TerriMcDowell_transcript_Hey_Cis_Podcast_36.mp3
Isaac (He/They): [00:00:04] Hey, Cis! from coast to coast, we're bridging the gap between the cisgender and transgender community, creating meaningful dialog and space to learn and grow.
Cyn (She/Her): [00:00:12] Join us as we connect with our community, break down tough conversations and get comfortable being better humans. Happy 2023 and welcome to Hey, Cis!. Thank you so much for joining us for another incredible year. And we would have never thought back in October of 2020 when we first kicked it off, that this journey would bring us to where we are today. Halfway through season three.
Isaac (He/They): [00:00:41] It is pretty incredible and kicking off the New year. Everyone wants to talk about a New Year's resolution and it's always a hot topic. However, here at Simply Good Form, we're big fans of the phrase evolution instead, because growing is always a journey and not a one and done situation. So this month we want to take a quick second to highlight some up and coming and interesting LGBTQ+ news so if you have or haven't heard. Stranger Things star Noah Schnapp says he's quote unquote more similar to his on screen character than he thought. CNN Entertainment reports that Noah shared a TikTok video on January five in which he identifies himself as gay. The text on screen in the video reads, 'When I finally told my friends and family I was gay after being scared in the closet for 18 years, they all said, "We know."'
Cyn (She/Her): [00:01:31] I love that. I love that so much because it really does give representation, doesn't it, to those that are living maybe in a rural area that don't have a lot of representation. And I know I've watched all of Stranger Things and I loved it, but the only reason I had gotten into it was because of my kids. So I know it's huge with younger generations, so more visibility is representation is awesome.
Isaac (He/They): [00:01:53] Well, yeah, And as you said, that's the biggest thing, especially for individuals in rural or smaller communities where they don't have anyone around them that identifies as too as LGBTQ+. So it's nice to see folks on the big screen who also identify and that we can represent ourselves and relate to.
Cyn (She/Her): [00:02:09] And in other news, just looking at what's been going on around the world, I think just before just before the Christmas break there, Scotland had introduced some new legislation that could help, I guess, simplify the gender marker and name changes, making it more accessible. And it looked like the the headline I saw was that trans activists are blasting the Tory government. So in England, because they're looking at maybe doing some reform, which might mean that they're not going to recognize and help to support in England and Wales the great moves that Scotland is looking at, trying to make accessibility of gender affirming social transition, like changing your name and your gender marker more accessible. So it's something that is worth kind of watching that space and seeing what's happening, especially as we look to help simplify name changes and gender markers. Here with the new program we're going to be developing with the Mental Health Foundation of Nova Scotia in 2023, just to help help people make it a little bit simpler to get the paperwork that you need and and then to actually get someone to help sign it at not an exorbitant cost.
Isaac (He/They): [00:03:18] Yeah. And so many folks don't realize how strenuous that process was. You know, it's been, oh, goodness, almost a decade now since I last, since I changed my name. And the process has changed, some for the good, some for the worse. So learning to navigate that system is never the easiest, especially in in these types of areas. So now today, Cyndi and I are joined by a very special guest, Terri McDowell. Terri (She/Her) is an active advocate for LGBTQ+ rights in North America and around the globe. She has spoken in a variety of forms on her business rationale and societal importance of DEI initiatives in the workplace. Terri is a strong believer that visibility matters. As a trans woman herself and a highly regarded professional in the financial community. Terri believes in the importance of recognizing that transgender individuals exist across the globe, across careers and across society. Welcome to Hey, Cis! Terri.
Cyn (She/Her): [00:04:18] Hello!
Terri (She/Her): [00:04:20] Hello, Cyndi.
Isaac (He/They): [00:04:21] It's nice to meet you virtually there, Terri. It's a great pleasure to to have you here. So let's kick things first off, with a kind of Hey, Cis! classic icebreaker. Where are you from? Where do you call home? And perhaps can you share this as a loaded question to be starting off with, but perhaps can you share a little bit about your coming out story?
