Minding the Intersectional Gap in Your Diversity Efforts

Tori Dean DEI After 5 March 14 2022.mp4 - powered by Happy Scribe

Sacha Thompson is a respected and certified DEI coach. For the next 30 minutes, we'll get an exclusive look at some of her conversations with others in the field. Welcome to DEI After 5.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to DEI After 5. Today, we are just going to have an amazing conversation because this is someone that we never worked together directly, but we were in the same space at the same time. And I know I was just like, okay, I see where they're coming from. I love it. I love it. I love the work. I just really admired the work that this person did. And so today, my guest is Tori Dean. So welcome, Tori.

Oh, Hello, Sacha. How are you?

I'm doing well. How are you?

I'm good. It's bright and early in Seattle, but I'm awake. I am ready to go.

So I want to talk to you a little bit about just some of the work that you've done. You've been in this space for a while, so just talk to us or share with the audience your progression in DEI and kind of where you are now.

Yeah. Wow. Looking back, it's been five plus years in the diversity equity inclusion space. And I got my foot hold into that when I was at Amazon. And you and I both worked at Amazon for some time. And for me, it started from talent acquisition. It started us looking at, like, how are we hiring in Amazon? You know, it we hire rapidly, fast, without really thinking, how are we setting people up for success? And that was my big question because when we were hiring, for example, out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for a downtown Chicago facility, we weren't thinking about generational gap. We weren't thinking about cross cultural competency. We weren't thinking about what did it mean to bring a young white man out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to manage 200 people not only from a generational gap, but also he's managing underrepresented individuals while he's part of the majority. So again, how are we setting people up for success? How are we actually thinking about people and centering the human element? And that was getting into like, okay, number one, are we doing any crosscultural training? Are we training our interviewers? What even micro Russians or what antiracist or what anti black rhetoric looks like in the interview process? How is this continuing to perpetuate issues within the workplace right now? And even identifying problems like that put me into the trajectory of, like, doing HR education, doing HR education from not only antiracist HR education, but going beyond that, too, talking beyond race and gender, but having intersectional layers of like, all right, let's talk about race and gender identity. What does it mean for a black woman in operations? How much harder is she going to work to get success to her other counterparts who happen to be just white men? And doing that education was foundational for me because it started continuing to open up doors of other gaps of bias, inherent bias of that, too, that people weren't addressing because their lack of education. So I went from talent acquisition and HR all the way up to program management to DEI specialty work of really working with VP talent and talking and walking them through. How do we think again, strategy center and Human Element. Now, I'm an inclusion diversity business partner Fastly, where I'm actually working on system enabling, system enablement if I can use English today. But how are we looking at your systems that are preventing bias?

How do we break that down? So everything keyword is accessible with my key theme this year. Roundabout.

I love it. And you touched on something that actually has been really top of mind for me lately, especially this morning. I don't know why I was thinking about it, but we hire all of these folks, right?

Yeah.

And especially now this huge recruiting push for diversity. What you touched on it is like, how are we ensuring that people are successful?

That part.

If we get them there. Right. Like, what does equity look like in these spaces? And how are we preparing the environment for a more diverse workforce? So you're not getting backlash or you're not gaslighting people because that's not your experience. Right. And so that's part of this missing piece of the puzzle when we're talking about diversity and inclusion and equity and belonging, not just the number, the diversity number, which so many people are tied into. The other thing that you said that I want you to go into a little bit more is that intersectionality piece. Right. And how that shows up because again, five plus years ago, not even that long ago, Talent acquisition was focused on let's get more women.

Yes.

Right. That was the singular focus of the group. Let's get more women in. Yeah. People of color. Okay. Yeah.

That's why I laughed. It was like, very yeah, that's why you heard me fascinating. Five plus years ago of like, yes, let's just focus on women. And we were being very specific of like, okay, again, how are we looking at underrepresented women? What does that even mean? Let me walk back and use my story again of why this is so interesting to me of how much diversity, equity, inclusion, the passion behind it. I don't want to say it's been a phenomenon, but it's been really quite a phenomenon for me for the past two to three years, because people are starting to finally break down, like, oh, my God, when we talk about women, we're not talking about a monolith. We're not talking about one singular expectation of what that person should look like, even though we did have that. And I think that's what we didn't want to break that down further into. But a couple of years ago or really, it's not a couple of years, but half a decade ago, I started openly transitioning at work. I was a woman, I was female presenting at the time. And even then, when there was a push for women in the workforce, there wasn't conversation around what does that mean for women of color in the workforce right now? What are the challenges? Because there's always this big push of, I want to say, branding. Let's make sure our branding is reflective to the talent that we want to bring in. But it was reflected to one audience, white women. And because of that, we were hiring and focusing on those hiring needs. We weren't really focused on hiring and setting up women of color up for success, which was the demographic that did not have the lack of represent or had the lack of representation not only in the corporate workforce, but even the operations workforce. When I say specifically in the operations workforce too, at the leadership level, not at the hourly level, but at the leadership level, but for me, it was fascinating as a black woman in the workforce, before I transitioned, before I openly came out the level of opportunities that were there before me for white women. But it was marketing like we are championing for women. But what we were not saying was for white women because for opportunities for women of color were very far and few between. And let me tell you why lack of sponsorship. We hit on it of like, gaslighting and invalidation of someone's experiences of feelings just because the majority hasn't gone through it before.

