Author Archives: Stan

Something Cool and New – Transgender Day of Visibility (TDOV) – Three Actions

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From Trans Pride 2020 in the UK

Did something new start this year, or maybe I just wasn’t aware of it?  March 31st as Trans Day of Visibility. So I had to do my research and found the first time March 31st was celebrated as the Trans Day of Visibility was way back in 2009!

Transgender people are becoming much more visible across the world, but there are also a great number of issues around discrimination that need to be addressed. So hopefully more and more people will pay attention to March 31st.

One annual commemoration I have known about and have blogged about a few times is the Transgender Day of Remembrance. The Annual Transgender Day of Remembrance, November 20, started in 1999, about a year after Rita Hester, a transgender woman and activist in Boston, was found murdered in her own apartment. It is very sad that transgender people are murdered or physically harmed at an extremely high rate compared to the general population, often fueled by hatred of this misunderstood segment of our community. I wrote my first blog about the Trans Day of Remembrance back in 2015.

It is indeed very important to focus on the totally unjustified and horrific killing of fellow human beings simply because of their gender identity or expression, and this needs to be addressed. But very importantly, we must go further. We need to move way beyond simply ending the violence, but also addressing systemic prejudice against trans people in employment, housing, education, sports and more.

And we also need to honor and recognize all the wonderful contributions transgender people have made to our world over time.

Transgender people have made great contributions to society, like Martine Rothblatt, inventor of Sirius Radio

In my 2015 Transgender Day of Remembrance blog, I shared several organizational policies and procedures that should be put in place to fully support transgender employees.

Now recently, transgender activist and workplace belonging expert Rhodes Perry (see my blog about his book) sent out an email to his many followers this year encouraging all of us to take at least one of 3 actions throughout the year in honor of TDOV:

1) Self-Educate. Participate in one of the Transgender Training Institute’s virtual webinars and support their sustainability campaign.

2) Change Systems. Commit to building gender inclusive systems, policies, and practices by taking the Higher gender inclusion audit.

3) Invest in Trans Leaders. Donate to the Trans Justice Funding Project, and support trans leaders moving & shaking the world.  (Note Total Engagement Consulting contributed $100 to this project on March 31st)

And I myself also love consulting and training in this area, so please never hesitate to get in touch if I can assist you in anyway in advancing transgender and gender nonbinary equity in your organization.

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Do watch my last year’s Transgender Day of Remembrance interview for City of Greensboro’s monthly “One Greensboro” diversity broadcast. The tape is now on Youtube –  the first section is about Native American Heritage Month and then my 9 minute interview around Transgender Awareness starts at the 20 min 50 second mark. 

Allyship is a two way street – 5 points

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Being an ally is a two-way street.

As a diversity, inclusion and equity consultant and trainer, one of the main topics that organizations are focusing on these days is allyship – the concept of supporting all diverse people in a positive way, helping build unity and respect.

One of my favorite consulting colleagues, Katherine Turner of Global Citizen, LLC wrote one of the best definitions of an ally: “An ally is a person with relative privilege and power who builds trusting relationships and acts in solidarity and with accountability to people and/or groups with marginalized identities without detracting from their power and voice.”

Lindsay-Rae McIntyre, Microsoft’s (link to their allyship program info) Chief Diversity Officer, shares this definition, “An ally is somebody who intentionally engages with empathy and care to support someone else in the way which they would want to be supported.”

And given the complexity and intersectionality of each person’s unique diversity, we each have combinations of relative power and marginalization. At various times we can be allies, and at other times, need allies.

In training around allyship, I use materials from a large number of excellent industry consultants, but recently I developed some of my own original content, called “Allyship is two way street.” Here are the 5 major points:

1) Allies must show authentic full respect of all people and not do it a “patronizing” way or appearing “better than” the other person or group. All people are of equal value and worth, deserving of full dignity and validation.

2) We need to study and seek to understand with an open mind and without getting defensive, the historical perspective of “white imperialism” and “systems of oppression” and how they can impact the people we are working with.

3) We can use allyship as a way of building genuine diverse relationships. Just don’t talk – listen deeply and build a friendship.

4) That as allies, the relationship is not “one way.” We can gain rich gifts and insights from those we ally with.

5) We need to understand how being a strong and sensitive ally benefits us. Being a strong ally to diverse communities makes the world a better place for others and for ourselves as well.

You can google and find all kinds of resources about being an ally. I will leave you with this impactful 2 minute 15 second video (thanks to the company Salesforce for creating and publishing it) that demonstrates the power of allyship.