Terri (She/Her): [00:04:43] Sure. Thanks for having me. Happy to dive into that personal history. So my name is Terri McDowell. Pronouns and she and her. I am actually born and raised in Saskatchewan, so I'm Canadian by birth and born and raised out west. I have lived in a number of places over the course of a very long, professional career. I am a partner with a firm here called Ernst and Young, which is a financial advisory firm. Principally, I'm a tax partner. I principally work in the area of mergers and acquisitions, international finance, that, that type of thing. I've been with the firm for a very long time, so well over 35 years now. It kind of pains me to say that, but as I say, born and raised in Saskatchewan, graduate of the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, I currently reside and call Toronto home. This is actually the third time that I've lived in Toronto. I lived here in the nineties. I went abroad and came back in the 2000s, went abroad again and came back to Toronto in 2019. I have also had the opportunity to work in New York City for a total of 15 years. I was there twice. I have lived and worked out of Miami and I've lived and worked around western Canada earlier in my career, starting in Saskatchewan and lived in Calgary for a period of time and then migrated to East. And as I say, I now call Toronto home. I am also a transgender woman and I did go through my own personal gender transition on the job here, here at EY. I have been with EY ever since I graduated from the University of Saskatchewan back in the 1980s. So that's the quick bio. And on who I am and how I ended up in Toronto and a little bit of I think today we're going to talk a little bit about what it's like to to transition in your job and on the job and with the same organization. So I'm happy to share my own experience because it's quite a good one to be honest. So.
Cyn (She/Her): [00:07:02] So thank you so much for for sharing a little bit about your background. And I love like how vast it is geographically. And I'd love to first find out a little bit about well, I met Terri at the CLC Awards in November and it was just such a pleasure to talk to you there and and see you up on stage and and be recognized as the CGLCC LGBTQ+ Business Leader of the Year. That must have felt pretty exciting for you.
Terri (She/Her): [00:07:41] Yeah, it definitely was, Cyndi. I mean, as you would have heard, because you were you were there in person. I would suggest there's a lot more active advocates in the public forum than perhaps myself. My personal advocacy approach has been more by living visibly and making it clear where the transgender community fits in the broader society, trying to be as visible as possible. I think visibility truly matters to our community, so that was a big part of it. My history with the CGLCC goes back a couple of years now. As I said, I moved back to Toronto in 2019 and that's when I really kind of got exposed to the organization, learned who they were, and the tremendous work that they actually do in connecting the community. And I had the opportunity to work with them a couple of times. One of the more recent ones being in 2021 when they sponsored a in conjunction with the UN, in conjunction with the World Economic Forum, they did a symposium and a panel on the UN's anti-discrimination standards and in particular engaged me to work on a panel for anti discrimination in the workplace. And I would suggest for from an advocacy viewpoint, that was perhaps a breakthrough moment for me in terms of just the importance to it. I've never downplayed the importance of advocacy, but I think that really resonated with me. What we can all kind of do on a personal individual front. And the quick anecdote that I would give there is the session we did of which I was part of the panel, was it was an in-camera session, so people were anonymous, if you will.
Terri (She/Her): [00:09:37] But we had 70 C-Suite leaders from around the world, and these were CEOs, or are truly top executives and the tech companies were well represented. The banks were well-represented, but there's only 70 there. And I know after the panel was done, I was speaking with one of my fellow panelists and I said I said, 'Yeah, I really enjoyed that. That was good. And there was only 70'. But her comment to me, which really resonated, is she said, 'Terri, to a degree, you're missing the point. There was 70 people in the room. But when you think about the constituency that they represent, they represented hundreds of thousands, in fact, millions of employees, and we had the right level of person to hear the message and take the message forward.' So that that really did kind of resonate with me. And as I say, that's pretty recent. Cyndi and Isaac, that that just kind of hit me in the last couple of years of the impact you can have when you're given the honor and the privilege of having a platform to speak to. Looks like these webcasts, you never know who's listening. You never know who's who it's going to resonate the most with and what good can come out of it.
Isaac (He/They): [00:10:45] So, yeah, absolutely. I think for me to one of the most underappreciated forms of advocacy is first and foremost living your true authentic self. And, you know, just because you're not using social media every single day and, you know, being in those spaces, that doesn't mean you aren't advocating. But second, second thing is that advocacy and inclusion. For me at least, it's a very top down when it comes to the workplace and that if the individuals who are at the C-suite don't get it, then those underneath them won't also follow suit. So to your point, exactly, you know, those 70 folks that were in the room? Yes, there was only 70. But, you know, there's real, real power to that and the individuals underneath them who might need that support.
Cyn (She/Her): [00:11:29] So it takes me back to the Vidal Sassoon. You know, they told to friends and they told to friends and so on and so on. And, you know, I think like every conversation is so important because it creates that space and that narrative to have someone take that forward and and continue the conversation and find the words to be having these important conversations. And so whether you're reaching 70, that exponentially goes out or you're reaching one person that could have an influence on, you know, one other person, you know, it's it's keeping that momentum going. And if we're not talking about it, we're not changing, you know, we're not breaking down barriers.
