Transgender Barriers in the Workplace, Viral LinkedIn Story, and Inclusivity

What if your qualifications and experience were constantly overshadowed by prejudice and bias? 

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Chapters

• 0:00 Gender Discrimination in Executive Hiring
• 6:16 Inclusive Hiring Challenges and Progress
• 10:09 Pronoun Inclusivity in the Workplace

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

No, I was working with companies which are doing clinical trials for biopharmaceuticals. My experience comes in the healthcare and life sciences industry, so I was working in the industry for a while and my gender dysphoria was very high at the time. I couldn't be presenting myself as Daniel. I'll be wearing suit, presenting, I'll go back to my room or my hotel or my house and then put on a maxi dress and feel like my head is above the water. You know, breathing up, taking deep breath like oh my God, I'm so comfortable now and it was really hard and I was doing that for a very long time. And that's when I quit my final one of the last consulting companies. It was a top five consulting firm in America. I quit my final one of the last consulting companies. It was a top five consulting firm in America. I quit that company. I was three levels below the CEO, reporting to my executive director, who was the senior vice president at the time, and I could not continue anymore and I felt like I had to leave and I quit that company and I started pulling my resume together as Celia put she and they pronouns and started applying in all the companies almost like 30, 40 companies across LA. Every company that had a pink flag, a rainbow flag, that would hire me. I put my cover letter, I was excited, I started writing all these amazing resume and I started applying for jobs and I went for trans can work job fairs. And what was surprising to me is companies are willing to hire trans people at a lower level, but they were not willing to hire trans folks at a senior level. I was a senior executive in a company and I'm a brown person and women are struggling here. How would they hire a trans person like me? And so I faced discrimination. I was without a job for one year. I was struggling for a job and that's when it occurred to me that wow, this is really happening and I didn't compromise on it. I had almost like 800 people reporting to me across the globe. My P&L was 250 million and I had so much of equity built in my resume value that I had as a brown successful businessman, daniel. But when I came out as Celia, the kind of jobs I was given was project coordinator, administrator and less than $80,000. I was earning around $250,000 to $300,000. And here my salary just went back into like $80,000, with 25 years of experience in the industry just because I came out.

Speaker 3: 2:45

Right, we did an episode on that about the ratio and status, right, Michelle?

Speaker 2: 2:52

Yes, the pay gap right. Yeah, it's incredible.

Speaker 3: 2:55

So that's why we kind of do this show, michelle, because you know we encourage, we know that this problem is there, but we want to solve it, we want to be moving on. So that's why we do this show to encourage people to own their own business, be entrepreneurs.

Speaker 1: 3:13

Right. That motivated me Go for it, sorry.

Speaker 2: 3:17

I'm sorry. What were some of the things that those corporations told you in that time? That they didn't recognize your experience because you now are presenting as a woman.

Speaker 1: 3:26

I'll give you one experience. In a trans job fair there was a senior I won't mention the company of the fair I had this interview but the senior vice president of this financial company, she looked at my resume and she looked at me and said, Celia, and I said there is a job in your company as a director. Can I join your company? And this is a trans job fair. And she said, Celia, I don't think, uh, you will fit into our company because they're all white old men and I don't want to put you in front of them as much as I really want to make a change in the company. I myself I'm struggling.

Speaker 1: 4:10

She was a senior vice president of hr and to me that told volumes and I said can you please get me one interview? You know I will be able to impress, I am a great credential and I can do it. She tried and she came back to me and she told me that Celia, I'm not going to lie to you and I cannot. She was a good ally. But those are the kind of stories I heard. And in another company, which is a mobile company, Verizon, when I applied for a job and I went for the interview, the when I applied for a job and I went for the interview the HR manager she told me you look like a woman, you don't have to tell your trans, Don't worry about it. And I said you're not listening to me. I'm gender non-binary. I don't want to identify as a woman and I don't want to. This is my identity and so I don't.