So how are we setting up sponsorship effectively for people from underrepresented backgrounds and communities? And even within sponsorship, how are we training sponsors? And usually when I think of sponsors, I think of the majority in privileged platforms. How are we actually educating sponsors to know their privilege and power, their power dynamics, and more importantly, what it really means to bring someone up on the platform to give them visibility? So I say all of that. It's been a phenomenon because the branding continues to change, but we're really not touching at the intersectionality of, like, when we say we're fighting and championing for one community, are we really looking at the community and who in the community are we actually championing for and beyond the branding, beyond bringing them in the doors, what are we doing to set them up to thrive, not to succeed, not to just be the number, but how are we setting them up to thrive? Can we speak to it?

Because again, you hit on it because that was one of the challenges that I was facing when we were both at that place. Yes, let's talk about women. And I'm like, great, let's talk about women of color and let's talk about trans women and let's talk about women with disabilities. No, we don't want to talk. That's just too much. We just need to talk about women,

Black and white. Keep it simple, keep it digestible, and it's for who.

Exactly. And then when you talked about diversity, that was the unspoken demographic. Right. Was white women. And so now, especially in the last two years, there's been this shift of, oh, yeah, all the rest are important, too.

And all you too. We see.

Right. We've been hearing you screaming, but we haven't paid attention until now because there's a national global spotlight on it.

Right. Exactly. When it became a fad, when it became, oh, wait, this is still happening in the world. There's systemic oppression still happening. Well, let's not even take it starting. There's so much to unpack here. So let's just start with the civil rights up pricing. Everyone like Amaud Aubrery, Brianna Taylor, George Floyd. We've heard those names multiple times. But here's the deal. That has not been foreign to us in the black community. That has been every single day. But what was foundational, it was caught camera. It was calling caught multiple times. And now people are watching this on camera, literally. I call it trauma porn because videos and content that I can't watch. That my family can't watch. But people are seeing real time like, oh, my God, this happens specifically to underrepresented specifically to black people. The level of anti black rhetoric that is normal, common actually part of culture and corporate work environments. People are now putting in between it's contextualized. We're like, oh, systemic oppression. Racism still not only exists, but is the backbone of America today. Now we take a look at that in corporate work environments. And corporate work environments model a lot of white supremacy behavior and tactics and culture because who does it ultimately serve? The majority. You look at the demographics. The data doesn't lie. We are practitioners in our work. We do all the time. We're not going to tell you the sTori. The data will. Yeah, but the data has continuously over and over and over again benefited majority. Now we go back to women five years ago. We want more women. We talk about the corporate work environment. We talk about the culture and the culture. We're still making sure it was a place where specifically one demographic from women. That's right. Because they fit the culture dynamics of the work environment. We didn't focus on other intersectional layers of like black women, black women with disabilities, black trans women with disabilities, because those work environments do not have the systems nor the resources that would actually set those people up for success. Because we didn't know how to.

Well, even before that, Tori, the mechanisms didn't collect the data properly.

Yes.

To even say that this is a challenge or an issue here.

Right.

Because the collection wasn't done or has not been done for many years at those intersections. Right. Where are the gaps? And so if you're talking about a black trans woman with a disability, what bucket does that fall into? It's not a bucket.

Right.

And so how do you then provide the proper resources and support when you don't even capture them in your data.

Right. And you can negate them easily because of that. And it's like, oh, we have just a small population. We don't need to invest in these resources.

Exactly.