Isaac (He/They): [00:12:09] So So you described yourself I know you mentioned before, you don't use social media too much, but on LinkedIn, you did describe yourself as a 'numbers person'. So I was just really curious if there's any significant numbers when it comes to trans and non-binary inclusion in Canada that stand out to you the most, Or perhaps maybe on the flip side, are there any numbers or statistics or metrics that we don't have that you wish we did?
Terri (She/Her): [00:12:35] Yeah. So most of the most of the statistics that I and again, statistics vary, of course, Isaac, I mean it depends on the source, It depends on the bias of the sample. It depends upon the purpose of the census taker, if you will, and all the rest of it. So I'm very sensitive to that. So, you know, take the numbers for what they are. It would be the caveat I would put around anything that I say in this regard. I'd also say that I find the statistics on a Canada only basis to be kind of wanting. It's very difficult to find a lot of Canada only statistics on transgender community in particular where we're represented, what it looks like across the country, urban, rural splits, etc.. You know, kind of goes without saying. As a member of the constituency, we are everywhere. I mean, we always have been. We always will be. And, you know, unfortunately, when I think about statistics and when I think about numbers, they're kind of on the horrific side that come to mind. I mean, we've just seen this tremendous explosion in anti LGBTQ legislation across North America. I first started talking about this maybe just three years ago. And at that point, you know, you could say that at various levels of government there was maybe 100 bills that were progressing. We're just into the start of 2023 and that number is triple. It's now almost 300 anti anti LGBTQ pieces of legislation that are advancing through various levels of government, whether that's local government at the school board levels, whether that's state level in the US or whether it's it's in some cases even federal legislation that's starting to be talked about or advanced.
Terri (She/Her): [00:14:24] So that that number is truly scary, particularly when you look at the disproportionate number of those bills overall to legislative agendas. And then when you look at the number of those bills that are specifically targeted at the transgender community, it's it's truly horrifying. And we're again, statistics vary, of course, but the statistic I see published the most or suggested the most is the transgender communities, maybe 3% of the general population at most. And when you then look at the disproportionate cost, the disproportionate effort, the disproportionate legislative push that is going on right now, you know that there's more at stake here. It is human rights at its core. It's basic human rights. The the motivation to strip affirming health care away from the community, the inability for people to get proper educations as a result of segregation in the schools that are being enforced and that cascades into suicidal ideation. Let's let's be completely harsh with where it leads, particularly for vulnerable personalities that are just coming to grips with their own sense of self in their teens, pre teens or throughout their journey, whenever that is. So it is a scary time. It is an inflection point. Just last week, Oklahoma introduced anti trans legislation through the state Senate level, which is going to deny gender affirming care to anyone under the age of 26.
Terri (She/Her): [00:16:11] So we're not talking we're not talking minors, we're not talking children. We're now talking to adults. So individuals who can serve in the military, individuals who can vote, individuals who can do most things you would expect of adults. And now they're saying you cannot go to a doctor to be to discuss your gender. And I mean, that's a scary as it comes. It is being advanced at a state legislature. I only read that's Oklahoma. You could say, well, that's a long ways from here. It's not. It spills over very rapidly. We've already seen that. And it just takes one to kind of put it out there. And so that legislation needs to be stopped. It needs to be called out. And a lot of the legislation has been around. We need to protect kids. That's been the message that they wrapped it up into. Now the curtain is down. This has never been about kids. This is about hate. This is about discrimination. And this is a far right agenda to try to stamp out a trans existence. And that will never happen. We've always been here. We always will be be here. And that that's just not going to go away. It's it's historically proven. It's scientifically proven. So shocks me that in this day and age people can set aside science so easily.
Cyn (She/Her): [00:17:35] And it's scary, like when you think about that, not not in my backyard as well, because like you said, there is that idea of a trickling north over the border. And I think there was recently some rollback even in Ontario around a clinic that was providing gender affirming care. And I believe it's had to close its doors. But there was a lot of a lot of things happening around that. And what I what I what I see through like emails from sort of hard right organizations that are kind of disguising themselves as sharing information, but like really driving that fear. But I'd be curious, Terri, about yourself then, you know, transitioning. So you you graduated university, you went straight to EY, which I have to say at the very beginning at the CLC Awards, I was like, 'EY? What is EY?' I didn't know the acronym and I didn't know if I was one of the only ones. But of course I know Ernst Young and going to a business like that. Did you go to Toronto right away and begin there with EY? And where at what point were you in your career when you decided to to transition?
