Series Eleven, Episode Three: Trans inclusion and Belonging: From the Bathroom to the Boardroom

Julia: Hello. My name is Julia Streets and welcome to DiverCity Podcast. Talking about diversity and inclusion in financial services. Before we get started today, I just want to take a moment to thank our friends at CityAM, for their continued support of DiverCity Podcast, publishing and promoting both our episodes and our supporting blog series, so their readers can stay on top of the very latest diversity and inclusion debate. You may also want to check out CityAM’s own podcast called The City View, for all the latest news and opinion from CityAM, because we at DiverCity Podcast are huge fans.

As you all know, on the podcast we seek to shine a light on positive progress, call out areas requiring further focus and offer lots of ideas to help drive change. Today, I’m delighted to be joined by Celia Daniels and Meaghan Crockett. Celia is an Asian-Indian, non-op trans woman of colour, who is an entrepreneur, musician, photographer, storyteller, activist, and a blogger. She writes and speaks passionately about her struggles and the challenges she faced in her family, work, and community, both in the US and in India.

As a management consultant with top Fortune 100 companies, she educates, empowers and advocates for transgender and gender non-binary individuals in the business world. It is no surprise that she received a 2019 Human Rights Campaign Equality Award for outstanding commitment and service to our community. She is currently the Chief Programmes Officer for TransCanWork, and is the VP of Stonewall Democrats of Ventura County, California. Celia, it’s wonderful you could join us on the show. Thanks for being with us.

Celia: Thank you so much. I’m so happy to be here. Thank you.

Julia: Joining Celia is Meaghan Crockett who works on the Domestic Violence Support Team and is the lead of the Transgender and Gender Identity Support Team at Bank of America. Prior to her current roles, she worked at the bank’s Security Command Centre and as an Incident Manager in their Information Security Department. As a native of Charlotte, North Carolina, she also serves as the bank’s Regional Relationship Manager for the local transgender organisation. Meaghan, welcome to the show. Great to have you with us.

Meaghan: Thank you, Julia. I’m thrilled to be here.

Julia: I can’t wait to get into this conversation. I’m going to go straight into the opening question, I ask all our guests, I am dying to know what you’re focused on right now. Celia, can I come to you first of all, what are you focused on now?

Celia: My focus is just simple work, bathroom to boardroom, true change in the company from bathroom to boardroom. That is my focus in an organisation and also making these changes and building true allyship and partnership with companies at all levels. And educating folks at different levels, because I believe that change happens from the hearts of the employees and not from the letterhead of a company.

Julia: Well, I imagine there’s a lot in that, we’re going to explore on the episode today. Meaghan, if I can ask you the same question. What are you focused on?

Meaghan: I am focused on making sure that transgender and gender diverse people in the workplace of Bank of America have the best experience that they’re able to. That is sometimes helping educate them about the bank’s health coverage, aiding them in their transition process by helping them come out to their team, if they would like. Providing their manager and their team education, introducing them to our community of other trans employees and otherwise being there for them in any other way, they may need along the way.

Julia: When it comes to corporate policy and thinking about what organisations can do to support the trans community, I think there’s going to be a lot of really great insights that you’re going to be sharing today. Thank you so much. Listen, I’m really keen to talk about the subject of trans inclusion. Celia, I wonder if I could come to you. First of all, I’m really keen to hear about the work, the aims and the objectives of TransCanWork and what does the organisation hope to achieve?

Celia: TransCanWork focuses on two main areas, one important thing is to provide a safe environment for the trans community and also reduce the conscious and unconscious bias that exists in the companies. The other important thing is to empower the job seekers that we have, and we have close to, I would say, 1,000 resume of job seekers who are TGI community. So, when I say TGI, it’s transgender, gender variant, and intersex community. So, we focus on that as TGI community. That’s what we do at TransCanWork, so that they can thrive in the workplace.

They feel like there’s a sense of belonging, not just inclusion, and it’s not just being called to the party, but also being the fragment of your company, being the framework, being involved in the culture of the company. That’s why it’s important for us to make sure that our TGI employees and job seekers feel the belonging in the company, that they are happy to work for a company that’s productive and also contribute to, I would say the financial growth of the company and the productivity of the company, the innovation in the company. To be there at every point to make sure that they are valued, they’re being respected in the job, and that’s what we do at TransCanWork.