Yeah. In these systems, again, who do these systems serve able bodied CIS white people. And that's what we did want to look at. And we did not want to invest in the data behind, too. And more importantly, to that point with data is do people trust out? And when I say people do underrepresent people trust out and do underrepresent people trust even identifying themselves because they're already worried about their identity alone, even maybe, like one dimension of their identity, maybe concerning alone. And that's the other component, too, to think about, like what we don't think about of, let's say for trans people. For me, it's already one thing to be black, but to be black and trans and to notate that in documentation and for fear of that being jeopardized and being weaponized against you is another huge fear with data. So you're absolutely right. The systems in place are not beneficial, have not been set to capture certain demographics, and at times, unfortunately, has been used to weaponize against underrepresented populations, too. And I'm going to continue using the square use it because it's on top of my mind Gaslight to say, no, we don't have this problem. We don't have these issues. We don't capture that. It's fascinating when you dig into it and how you uphold these systems.

Right. Because you can't fix it if you don't capture the data.

Even existing, you got it. You can brush the route much easier. And that's why it's so for me, in my position, it is so important what systems are we creating that number one, there can be trust bottom up. To say, I know this system is in place to do XYZ, to mitigate this bias or this data collection is to represent me, to talk about the resources that I need, or it's the resources or it's the data that holds other leaders and other business decision makers or decision makers or stakeholders in that to make decisions and be held accountable for them with recognizing who their demographic is and who their audience is and who they really are submitted these systems for.

Yeah.

How can we call it out? How can we hold people accountable with the systems that's truly like how we're using data in an ethical way that truly at the end of the day, number one is centering humans. Yes. We're running a business, but your business is contingent on the humans you rely on. How are you making sure people are set up for success and not using it against them?

Right. And they're not cogs in a wheel, right?

Yes. Not cogs in a wheel, which is butts and seat cogs in the wheel. That's how I view all the diversity efforts right now, because when I see all of these branding of like, look, we care like it's every month. We care about black history. And like for February, like just for February, it may be every day. How are you like, integrating and talking about and breaking down black anti Brown rhetoric and the work that you do? Not just one month. Okay. Women's month. Okay, great. How are you talking about, like beyond women thumbs and some people that sense to themselves of femininity? How are you talking beyond non CIS women, too, especially trans women? Let's talk about black trans women since you just got up a black history Month. Now, let's talk about that in this month, too.

You had your month.

But it's like it is constant branding after branding after branding. And I see these leaders from corporate companies constantly doing this branding, and yet I'm hearing a different sTori from their employees. I'm really wondering who are you centering this work around? Yes. Is this about branding?

Yeah.

Now this is coming about very performative because your story is not matching the storyof your people. The math isn't mathing. What's happening? What's happening?

Right. It's like two plus two does not equal five.

It's not mathing?

I love it. As you were talking, the word that you said that has been again, one of my buzzwords for 2022 accountability.

Yeah.

Right. Into 2021 was about awareness because we were all kind of locked in at home in this pandemic and had to witness Amaud Aubrey, Brianna Taylor, George Floyd. Right. Like, you couldn't ignore it. You couldn't turn your TV off because it was just there. Right. So there was this awakening and an awareness that has happened. And so this year is really about strategy and accountability. And how do we take DEI from this, as you're saying, like this marketing ploy to being part of the company DNA? What is the strategy? How does this go beyond butts and seats to how does this impact the communities that we touch? How does this impact the customers that we have? How does this impact the industry that we're in and really thinking about how to shift mindset so that there are no people falling through the cracks?

Right.

And so one of the things that I remember very vividly is your work in creating or helping to create some awareness around transitioning at work.

Right.

And one of the things that I've had conversations with other folks, I always reference that as very few places have guides for managers and how to deal with that. And so can you talk a little bit about the importance of having that type of resource? Because again, if it's not coming up in the numbers, these aren't things. First of all, they don't tell managers how to be managers. Right. Let's start there.

Right.

But then to have someone on your team that's transitioning, how do you even have that conversation with them and with the other folks on the team. So can you talk a little bit about that concept or that project and where it is now?

Yeah. So I'll start with accountability was very key in building doing anything that was how do we set up work or how do we set up resources for an underrepresented community that I focused on during my time at our previous company was focused on how do I focus on the trans community? And beyond that, how do I also take give the LGBTQA community to look at? Like, who again, is the demographic of the LGBTQA community, white people, especially at the company that I was at. So again, we weren't talking about the intersectionality. We were not only just not talking about trans people, but trans people. In Tuck, you think about the majority are white women. Yeah. And white women have more opportunities to better medical care, to better doctors, and more importantly, the money to get to that proper health care. And a lot of the conversations, a lot of talk that I was having like, yes, we need to talk about this, but also we need to talk about the underrepresented people that don't have the money to get this care. When you talk about the underrepresented people, the black famous black women that are not only not getting care about having their entire identity negated and invalidated. Because guess what, we can only focus on one dimension at a time. People are focused on their blackness or the fact that they weren't white and that was already a problem for them. Now add on to the fact that their gender identity too. So a lot of the work going back to was about accountability. What am I doing to upskill my managers? What education am I rolling out for HR that I can also track and say, hey, we did this HR business partner, where are you struggling? What are your hardships? Because if it's inherent bias that's coming in, everyone has bias. Okay, how do we unpack that? So we're making sure that you've got the resources to do your job as an HR business partner. To do what? To advocate for people. So a lot of the work I did and number one, what I wanted to do was how am I holding those that are in positions to advocate for people in the workplace? How are they upskilled and educated? And number two, how do I make sure the people that I'm serving, the underrepresented transpopulation at the company to know, like, here are resources that you need to know how to transition safely in the workplace without sharing your identity.