Terri (She/Her): [00:18:49] Yeah, so there's a lot wrapped up in that. And so because it is almost, as I say, it's over a 35 year career, including a period of open transition at work. So my my personal story and again, this is just my story, of course. I mean, everyone has their own individual footprint of of their life history. But I've always known I was transgender. I mean, much like your child said to you, I just inherently knew being of the age that I am and the age that I grew up in, I didn't have the language around it. I didn't really know what that meant. And I also grew up in a very rural area. I grew up in rural Saskatchewan on a farm, so I didn't have a lot of exposure to it. My exposure to the trans community probably became more formalized in my twenties, my mid twenties, I would suggest. So I graduated from the University of Saskatchewan and I went to work for EY. We were under a different name at that point. Ernst and Young is the name now and I went to work for them right out of university. So that was 1985 and again, really didn't know the trans community. I've been really fortunate in my life that I've always had a few people that understood me and got me and were there for me.
Terri (She/Her): [00:20:12] And that goes all the way back to my twenties for sure. So by my twenties I was able to kind of socially transition with deep personal relationships to a degree, with family to a degree with social relationships. But my professional environment was different, fairly conservative environment, financial community, the Bay Street crowd, call it what you will. At that point I was still in western Canada, smaller offices, and I can even put it in the context of grander gender parity, if you will. I it was a very male dominated culture at the time I started in Saskatchewan. I spent some time in Calgary. My first my first office that I was in, there was eight partners. All white men moved here, slightly larger office, maybe 20 partners, still all white men. I didn't know a female partner in the firm until I moved to Toronto in the 1990s, and at that point it was maybe 5% of the general population of the firm. But and I certainly didn't know anyone who was knowingly and visibly trans. So I had the opportunity, as I said earlier, to move a lot with the firm. And that actually helped me on a gender transition journey in the workplace as well, because each time that I would show up at a new office, I would be coming with the skill set that got me to the table, got me to the office, made me valuable to that office, but I was allowed to present a little differently.
Terri (She/Her): [00:21:49] I was allowed to explore a little more aggressively. And so I think by the time I was in my thirties and had become a close to partner, then made partner sort of thing, I was already perceived as pretty gender fluid. I think that was also a time when just gay rights overall in the workplace started to become more common, more people on again, mostly gay men in the profession that I worked with, the few lesbians that had come out again, very few trans people that I knew of. I knew of them in other forms at that point. So I started to realize, Hey, this is actually possible. As early as the early 1990s. The intent had been. Get a little bit financially established and transition and back in the day, the and it still happens today, although I think it's increasingly difficult today. Back then, the more common route was to go what we call going stealth. And so someone would abandon their past history as much as they could leave their job, oftentimes lose their families, lose that prior identity, if you will, and then transition socially, personally, sometimes medically, and emerge in a new persona. I did entertain that.
Terri (She/Her): [00:23:07] I knew people who'd done it and I thought about it, but I, it was probably career held me back as much as anything. I thought 'I'm pretty good at what I do. Do I? Am I prepared to sacrifice all of that and why should I have to?' Kind of thing. So that was that was a little bit of a ha ha moment, I think in the late nineties was just a reevaluation of self worth, to be honest and thinking I can do this differently now. I definitely respect why people do that, how they do it. I would also suggest I think that's next to impossible to do in today's day and age. If you think back to the eighties and nineties, we were in the pre-digital age. I think given where we are now, everyone has a digital footprint from the day that they're born. And so to truly go stealth, people are going to find your history if they truly want to know your history for whatever reason. So I'm not sure it's a bad thing. At the end of the day, nobody should have to do that in my mind. But that's a very long winded answer to a very specific question. But I'm happy to talk more about the on the workplace experience, if you like, Cyndi, but I think that context is important.
Cyn (She/Her): [00:24:17] So now it's so important and I think it must have felt like in the beginning, very isolating for you, not seeing for so many years within your career, not seeing any other trans people or even broader members of the LGBTQ+ community working in finance and numbers, as you say, on Bay Street.