Julia: Wonderful. Meaghan, from a Bank of America point of view, I mean, I’d love to hear about how you collaborate with TransCanWork. And also, you were talking there in your opening remarks about some of the policies and some of the ways you’re supporting employees as well. Love to get into that a little bit more, in terms of the way that you’re helping to do that.

Meaghan: In regards to how we collaborate with TransCanWork, we support them in a lot of their objectives. We partner with them on transgender-specific career fairs. We’ve helped with resume writing clinics. If they have clients that would like help prepping for interviews, we can help them with business etiquette questions and things along those lines. We’re also working to develop a pipeline of talent with TransCanWork, so that we can have a great pool of talent to hire from. Celia, I want to give you the opportunity right now to add anything additional to that too.

Celia: I think you’ve said it beautifully, Meaghan. Bank of America has been one of our key partners and we collaborate with Bank of America in various ways. This partnership has gone to a level of not just training, not just providing an access to trans employees to work in the organisation, but also to care for them. To also make sure that during the COVID time, they’re able to look at different ways in which they can help the trans entrepreneurs who have been affected by COVID financially.

There’s a lot of areas where we’re also looking at business plans. How can we help some of the trans entrepreneurs who are just trying to explore new business and some of the entrepreneurs who already have business and it’s been affected due to COVID? What are the different ways in which we could empower them? So, there’s another workshop that we’re working with Bank of America, and we’ve been having a lot of discussions, not just with the HR. This is, I’m talking about senior level in the company. These are folks all across North America, where they are really getting into the cause and they want to understand, they want to learn and also they want to help. I see a great eagerness within the organisation, not just for branding, but I think this is more for really giving the trans folks a sense of belonging in the company and helping them in various ways

What Meaghan said, it makes a lot of sense, in order for us to understand that this is not just an initiative in a particular geography within North America, but it’s across different areas across North America. If this model could be emulated by other companies and other financial companies, where they could take this prototype and make it work with other financial companies as well. In fact, we quote Bank of America in a lot of our conversations. It’s so interesting, but we really like the partnership and we like the people that we work with. So thank you so much for that, Meaghan.

Julia: Well, it’s important, isn’t it? That’s why we started the podcast. There is so much potential for just marketing, but this is about what’s real, and it’s not just also about doing the right thing. It feels from your conversation that this is about a real commitment to education. It’s fascinating to hear your opening remarks there, Celia, talking about, your number one priority is to educate, and then, to hear Meaghan talk about how actually, across the organisation people are keen to learn and really keen to understand and therefore, to put structures around, but it’s not just about the social side of individuals and them belonging, but it’s also about the contribution and the support as your customers as well. Meaghan, keen to hear your thoughts about any other benefits that have come back as part of your collaboration as well.

Meaghan: Absolutely. I mentioned earlier, the pipeline of talent that we’re working with them. We realised even before we started working with TransCanWork, that we’re doing all of these things to help our current employees. We’re helping their experience at work, we have these benefits for them. But what are we doing for people that are not at Bank of America? We’re essentially waiting for people to come to us. We have talent acquisition or campus recruiters going out to colleges, and they’re equipped with the knowledge about what we do for the LGBT+ community. But we felt like one of our challenges was, how are we bringing the more diverse pipeline or the more diverse people into Bank of America?

We know that there is this wealth of candidates and employees that we were not touching. When we started working with TransCanWork, they came to us and said that they had this great idea for a jobs board, where they had partnerships with employers, that they were posting jobs that they had available, and TransCanWork is working with their clients to help them. They’re giving them job training, they’re giving them job skills, and why don’t we partner with them so that we can, not only partner with TransCanWork, but we can have a beneficial two-way relationship, where we are getting these wonderful candidates that just happen to be in the transgender and gender diverse community, come to us as well. They have great job skills that have been developed, and hopefully they will rise up, be promoted and be fantastic employees.

Julia: I can’t even begin to imagine how that just will enrich culture. It will enrich leadership. It will only be a very positive contribution to an organisation in so, so many ways. It’s wonderful to hear actually, about how the two of you are collaborating both as organisations, but also I love the way you pass the ball to each other as well, in the conversation, which is fantastic. I do want to ask one question though, just about the state of mind and the state of play in America right now, if we may.