Speaker 1: 4:59

It's not a compliment saying that I look like a woman. You know that's a wrong thing to say. There were lots of things like this, especially one of the interviewer recruiter called me and said am I talking to Celia Daniels? And I said yes, this is she. And he started on and on and he said but you sound like a man. I told him did you check my resume before calling me? Did you check my LinkedIn before calling me? And he said no, I did not and that's why I'm calling you. And I said you should do your homework before calling a trans person. My pronouns are very clear my LinkedIn profile is there. Why didn't you look at it before calling me? And then he said he didn't even apologize, went on and on and I was so. I felt so much of gender dysphoria in that call because he mentioned again hey, but excuse me for a second, you, you sound like a man. I'm sorry I. Are you really senior Daniels? And that's the time it hit me that I said no, this conversation is over. And he was from a very reputed firm and for me to turn down that offer as a senior program manager for that company was really hard because I thought this is a great opportunity.

Speaker 1: 6:16

1.4 million views on LinkedIn. On LinkedIn, nobody sees. You know if you probably get like 20,000 views, 1.4 million views on LinkedIn, and in two days it went to 2.4 million and I was curious as to what people are telling about the situation. Are they really getting a message? It's not Celia's story, it's our story. There are people like us who are being marginalized, even in the interview process.

Speaker 3: 7:05

They are not educated, and to me that was app Transamerica. I do a lot of phone calls. In the beginning and I did say my name, but you know, shelby can't be a man too. So when I call and then in the beginning they always say Sir, thank you, sir, hi, sir, yeah. But then over time I kind of know how to adjust my voice higher, actually, or software, and now the problem has gone away, unless I I just woke up.

Speaker 3: 7:32

Then it's different story. But then, yeah, but then the other kind like it's like I think some people purposely call you that to to offend you because I went to a city hall for real estate business to find out the blueprints and you know permits and all that. And then you know city hall has different. When you walk in, there's a security, there's barriers you need to go through. So at that time, from that point when I go to the window, nobody call me sir or man or anything. But when I get to the window, this is this girl younger than me and I asked a lot of questions. I think she got annoyed. So she said no, sir, that's not it. So at that point I know, because I look like this, you know I'm not looking right, you know like you know, I'm looking about you right.

Speaker 3: 8:25

So so I think, so I think for you what your story just told me maybe they did it on purpose. Try to not hire you and you just I don't know, just my opinion so do you have any?

Speaker 1: 8:38

Yeah, you're right, they may be checking boxes too. A lot of times I feel like, hey, we want to hire a black person. We want, you know, george Floyd happened. Trans people are getting murdered every year and almost in 2021, there were 50 trans people, trans women, and almost more than 85% of the folks who are murdered were trans people of color. And so companies are just intentional, or sometimes very performative. They just want to hire people because they want to check these boxes, shall we?

Speaker 1: 9:12

And sometimes you know, what really bothers me is you can change a person who's ignorant. You cannot change a person who's arrogant.

Speaker 3: 9:21

Yeah, and then I like what you're saying, because during July we just had a Pride month. Every single, every company you saw is about Pride month, but when?

Speaker 2: 9:33

Celia says Pride month is is now.

Speaker 3: 9:37

Price is not just a month, it's 365 days yeah, absolutely, I think, go for it how do you see things are changing now?

Speaker 2: 9:49

um, all of us have had experiences like that and will continue to, because we still live in a very messed up world, but what positive things have you seen that have been more inclusive, more accepting or more even questioning or asking what our preferred name is or what our preferred pronouns are? What have you seen that's been positive?

Speaker 1: 10:09

Yeah, now looking at the statistics in California, 27% of the youth in California according to the Williams Institute in 2019 that came out identified as gender non-binary. The numbers are going up every day and even if you look at in 2030, the workforce is going to be 75% of the workforce is going to be millennials and Gen Zs. We are looking at a revolution where people are coming out of not just a process issue, a technology issue, but also a people issue. They never had people issues so far.

Speaker 1: 10:43

Covid disrupted the whole industry. It disrupted the whole world, where people have started telling the companies that this is how I'm going to work. You want to figure it out? So companies are now thinking about what they can do proactively. They are trying to hire trans folks. I'm working with a company today to implement pronouns. It's a $26 billion pharmaceutical in California and I'm trying to bring in the pronouns and I see that everyone is willing to use pronouns but 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.