Terri (She/Her): [00:24:41] Yeah. So so now I'm not alone anymore. There are there are other members of the community who are quite visible and have chosen to be quite visible. And that's that's really comforting. My own experience. As I say, I was probably perceived as gender fluid for a very long period of time leading up to just fully adopting my gender in the workplace. That was fairly recent. 20 2017 2018 is is when I changed pronouns. For example, officially at work, I'd already changed legal IDs, etc. But I grew up with a lot of these people professionally, both partners, colleagues, but also clients. And with due respect to other members of the community, I do think it's different for a transgender individual than others. We are extremely visible as we adopt, as we choose to embrace ourselves. And I think members of the gay community, members of the lesbian community, they can choose a little more in terms of how much of themselves they wish to disclose in any given environment. It's for those of us that openly adopt a transition, it's not quite so, so easy. You present differently, you dress differently, you are addressed differently, etc. So so that that was a big personal challenge, I would say. But professionally it felt like the right thing to do.
Cyn (She/Her): [00:26:10] So what were your biggest challenges then in transitioning in the workplace at that time? Like with regards to maybe policies or practices that were there, I'm thinking maybe with your transition, you probably really helped to shape policies that might now be in place at EY.
Terri (She/Her): [00:26:26] Yeah, it was a little bit chicken and egg, to be honest. Cyndi. I mean, our organization a lot like a lot of organizations have evolved so quickly on this front in the last 10 to 15 years that a lot of policies were already in place. Things like gender neutral bathrooms, for example, had been instituted. The ability to state your chosen pronouns, it was back quite a number of years. And so I am I have been told I don't know this empirically, that I'm the most senior person in the firm to have openly transitioned on the job. We have others, of course, but I'm a partner and a fairly senior partner, so definitely I've had opportunities to get more of an audience on certain things, but also to help shape what future policy should look like. But one of the things that we already had in place is our Pathways to Transition Medical Assistance program. So depending where you are in North America in particular, I am not. As well versed outside of North America on government programs necessarily. But in a lot of places in North America, gender affirming care is not supported, it's not insured, etc.. And so we do do that as an organization. Now, we have enhanced those benefits considerably in the last couple of years. And when I say we, I'm speaking e y, but I call it the broader community. A lot, a lot of similar firms have done the same thing. They. You know, if you go around the major financial institutions here in the country, you go to our direct competitors in the financial advisory firm. Virtually everyone has those programs now. And to think of that 15 years ago, probably even ten years ago, really was hardly on anyone's radar, let alone thinking that we want to be seen as leaders and that this is important to our people. So let's get on board. And I. Despite all of my negativity earlier about anti trance legislation, etc., there's a lot of good things happening in the broader community, including the corporate world. And those those strides are tremendous.
Cyn (She/Her): [00:28:42] Hey, Cis! is all about connecting communities and thanks to support from TD Bank Group, here is this episode's Connected Community Moment.
Isaac (He/They): [00:28:51] It's a new year and a new Menti Word Cloud. Hey, Cis! is all about shifting binary barriers to inclusion and building better humans. One conversation at a time. What is an evolution, not a resolution, that you're aiming to do more of or shift in 2023 regarding being a better human? Check out the link in the show notes to share your thoughts. Here's what Terri had to say.
Terri (She/Her): [00:29:12] You know, I was thinking about an earlier question that had been floated, which is what would you tell your 12 year old self? That was a question. And I thought I haven't thought about that in a long time. And it kind of goes into New Year's and all the rest. And I think this sounds incredibly pedantic, but I'll say it anyway. I think recognizing the importance of basic kindness and living, that value is just so critical. Kindness matters. And once once you open with kindness, a lot of things fall away very quickly. It's it's hard to confront. It's hard to be aggressive. It's hard to be antagonistic when you've got a receptive audience as your counterparty and someone who's an active listener, someone who's listening to you as opposed to what I've done for the last hour to speak to my own own experience kind of thing. So in a very broad sense, I would say, lead with kindness, is my my goal. And I can reason I put it in the context of your 12 year old question is, I don't think you always do that, particularly as you're growing up. We're all human kind of thing. And as I battle personal demons, so to speak, and all the rest of it, kindness wasn't always front and center, and it made life a lot easier. And so as a result of that, that's as close as I can come to giving you an answer to that very deep question. I guess.
Isaac (He/They): [00:30:42] This has been a Hey, Cis! and TD Bank Group Connected Communities moment because inclusion Matters.