We’re keenly aware that trans people are facing great discrimination, which is also in some places being endorsed by legislation as well. I’m really keen to hear your thoughts about what organisations can do to support their employees in states like Arkansas and Texas, where there are anti-trans bills against trans people and employees, and also trans children as well. I’d really love to hear your thoughts about what you’re paying attention to with that and what you’d recommend to the listeners. Celia, let’s hear your thoughts first, if we may.

Celia: Thank you for bringing that point. This is really important because in my opinion, I think when you have looked at this administration and this year, and the amount of issues that the trans community has been facing in the past. It’s always about healthcare, it’s always about ignorance. It’s always about not willing to learn the whole spectrum of issues that people go through. This also dissects into various intersectionalities. Just being trans is not about who you are, you’re not a separate community, but you’re also part of the community. You can be black trans. You can be an Asian-American trans. You can be a trans who is in the military. You can be a child who is trans as well.

But the problems that we’re seeing here is when you pass these laws and legislature, without understanding the consequences or the medical issues that children go through, and this could be really triggering. I wanted to just quickly highlight some of the facts that I was going through. When I was a child, I went through a lot of abuse. I went through a lot of, I would say, gender dysphoria. I didn’t, at that point, understand what it was, and it was just killing me because I didn’t know that I wanted to be a girl. And at the same time, I was experiencing this gender dysphoria that was causing a lot of trauma within me. I couldn’t talk to my parents about it because we didn’t have the right kind of treatment at that time. I just learned to suck it up. And there are times when I’ve attempted suicide, because I didn’t know how to control my life. I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know what my future would be.

All I wanted to do is suppress my femininity and I just wanted to learn to survive. Some of the legislatures, when they are written without understanding the medical consequences of it, when gender doesn’t align with the anatomy of the human being, you need to really understand where these problems are and how we can rectify it. Look at science, look at medical community. Instead of that, people start writing these laws. It really doesn’t help. Now, getting back to the companies, it’s important for companies to protect their employees and the health of their employees. It’s important for the companies to take care of their employees and their children as well.

When there are employees in Bank of America, when they have children and living in different parts, or they have spouses who are trans, or they themselves are trans, what happens is they go through many issues, not only the workplace, but also in the community. That’s the time when the companies need to start looking at a safe environment, providing a safe space for their employees, and also making sure that though the states have lots of laws that might probably not even make sense, the companies need to provide a safe environment for their employees. That is so important. That’s so paramount in most of these companies.

If you take Walmart, for instance, Walmart, the base is in Arkansas, there are a lot of people in Arkansas. I’ve listened to the chief Diversity Officer in Arkansas, they’re talking about how they can protect their employees no matter what laws are coming out from the state and laws are coming out from some of these legislatures and anti-trans bill. It’s really important to take a step for your employees and provide that safe space, and also take care of the mental stress they’re going through, the medical stress they’re going through. Looking at gender-related transitional care, looking at all the other medical benefits that are important for the trans community in the office. I think this is very important for companies to focus on.

Julia: I’m hearing more and more people talk about, in the context of employer responsibility and in the context of culture, the point about psychological safety is coming up more and more in many conversations. It’s really fascinating to hear you talk about that organisations need to take this incredibly seriously, when perhaps legislature is not necessarily in the favour of some of their teams and their employees. Thank you so much for your thoughts on that. Meaghan, can I bring you in here? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this as well.

Meaghan: Yes, of course. Typically when something like this happens in a city or a state where we have a presence, we will send out a message to the employees and the impacted markets, telling them about the proposed legislation, what it might mean for them and what we’re doing to help. I suggest making counselling available, if you’re able to. We have free counselling services that all of our employees are able to take advantage of. Sometimes people don’t know about that though, so we want to remind them, “Hey, you’ve got this available to you. Please take advantage of it. It’s not going to have any negative impact on your employment if you do.”

We know that this could be a potential difficult or triggering time for our employees or their families. One of our taglines is, “Bring your whole self to work.” We want our employees to know that this includes the fact that you’re able to talk about how things outside of work are impacting you personally. Celia, I don’t know if it was you or Julia that mentioned that psychological safe space. That’s really important for us to be able to provide that for our employees.

