment. Um, you know, we the the one of the artists that I talked to, who's an indigenous artist, talks about um some of the worst places to experience the combination of racism and homophobia and gender identity, uh harassment, discrimination, as is at queer festivals that are highlighting their art. That's a problem. And and then people that we interviewed who are also queer and people of color and talking about um figuring that out. That one piece of your identity, if your parents aren't queer or you're not part of the queer community, you're not learning growing up how to navigate that, and you're on very much on your own in terms of figuring that out. Um the allyship not coming from queer community is is particularly difficult when when we talk about it. The one person that I know that that was that added a case scenario about butch lesbians as leaders, so looking at how people were reacting and responding to them as being aggressive as opposed to a strong leader is someone who loved Butch dykes. You know, in that case. It was someone who loved me and who had seen what had happened to me in the workplace and included it as a scenario. I don't know anyone else that's done that. I don't know of examples of that happening. It may happen. I've just talked to 25 people that can I can tell you they've either done the training themselves or they've done the consciousness raising or they've done the sweeping up after whatever the issue was in the workplace. Um there's so much room for allies and friends and family and um co-workers and HR and bosses and other queers to recognize that uh being immediately visible as a queer makes you a particular kind of target everywhere. In school on the street, you know, we haven't even talked about people, you know, having people yell out of a car at you, uh, you know, because you're so visible. And the the gender identity cues to the sexual orientation tips that off, and the enforcement and the policing happens based on gender identity, but with this homophobia as a as a vein running through it. Um, so yeah, there's all kinds of room for the community to step up, and um and and there is nothing but benefit for everyone to challenge the concept of binaries.

SPEAKER_00 45:20

Yeah, it's true. And I think um a couple thoughts. One is uh that and I haven't thought of this before. We've talked a bit about you know, gay men uh who are in possessions of power. In the case of several people that you interviewed, talked about that that's you know, um, the person who became problematic for them or held them back, or um worse. Um it hadn't really occurred to me until just having this conversation now that, and this is not to let them off the hook for being, you know, not good managers, but they were they are also operating from within a system that I'm sure they would probably rather not work from, which is this whole sort of the whole ginormous hierarchy in in um the corporate world and how uh it it figures into everything. And it was designed, I mean, like so many other things, it was designed so long ago, maybe it's completely irrelevant. I mean, maybe it can literally be dismantled altogether or um can definitely be re-examined. But so I'm again by not letting them off the hook, but by realizing that they may feel more threat uh than um than an average male who is in a similar position because they have to you know manage several worlds at the same time. Um and I'm I'm saying that partly as a way in, like you and I have talked about as well, the way in to various people just so that their hackles, you know, bristles don't go up and they stop hearing is a way to kind of um you know, as a way to kind of bring them in to talk about why we can all benefit from this as opposed to like you've been doing it wrong and now you're gonna be punished for it.

SPEAKER_02 47:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:04

There there is a beautiful little dog over your shoulder.

SPEAKER_02 47:08

She wants to go outside very, very badly. So sweet. She sees the sun on the balcony in her beds out there, so she's like, Let me outright. She thinks I know. She's if she stares at me hard enough, I will do her bidding. And you she's probably right. It's very cute. I can see it in the in the little producing such fantastic transcripts with like a beautiful description of what was happening in our voices and in the conversation at the time, as well as some of your fantastic insights, which which are like little Easter eggs for me while I was coding, which I really appreciated too, because some of it just was brutal to code. It's brutal that it happened, it was brutal to code. Like it was just hard to hard to um to keep dragging things into the homophobia and the misogyny and the gender discrimination files of like, oh no, more of this in this in this interview, in this person's experience. Yeah. Um, so I appreciate you being along this ride on for on this ride with me, and I appreciate your insights and I appreciate your allyship. And um, and this conversation has been fantastic, and it will be a great addition to a doctoral portfolio, which I love. Like it's like, and this is the thing too, right? I mean, I'm living it while I'm researching it, while I'm talking about it, while we're reflecting on it, while we're coming up with the what happened, the why, the what, the navigation, and then the so what. But um it's also been really powerful, like several times while you were talking. It's powerful for me to have you reflect it back to me as well, right? That that you were touched by some of the things that I was as well. And that um, and I feel it powerfully in in sharing that with you. And hopefully, I'm hoping that our listeners feel that too, right? That there's a there's a connection to the humanity and to the um, you know, the the the beauty of this individual who will will go through the world in such a self-reflective way, carefully uh navigate how other people are relating to them so as not so as to create a safer space that they're moving through. Um it's it's a pretty beautiful thing to have also talked about and witnessed with these individuals. Um, and I'm I'm I'm really honored that I shared it with you and that you're reflecting it back to me. So thank you for being part of that and for being part of the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 49:38

You're you're more than welcome. And yeah, I do, as you know, I've been really fascinated with this work. And uh and the reason I love um transcribing is for the kinds of things you talked about, and it is something I pride myself on, is the there's so much, and I think that the women or people who lived as women first are really more tuned into we called it, you talked about reading the room earlier, but everything that's going on, even if you're only in your audio, there's a lot that is nuanced that you can pick up on and understand, and it helps in the transcript, especially for someone who'd never heard the tape, to fully understand, you know, what what was going on in that moment.

SPEAKER_02 50:17

Yeah. Well, it's powerful. Uh thank you for being on the journey with me. I'm glad to be. Thank you. Thanks, Mary. Thank you for listening to the GNC, also known as the NB Research Project. You can learn more about the research and the project at nbresearchproject.com and get involved in the dialogue about the work there.