Cyn (She/Her): [00:30:47] It's inspiring when you're saying, Terri, that there are so many different financial institutions and businesses that are implementing, but I don't know whether it's here on the East Coast or not, but we still like we find that there's still a lot of catch up. There's still organizations where they're still, well, you know, pronouns and having an issue around pronouns and the idea of, well, it shouldn't be mandatory and where is the fine line? How do you invite people to share their pronouns but not making it absolutely a must, a must do? And so I'd love to ask you a little bit about that. And I'd also, while I have the thought in my mind, because I have ADHD, and if I don't say it when I think it, it'll just disappear. Is the idea of for new hires that are coming into your business, how? Because like I find it so inspiring to know, like if you're getting into this industry and you're potentially thinking about maybe your home isn't supportive or or accepting of these are employers that can support your transition along the way, How do new hires find that information? Because they might not think to ask or they might like. Is there other is it readily available? Is that something that's part of the onboarding process and and the orientation for new hires?
Terri (She/Her): [00:32:05] Yeah, I hesitate to say that it's front and center in the in the hiring process. I think a little bit of it is due diligence on behalf of candidates as well. You don't have to look very hard to find, find the policies that our organization and most organizations embrace. So I certainly have a recommendation to any hire coming off campus, for example, whether whether they're in community or not. You do your homework, know who you're interviewing with. As much as the interviewer wants to know who you are, and that will inform to a degree because I'm also not naive. There's definitely businesses out there that all you have to do is look at their website and go, I am not going to fit here. You know, the ideals are pretty clear. I won't name any of them on this call, but I think in community they become known very quickly. So if you look on a website, for example, and you will find it now, there's a big difference between words and actions, definitely. And I'm going to personalize for a second. I think that in part Cyndi and Isaac is what prompted me to become more of an advocate, more visible in community. I think visibility matters. I go back to my own experience coming through the system and again in the context of broader gender parity.
Terri (She/Her): [00:33:33] It took me a long time to find women in the boardroom. Part of that is where I started. Part of that was the communities I grew up in. Part of that was the profession that I chose. It was all of the above. And so I knew once I started to see more gender parity being embraced in the workplace, I started to see more of a glimmer that there is a future here, that I saw it in horizontally. I saw other organizations where not just women, but in some cases trans individuals were being elevated, were on a good career path. And you start to realize the art of the possible. You start to realize this is possible. And so looking for looking, looking for pioneers, if you will, looking for people who have carved the course before. It was really important to me. And to the extent that that serves today, I part of the reason I choose to do things like this and make it known that, yes, I am a trans woman. Yes, I work on Bay Street. Yes, this is the career that I've had. And ideally in today's society, particularly with the younger generation, you know, you don't have to be so glacial about who you are and disclosing all of that. It's encouraged. It's in the workplace these days.
Terri (She/Her): [00:34:49] Employers want it as much as the individual needs it. So I do think there's a change there, and particularly to the younger generation, they've been huge inspiration for my journey in terms of just just pointing out like anyone who's kind of in community already would have, for lack of a better word, read me very easily. For the last 25 years, those who aren't looking don't know what they're looking for, maybe not kind of thing. But as a result of that, I would increasingly have younger people in particular embracing the the ideal of having a senior partner at the firm that would be fully authentic themselves, allowing them to be fully authentic. So I do think that's really important in terms of the onboarding, the on campus recruiting. I mean, you're not going to get to that level unless you've done your own level of diligence to know, to know who the organization is that you're talking to, including our own. And we'll just go on for another minute here because it leads to another topic that we we touched on earlier, which is this whole concept of corporate rainbow, rainbow washing. It's very real. I mean, it's out there. I did a LinkedIn post on this, for what it's worth, back in June, and I didn't specifically reference it as a rainbow washing post, but that that was the intent of it.
Terri (She/Her): [00:36:18] And in its own way, I think that speaks to progress. I mean, if you go back 35 years, in my case, corporations were not embracing the queer community at all. So the trans community, they were not embracing it. That started to shift in the nineties into the 2000 when we saw pride become more of a corporate recognized event, etc.. And then did it go too far? Did everybody think that they could plant the flag and claim inclusion? Absolutely. But what it's done now is it's held organizations accountable. And I think that by itself is huge progress. You're going to plant the flag in June. You better live the values the other 11 months of the year. And it's not a one week of the year opportunity to capitalize. It's a commitment that you make to the community. And if you're not making that community, the community has a right to call you out, just like I think the community has the responsibility as the responsibility to recognize those that are truly living the values. I think we have to have it both ways. We can't always be the defiant ones. We can't always be screaming injustice because there's a lot of good things happening out there too, and those need to be applauded.