For example, back in 2016, one of the big hot topics was the Bathroom Bill in North Carolina. We immediately sent out a message, not only to our employees, but publicly, that all of our employees are able to use the restroom of the gender that they identify with or express, when they are at work. Of course, we’re not able to enforce that outside, at restaurants or other places like that, but when you are within these four walls, you will be safe here. But then taking that a step further too, working with the Human Rights Campaigns and organisations like that, to further the Equality Act and to work to support trans justice programmes, to help underrepresented communities and different states across the country.

Julia: I’m really keen to hear then, well we’ve talked about this from a very US point of view as well. But of course, when we look at organisations such as Bank of America, and also the other organisations I mentioned about the Fortune 100 companies you’re working with, Celia, as well, is what advice you would give organisations with an international coverage, in terms of how they can be supporting the trans community in other regions as well, and also internationally as well? Celia, can I come to you first of all? I’d love to hear your thoughts and the advice you give organisations, and then we’ll bring in Meaghan after that.

Celia: Yes, absolutely. Thank you for that. The one important thing that I wanted to emphasise is, I was working in India before I came to this country. I was born and raised in India and I came to this country in 1997. I found that the issues are always the same, when it comes to the workplace. The issues are not because of geographies. The issues are because of people. People are the same everywhere. Sometimes when you really understand the demographics of how your company is situated, and when you’re looking at it from a global standpoint, there’s a lot of changes you can bring in. For instance, in India, there’s a culture called the hijra community. And hijra culture is very much known in India because it’s a 4,000/ 7,000 year old culture.

Now, when the corporate community is trying to do something good for the hijra community, they always think about blue collar jobs. They leave out some of the folks like myself, who don’t belong to the hijra community, because that’s a faith-based, it’s a religious community. Those are a certain cultural community that’s based on the history of how India’s evolved, especially in those days. But sometimes they need to come out of this culture and caste system. There are issues in other countries where you’re dealing with so many other intersectionalities, it’s not about colour, it’s not about race, but it’s again about caste. It’s about a socio-economical status.

I was dealing with a point where I came out in India and I was also visiting India. And I remember, I was in this beautiful five star hotel, after a business presentation, I was sitting in the lobby and someone came to me and said, they didn’t want to ask me the question, “Are you trans?” But the way they were approaching me looked like, they were not treating me like a trans person. I just told them straight on their face that I’m a trans person. And it hit them and they said, “Don’t tell me you’re trans, because you’re not trans.” I said, “What makes you say that?” They said that, “Trans people are usually not educated. Trans people are performers. They are in the streets.”

I was thinking to myself as to, how did they get this idea, because they are not educated in terms of what’s going on? Especially, that this is not something where socio-economical status is being highlighted here, but it’s something which is human. It’s very human. It’s very personal. I had to educate this person, telling them that, “I am a trans person.” I came out. I didn’t want to come out because I didn’t know how to come out. Now I am out and I’m wanting to educate companies.

I felt there was a lot of need. And I started talking to companies, companies like IBM, Accenture. I always talk to them and tell these companies that, “If you have offices across the world, where do you want to focus on when it comes to the TGI community? If you’re looking at the TGI community across India or could be in China, it could be in Japan, it could be in the Middle East, but how do you want to focus on these communities? Because your laws and your policies are very different. Can you protect your employees? If you have a person who’s trans in Middle East, in Dubai, can you protect this person?”

That’s where I think a lot of these companies start looking at their policies and thinking about, as a company, how can we protect our employees, not just in North Carolina, but in countries like Dubai, in countries like India? That’s really helped me to educate a lot of these organisations. I’ve been on calls with KPMG, Goldman Sachs, and got into a lot of financial companies as well. I’ve been talking to them about, educating them about people like me, because we are the, I would say, the invisible trans people in India. In fact, I’ve written a blog about the invisible trans people in India, because there are more than nine million invisible trans people in India like myself. While the policies in the government are all meant for the half a million hijra community in India. There’s such a disparity in India. I started educating that spectrum as well. It’s so important for companies to focus globally.

