Elevating Trans Voices and True Allyship

Can corporate culture and media representation truly transform the lives of transgender individuals? 

Join with Shelbe Chang, Michelle Herman, and Celia Daniels in this clip episode as we uncover the profound impact of inclusivity in these spheres and the significant obstacles that the transgender community faces, from homelessness to mental health struggles. 

We'll paint a vision of a world where trans individuals are celebrated as entrepreneurs, CEOs, and even astronauts. Highlighting the trailblazing efforts of the younger generation and the vital role of compassion over mere compliance, this discussion is both an eye-opener and a call to action for anyone passionate about diversity, equity, and inclusion.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Unfortunately, according to the Pew statistics, 48% of the Americans are still not comfortable using pronouns because they see what is on the top Bathroom. They only hear bathroom pronouns, Bathroom sports pronouns. They don't see under the surface how much we have struggled Homelessness, going through mental health issues, going through incarceration issues, going through mental health issues, going through incarceration issues, Every area of our life. We've been going through all these issues and they don't see what is the root cause of the reason why people are different. Companies are changing, but I would say that I see a lot of change in the media industry also, the way in which ads have come. It's always demeaning to the trans community. We've been portrayed as you know drag queens or having a fishnet stock or just kissing someone. It's always about that. I want to see trans entrepreneurs in the media industry. I want to see entrepreneurs, CEOs, being portrayed in the media industry. I want to see astronauts who are trans in the media industry and that's the way we want to change. Things 's happening. But I'm I'm glad that the younger generation is able to change that for the gen x and homers and I'm so hopeful that that's going. The gender expansive community is much more on fire than my generation. My daughter is more, much more open to being an advocate for me than me. You know she talks about this. She's 22 years old. I came out when she was 12. But I see that kind of change and to me that is very encouraging, that the future generation, they're all thinking and they are all changing the way in which companies need to. I see a lot of change in the smaller companies startups and smaller companies than the traditional companies. Ibm has done a great job, but when you look at companies which are culturally heteronormative, they have a lot more to do and it's not about compliance in the companies anymore. It's about compassion over compliance. It's not about compliance because compliance is important and they need to look at gender non-binary. In 2023 in your Equal Employment Opportunity Act, you need to add all that information. But it's also important not just to create a business value while you're adding a trans person. Look at the human value, and that's what I try to advocate for and that's what I see companies doing is hey, if we hire, we are much better than our peers, we are innovative, we are productive. So they create a business case. Then I always tell them keep the business case to the CEO, get the funding, get the approval. When you execute it, you want to make sure the employees are transparent. You want to tell the entire employees that we are doing this intentionally to create a change in our workforce, to have a psychological safe environment. That's the kind of workforce we are looking at, not just boxes. You know, black, asian, american that needs to go away. I hope there will be one day when you don't have to check any of the race and ethnicity boxes. It's like human being.

Speaker 2: 3:15

You know it's like human being human people, right people, people, yeah, yeah. So, um, I also, uh, realized that you, you noticed that you recently got into linkedin top 10 lgbtqi plus voices. How, how did you like? How did they pick those people? Like, what did you have to do?

Speaker 1: 3:37

yeah, I, I keep on advocating for the corporate change and that's been one of the things that I've been doing and they've been following me. Actually, I didn't know that, but I think what broke the glass ceiling was the 2.4 million hits in two days and my story was featured as the LinkedIn top stories for that day. And then, I didn't know, my friends called me and said Celia, you've been featured as the LinkedIn story for today. And then, I didn't know, my friends called me and said Celia, you've been featured as the LinkedIn story for today. And I looked at my thing and then came the Ukraine war, and then came other things and I was like seriously are they really doing this?

Speaker 1: 4:14

I was happy for that day, but I knew it will end.

Speaker 1: 4:18

Because, sometimes you get caught up in all this and I wanted to leverage and I said you know, this is great. People are learning. It's not Celia's voice, it's Michelle's voice, it's Shelby's voice, it's the voice of people like us, and so LinkedIn called me and said we want to add you as one of the top 10 voices for LGBTQ in 2022. It's a good pat on the back. I think we are all doing a great job, and so the recognition was a good pat on the back to me and I will still continue to do not because they are giving me an LGBTQ voice, but I think we do. We are all amazing LGBTQ voices in this country and across the world.

Speaker 2: 4:59

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 5:01

Yeah, I think that is important. It is just a pat on the back but it does recognize you and for your voice, for the work that you've been doing and you've been doing so many things for so many years and I've kind of seen you from the outside looking in and I transitioned just over. Well, it's about three years ago, almost three years ago now, and so I'm still the newbie here. But I think it is important for us to recognize people like yourself that has put in the effort and put in the work in seeing this change, and some of us that are new, that are coming in or maybe even not in a position to be able to transition yet. We can still base and learn from you and, based on your experiences, we can kind of help pattern our experiences around that.

Speaker 3: 5:49

One of the questions I had was how would? Because I think a trans person will make a great dei advocate. What would be some ways? I actually have a friend that's she's a very good cis ally but she wants to enter the dei space because she really wants to advocate for the trans community specifically, but of course, everybody as well. What are some ways? Someone without a college degree or degree with something else? What are some ways people can get into this space?

Speaker 1: 6:16

I think the first important thing is to connect with the community, to understand the community, to listen to the community. Learning to unlearn certain things, for example pronouns, was hard for me when I had to use they. I was raised with an Anglican English grammar, from England, from in India, so to me using they was really hard and then I had to unlearn that. This has been used since 13th century in Shakespearean language. It's always been there in pickpick papers. It's been there in. A lot of authors have used they as to describe a person they didn't want to describe a gender. So it's been there.

Speaker 1: 6:56

And I think in getting involved in the community, understanding the community is so important. So I can give you one quick example. That is allies. The word allies means acknowledge your privilege that you're a cis person who is trying to help trans community. Listen to the voice of the trans folks in our community. Learn to unlearn things, which is very important. Instigate tough conversations and be in situations where you have to make tough decisions.

Speaker 1: 7:26

And E is to educate yourself and to educate others. First you need to educate yourself. You can't just educate others and start educating yourself after that. The last one is support by being involved in the community.

Speaker 1: 7:38

So this is something that I would advise to your friend when you look at being an ally, is understanding the whole package of being an ally. It's not just and you don't have to have a college degree. When you look at being an ally is understanding the whole package of being an ally. It's not just and you don't have to have a college degree. You just need to have a heart. Your academic qualification probably gives you a platform, but I've seen that I am in platforms where there are judges in the call. There are, I would say, know, someone who has written councilmen, councilwomen, people who are very, very important, making changes in the call and I I'm part of this conversations because they want to hear my point of view as as a person of color and an immigrant. So there are a lot of times I feel that it's good to have someone advocating for us, but the most important thing is to not take away our space. You