Isaac (He/They): [00:37:35] So I love that I'm sitting here clapping on mute and everything like that, because I think is so many folks don't recognize that. Yes, you can celebrate pride that one month or one week, one day of the year. But it's exactly to your point, it is a 12 month, 365, seven days a week commitment, that you are going to provide individuals within your community the most inclusive, equitable and diverse environment that they can possibly live in so that they can thrive and everyone's going to make mistakes. And I think it's realistic to understand that, yes, people are going to make mistakes. But as you said, we need to hold each other accountable to those mistakes. And if they're severe, that we need to be able to have open dialog around that. So I, I appreciate that comment immensely.
Terri (She/Her): [00:38:29] Yeah, wonderful. I mean, I will again go step into personal experience for a moment here in my own kind of, for lack of a better word, coming out story at the firm. And when I when I made the wholehearted decision to be my full self each and every day as I came through the doors. That was a scary moment. Regardless of seniority, regardless of career, etc., the way it came about is, as I say, I've always been really fortunate that I've always had a couple of people close to me that knew, knew me, read me whatever you want, and just got it. And here in Toronto, one of my colleagues was who is fairly new to me. There was a lot of people in now work with that I hadn't known earlier in my career, and this individual invited me out. We were having coffee and and they said to me, they said, You're a transgender woman, but you don't really fully embrace that when you come into work, although most most people read you as either a transgender woman or gender fluid. And she said, why is that? And when I left that conversation, I thought, I can't answer that.
Terri (She/Her): [00:39:40] I don't have an answer for that at this point. And so that made me immediately realize, hey, there are steps I can take here. So I had the opportunity again. I recognized my point of privilege. I recognized where I was fairly senior in the organization. So I was able to immediately secure meetings with our top executives, including our chairperson and every one of them. Without any prompting, they didn't know what the meeting was necessarily about. When I got on their calendar, each and every one of them to a person said, 'How can we help?' And that was an amazing relief for me. It was really telling. And I mean, that's my story. I know that there's some that don't go that way or there's probably an unfortunate number that don't go that way. But now talking to others, I know that others have had that experience in their own organizations. So I like to be a glass half full kind of person. And the world has shifted so much over my. 35 plus year working career.
Cyn (She/Her): [00:40:51] So that statement, how can we help? How can we help? It just sets up the platform already to listen. We're here. We want to support. When you talk about for, for organizations out there that might be like, okay, well, pride is easy. It's easy. We know what to do. We can put a float in or we can raise the flag. And maybe it's just not knowing where to start. What what are some tips that you might you might recommend on how organizations can be inclusive or, well, embracing the community? The other 11 months of the year.
Terri (She/Her): [00:41:30] Yeah. I think there's. And this is not necessarily limited to the workplace. I think, Cyndi, there's there's some very basic things about lack of assumption is always a good place to start. If you meet a relatively I'll use the term effeminate male, I was one for perceived as one for many, many years kind of thing. You know, don't necessarily assume who that individual is. You've got to get to know them. Similarly, if you meet a more masculine cisgendered female kind of thing, don't don't make those assumptions. So the use of gender neutral pronouns is important. The reference to partners as opposed to what did you and your husband slash wife do this weekend, that type of thing. I think people are a lot more versed in that than they once were. But again, I go back to my time and that was the common question. What did you and your girlfriend what did you and your wife do in the moment and then your tap dancing around how you describe yourself to others and who your partner is and and things of that nature. And again, that's shared across the queer community. I'm well aware. So but again, I think wearing the pin doesn't hurt either, you know, just wearing the pin or putting it in your email address, the rainbow flag, it signals to people this is a safe space and that that's incredibly important to people.
Terri (She/Her): [00:43:02] And it's not that hard. You know, anyone can slap on a pin, anyone can put it in their can put it in their label now. The flipside of that is if you're going to identify as an ally or an advocate, or if you are an ally or an advocate, it goes back to don't advocate when we're in the room, we need you more when you're when we're not in the room. We need to know what's being said and you need to stand up for us. You need to stand up for us when we're not there to do it for ourselves. It's easy to be a hero in the moment kind of thing that, you know, heroes are the heroes that do it when no one's looking. Kind of thing. And just instilling that from the top down is is so critical and can't enforce it. People have to get it into their own DNA. That's the thing. But, boy, you can certainly set corporate culture in a heartbeat by what comes out of the C-suite. So.
Isaac (He/They): [00:44:01] I'm still over here clapping and I just. Oh, my goodness me. Yeah, it is. It is so true, though, that that whole trickle down effects really can help change an organization. And I know we only have a couple of minutes left here, but I did just want to quickly ask kind of on the flip side of of Cyndi's questions, but I guess a little bit more personal is, when you as someone in a position of authority in an organization, when there is someone in the workplace struggling, trying to transition or struggling to come out. Can you maybe provide some examples of either ways that you've done it or ways that you've seen that support kind of in the professional or business environment?