Because I would always tell everyone, it is no one's business to know your business. You don't have to share a thing if you don't want to. All you need to do is now you can come to work as you are. That's all that matters. And if we have a problem getting you to work with just your skin color, we have some work to do and we will go about that work. But we want to make sure that you can come to work as you are and not to the expectations or to the image that someone sees as success. Which unfortunately, again, it goes back to rooted in white supremacy. That's why I always talk about the work that I do is intersectional the LGBTQA community. I always tell my community, just because we've gone through trauma does not mean we've all faced the same trauma. Trauma is on spectrum, baby. I'm Black and trans. I guarantee you, as a white trans person, you will never know the experience that I have. So how do we make sure, no matter what, we are still using our privilege honorably to lift each other? So a lot of it.

Again, it looks like to the work, even though I'm doing this work and holding resources for my community, I'm also holding my own community accountable. What are you doing with your own privilege? To make sure that you are opening up doors and making sure someone else can succeed in thriving the workplace. So not only is making sure gun resources, accountability is there, making sure that people can transition safely in the workplace, but also making sure that we are not putting the education on the underrepresented. Yeah, I wanted to make sure there was accountability for those that wanted to be advocates to say, I'm going to do the education, I'm going to do the work. I'm going to go to Google.com with a question I got before I ask this person who happens to have the lived experience that I don't that I would like to learn more about, because then we're continuing to ask someone else to do that work that we're trying to do work for. And that work is now is leaned on the transgender toolkit transitioning in the workplace. The education that's for HR is leaned on as a resource to not only upset HR and managers across the company, but for employees that they continue time and time and time again, see other people coming out, other people having success, other people having challenges that they're having to build this community for people to lean on each other to say, how are you getting to the workplace?

And how are you able to come and feel empowered? But that is turned into this full fledged not only resource hub, but this community that's lifting each other up and also within that too, calling out gaps in the business, which is what I wanted to continue happening because the work doesn't end just with a toolkit. It just is the beginning. Because we're really not touching on everything until we're really digging in. Like, again, who are we serving? Who is serving and who are we missing in this to? Who is not covering.

Not at the table. I say it all the time.

Yeah, right.

Exactly. Oh, my goodness. There's just so many Nuggets of what you do. So many Nuggets, especially they're using your privilege, honorably, because so many people that are from marginalized communities, the lean on that, not realizing they may be privileged in other areas and that allow them to be at the table. And so while you're at the table in those moments, how can you then be an advocate for others and lean into that and use your privilege in those ways? And it may be in race, it may be in gender, it may be in some other aspect of your identity. But the aspect of you that is marginalized or most marginalized doesn't define you totally.

Exactly right.

I always say kind of getting out of the victim mindset or allow to put you into a victim mindset.

Yes. Do not allow people to do that. Because here we go, we don't have enough time to go into it. But there are people that love to be oppressed, that want to be oppressed. And when you say specifically, I say that it's usually black people, non Brown people that love to be oppressed or that desire. I had a consultation gig. Again, I was doing a trans related conference, and I was talking about racism in the LGBT community, specifically why we don't talk about trans people, because trans people who have built to the degree of what we can talk about today within the trans community was led by black and Brown trans women. When I say black and Brown, black, and when I say Brown, Latinx and Indigenous, those black and Brown women and fems have paved the way. And because of that, we do not champion them enough. And I was talking about this and breaking this down because, again, there was this rhetoric in my conversation of a white woman who happened to be trans, and she was open about her identity, which is why I'm using this story, too. She was like, well, how do I, Tori, talk about my pain to a black CIS person?