Julia: Well, we’ll definitely make sure that that blog also appears on our website as well. So, people can find that for sure. And yeah, thank you for your thoughts on that. This is interesting, it all starts with the protection of employees. And again, Meaghan, Bank of America, international brand, what advice would you give organisations when they’re thinking about their international or their global coverage?

Meaghan: Identify diversity and inclusion champions or officers in the countries where you have a presence. Give these people a place at the table where decisions are being made. Like Celia referenced, these places are going to have different laws, social norms, cultures and customs, especially when it comes to transgender topics. It’s going to be important that they know their specific country’s laws to a T, and that they can provide a safe place for their employees while they’re at work.

We know that the US model is not going to be cookie cutter. We work with our counterparts, for example, in APAC and EMEA and Latin America, to understand what the healthcare coverage looks like. It’s different than US. What the political climate is, presidential elections are going to affect how safe someone feels at work. We work with them to help make a mould for how what we do in the United States might be able to fit what they are doing in their country and what will specifically work for them.

We also recommend working with local nonprofits in that specific region, to fully understand the laws and regulations to ensure our global teammates are educated about best practises in the workplace. We also have a global training perspective to ensure that diversity and inclusion initiatives and training are delivered in all regions, but they’re tailored to the culture and laws of that region. We have the opportunity as a large company, to help make a cultural shift. That’s what we want to do. And it starts with in the workplace and helping make our employees feel safe and comfortable, so that they can then go home and share what they have learned and the information and education they’ve been armed with, out in their community. And then, hopefully change that community.

Julia: I think that’s incredibly powerful, isn’t it? That not only will you learn in the workplace in your region, in your country, in the world, the global community, that education that you brought on board because of the corporate engagement as your relationship with your employer, but then also that you were empowered to take that out into your personal lives, your personal networks, your personal community. I can’t help but think, that while you were talking, I’m also thinking about, when you are supporting trans entrepreneurs as well, is the knock-on effect that this just continues to have out into the wider world as well. I think that’s a wonderful moment just to pause for a second, while we turn to Cynthia for some research to support today’s discussion.

Cynthia: The 2020 Building a Trans-Inclusive Workplace article from website Raconteur states that, “Employers often know that they need to do more to support transgender people in work environments, but don’t know where to start.” The article outlines five major considerations, firstly, establish whether the organisation has true transgender equality. Does D&I promote transgender inclusion in the workplace? Recognise that healthcare is both physical and mental. Celebrate differences in gender identity and expression. And finally, that HR and trans colleagues must work together.

The US-based Human Rights Foundation, 2021 Corporate Equality Index has the following findings. 94% of Fortune 500 companies listed have gender identity protections in their non-discrimination policies. This is up from 3% in 2002. 99% of entire CEI businesses offer explicit gender identity non-discrimination protections, which is up from 5% in 2002. And the number of companies who offer transgender-inclusive health insurance coverage has increased 22 times since 2009. Small changes, but in the right direction.

Julia: Thank you, Cynthia, as always. And of course, remember, you can find all the research on our website, divercitypodcast.com. Don’t forget that’s divercity with a C, not with an S, divercitypodcast.com. And you can sign up for early notifications of future recordings. Please do follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and DiverCity Podcast is available on BrightTALK and all good podcast channels

Don’t forget, of course, that we are grateful to our friends at CityAM, who not only publish and promote all the episodes, but also our regular blogs. If you’re listening, we would love a rating because it all helps to promote the show.

Just before the break there, we were talking about the importance of the ecosystem. We were talking about the importance of the community. Celia, I’d love to hear more thoughts about the ecosystem and the community, it really matters.

Celia: I think it’s important and Meaghan brought up this point in a nice way. That a company is a part of the community. Your employees are a part of the community. And when making a change in the community, it also helps in bringing a change within the company. The most important thing that I wanted to focus on is, I always focus on the ecosystem around your employee. It’s not just the workplace, but it’s about the schooling. It’s about college, where you’re going to, your workplace, your medical healthcare benefits, the community, faith-based community where you are a part of, or any kind of clubs, social clubs that you’re a part of. 