Terri (She/Her): [00:44:43] Yeah, I'll try Isaac again. Is anyone listening to this? And as you undoubtedly know, this is such a personal journey for everyone, right? So how they choose to embrace it, what they're necessarily seeking for validation, confirmation, affirmation is differs very widely across. We're all individuals. Of course. We differ from one another. Right. But there's a couple of things that. We've done as an organization that I think have helped. One is we have a teams network. We have a gender identity. Now we're a big organization. I realize that. And this doesn't it's not like one size fits all here.
Cyn (She/Her): [00:45:28] So we're is it like an ERG, like an Employee Resource Group?
Terri (She/Her): [00:45:32] Yeah. So we have we have an ERG, but we then even have a more specific one for the trans community, which is just a trans channel. And this is available for, for employees, it's available to parents or it's available to allies to a degree. And I connected with a lot of people a lot. It's still a small community within our organization, like most organizations, but that channel has served very well where people get to know who is in community and they can reach out. And frankly, mostly who I've talked to through that channel. There's been a couple of employees that have either come out and are facing specific issues or alternatively are coming out in their journey. But more often, it's parents. It's parents that are employees of ours or partners of ours or working with our or with us. And I've met one experience I had was a partner that I had worked very closely with for years and unbeknownst to me, had a trans child. And, you know, I did I did a webcast years later after we were no longer physically in the same location. And I did a webcast internally. And he called afterwards and said, I just want you to know, I watch this with my daughter and she's 14. She's going through it. And I did this as as a result of I wanted her to know the possibilities that it's not about survival, it's about thriving. And and you can probably tell I mean, that one brought tears that that was a hard moment of the importance of being visible. And so all of those things, to the extent you're in an organization that can facilitate it, that you have the critical mass to do it, etc., are important. Other ways, again, my experience is my experience and mine alone. But to the extent you are in the privileged position that I am and have the ability to be visible, it allows people to know the art of the possible again.
Cyn (She/Her): [00:47:42] You're role model. I mean, really you are a role model. And I wonder then at this, you know, who would you look to? Who would you say is a role model of yours? Do you have anyone off the top of your mind that you might be able to (share)?
Terri (She/Her): [00:48:00] Yeah, there's definitely a few out there. I mean, it was very difficult because of my age in my generation to find trans role models in the professional community. For example, Certainly there was individuals in the public eye that that would come forth, but mostly you would find them in communities that I didn't necessarily directly relate to performing arts, theater, whether it was on screen, etc., tremendously valuable in terms of just seeing the visibility of the trans community. But the one individual who I won't go by name because it would probably be lost in most people, but we had a senior, a senior gay woman executive who came out in the firm during her career, and she was a huge influence on me recognizing this is possible. And as she learned more of my story and the fact that I wasn't totally out but I was largely out kind of thing, she made the comment to me that if I was ready, she said to me, she said, this could save lives. And I dismissed it. To be honest, I said, I'm a tax partner. I mean, what do you mean? And she instilled in me the visibility matters. And she talked about, as you were going through the system theory, you didn't have role models. How many times will you close to quitting? How many times did you think I can do this easier? And so to the extent I have heroes, she would be one of them. That was an amazing discussion to have. The fact that a senior person took the time to invest in me and point out. What my potential could potentially could potentially could potentially be in this regard. That was a moment of truth for me. I think I thought I'd always been open to a point and always been really supportive of the community in various ways, etc. But I was starting to feel increasingly hypocritical by not being myself on a daily basis. And so that's one of my heroes. Cyndi For sure.
Isaac (He/They): [00:50:16] So I just wanted to thank you so much, Terri, for this conversation. It was I know I had myself on mute most of the time, but I definitely was getting a little teary eyed when you were saying some things. So I do very, very much appreciate it and look forward to seeing all your success and celebrating it kind of moving forward.
Terri (She/Her): [00:50:32] So thank you very much, Isaac. I really appreciate it. It was a real pleasure. So thank you. Thank you very much.
Cyn (She/Her): [00:50:38] That's all the time we have today, folks. Thank you for joining us for another episode of Hey, Cis!.
Isaac (He/They): [00:50:43] The conversation doesn't have to stop here, though. If you would like to get in touch with us to ask us a question or share your story on a future episode, you can email us at Connect at Simply Good Form or visit us on our website at Hey, Cis!.