How do I communicate that? How do I translate that to them so they can understand me? And I remember, like, you know, that's a really good question. Because what I'm going to tell you, the first and foremost is, like, I'm hearing you center yourself at the end of the day, you're right. I'm not negating your own journey, your own pain. But I need you to know, based on you're white and you're talking to a black person and you already know the historical difference between that right there. Your pain will never measure to what a black person has faced, because we're not even talking about that with the person's experience. But their generational tie to it. Your generational tie that's late to generational privilege. But we have generational trauma. You have to know that baseline before you even get into the conversation of gender identity. Because now you're going to nuances within the black community that we don't have time to touch on around. What does it mean to come out even in the black community too? Because that's a whole different ball game.

So I want to do a little bit of a pivot. I want you to talk to us a little bit about the Lavender Rights Project.

Yes, lavender Rights Project Lavender Rights Project is a nonprofit that I'm a part of, board member, and I focus more on HR work with this board. Legal services. Lavender Rights Project is the umbrella to another task force, the Washington Block Trans Task Force. And I'm also a board member and provide assistance to the Lavender Rights Project provides legal services for underrepresented individuals in Washington state, purely focusing on in the LGBTQ community, black and Brown people in the LGBTQ community. What are we providing? Transport, legal care, employment, legal care, marriage? Anything that you can think of. How are you providing affordable, accessible legal services to those that can't usually afford it, nor even think that's an option for them? Washington Block Trans Task Force Underneath the umbrella of the LaboraTori Rights Project is a team ran by black and Brown women and femmes. And for me, I am not a thumb. I identify as a black trans masked person, and so on the site, I know my privilege as a mask presenting individual is backlines. How do I make sure I'm not taking visibility in spotlight? But what am I doing to support this team? Where this team right now is currently building housing in Seattle for black and Brown people from the LGBTQA community, specifically black and Brown trans people, where we already know from a data standpoint, you look at state national global data, those that face housing crisis, medical crisis, schooling crisis, police crisis, health care crisis, black and Brown trans women and females.

So this team is doing the work actually in the community, getting money, building housing to start creating community care, and on that too, community accountability. What does accountability look like in the community? How do we show up doing that too? And that is the work that I do on the outside of my job as a board member. I'm coming from an HR center focus of helping, making sure this organization is running smoothly. And we really are making the best decisions here too. But beyond that too, it's like, how am I showing up as community with these individuals when we're talking about housing, when we're fighting for advocacy, advocacy beyond just like corporate care and like donations? But really, what does it look like to show up for your community? And what does it look like when we don't rely on the same services that usually get people killed, that are meant to help people, but actually provide services that really are about rehabilitation and getting people set up for success to thrive in their life? That's the organization that I work with and I'm really proud of the work they're doing. They're awesome.

I love it. I love it because it touches on something that I say so much around diversity, equity, and inclusion. Again, it's so much more than the internal things that are happening within your company. It's how are you impacting the community outside of your company? How are you impacting the work that you're doing with your customers and clients and all of those things? And so I think this is a huge piece of that because there is accountability there. It's more than just a donation. Right. If money wasn't an option, what else could you do to support the community?

That part.

Right. That's the piece that I think is so critical. My last question for you, what do you do to take care of yourself? Like, how do you fill your cup?

Yeah, I cannot emphasize this enough, especially after 2020. Therapy. Therapy is everything. Taking care of my mental health is everything. Just like, you go to the doctor for hygiene. You go to the dentist to make sure your oral hygiene is good, your body hygiene is good. What are you doing for your mental hygiene? That is something I've had to learn over years. But therapy is number one. That is like my self care, the way that I show up for myself. Number two is I love working out. That is why to keep my endorphins rushing. But like, number three, stepping away from my computer and my laptop and my phone and my email. I just got back from camping this weekend. Let me tell you, when I tell people this, you are not saving lives in the world of DEI, unless you were a doctor or you're a nurse. Okay, like, kudos to you, please. Thank you for being there. You are in the corporate work environment. Step away because your job title, your work does not define who you are as a person. Don't get bought into that. No one can put a price tag on you.

Step away. Care for yourself. You are more valuable than you know. So make sure that you are taking your time to live your life. That is what I do.

I love it. And one of our other guests said, do you treat yourself as a precious commodity?

Yes.

Right. And I'm like, I'm a precious commodity.

And now it's a little price tag on me. It goes back to the white supremacist nature of, like, white supremacy wants to make sure that you say my value is based on X-Y-Z that I make this much money. Okay, cool. Bye. I'm not going to be able to price tag on me. No.

Tori Dean, as always. I love talking to you. Thank you so much for this today. I hope everyone got some Nuggets out of this because you were just talking gems, as always. So thank you so much for this. Thank you, everyone, for taking your time to watch and listen to the show. Be sure to subscribe so that you get these in your inbox every single Tuesday you can find find us on YouTube. You can find us on your favorite podcast station and we will see you next time. Have a good one.