Safety, housing, incarceration, ageing, there’s a whole lot of ecosystem around to teach your employees. So when they come to TransCanWork, looking for a job, sometimes they are sleeping in their cars because they’ve been kicked out of the house. They don’t have a house there, and a lot of times we listen to them. We listen to them and try to provide a listening ear and also a compassionate way in which we can help them out. There are even areas where we help them with dress closets. They don’t have a proper dress and attire to wear for an interview. So, we have a dress closet, where we provide that as well. It’s so important that it’s not just about giving jobs to trans community, but also to take care of a lot of needs that we do. It’s called the wraparound services for the trans community. That’s where we are also partnering with Bank of America in areas where they can volunteer. Where they are willing to volunteer, listen to some of the trans community, or if the person is attending an interview, how they can be coached for the interview, and certain interview etiquettes.

Also, there’s mentorship programmes we are working with. When there’s a legislature and someone is feeling, I would say more overwhelmed with some of the policies that are being mandated in the states. They can have this counselling services and also some mentorship programmes, allyship programmes, where they have people discussing these issues. I think it’s so important that the company, when you have an allyship programme, where you have a trans meeting that’s happening for the trans community or for the LGBTQ community, in each ERG, ERG is the Employee Resource Group within your company, it’s important to have allies also as part of these meetings.

That’s something that we’ve been recommending and also helping out in providing that kind of an environment where the allies can also be a part of these meetings to understand all these issues. That really helps them to propagate, so that they don’t have to tell their stories over and over and over, and advocate for their issues. But I know folks like allies, I know like Meaghan and a lot of other people who are cisgender, can be your spokesperson in the company. I think that’s so important. That’s so important.

Julia: There’s so much food for thought there in terms of what organisations should be thinking about. One of the things that I’ve been thinking about, is I do have quite a deep seated concern that the conversation regarding diversity and inclusion against political backdrops, against corporate agendas, economic imperatives, could quite easily knowingly or unintentionally, fall down the corporate agenda. I’m really keen to hear your thoughts as we wrap up this incredible discussion, about why you believe this conversation about diversity and inclusion should remain high on those agendas? Meaghan, let me come to you first of all.

Meaghan: I feel that when employees feel included and are part of the conversation and when their identities, that are usually overlooked, are thought of as important and are interesting, they’re asked about what they think about, and shown that they have value, they are better employees. They want to work for companies and show their value, show that they have something that they can bring to the table, that is worth something, that just has been overlooked in the past. It makes us better as a company, as a community, and as a world.

Julia: Incredibly inspiring. And of course, everybody wants to make a contribution ultimately. Celia, I’m very keen to hear your last thoughts as well. I was really struck by your comments about allyship earlier.

Celia: The word allies is, Acknowledge your privilege. L listen to the voice of our community, the other L is to learn to unlearn. I is to Instigate tough conversations. And E, is to educate by understanding what we’re going through. And S is support by being involved. This is the thought that I wanted to leave our audience with. Be wonderful allies. We need you. This is a world where we are all in this together. We need to hold each other’s hands and support each other, especially as we are going through this tough times.

Julia: Thank you both so much for being on the show. I think it’s an incredibly inspiring and thought provoking way to end what’s been a very rich discussion. We’ve talked about everything from corporate structures. We’ve thought about corporate collaborations. We thought about the pipeline of talent. We’ve thought about the importance of protecting employees and making sure that everybody could not only turn up and be their best selves at work, but also the ecosystem, the community, the power, and of course, allyship as well. Meaghan, it’s been great to have you on the show. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Meaghan: Thank you. Glad to be here.

Julia: Celia, thank you for all your thoughts. Thanks for joining us.

Celia: Thank you so much, Julia. Appreciate it.

Julia: It’s been a pleasure. I hope that all the listeners to DiverCity Podcast have enjoyed the conversation as much as I have. I’ve been Julia Streets, tune in again. We have amazing guests in this series, but for now, thank you for listening.

Kieron: This episode of DiverCity Podcast was produced by me, Kieron Yates, on behalf of Julia Streets Productions. Thanks to Cynthia Akinsanya for her insights. You can find out more about the guests on this week’s show on our website, divercitypodcast.com. And that’s divercity with a C, not an S. Whilst you’re there, you can also sign up to our newsletter for all our latest updates.

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