S1 Ep 9- Everyday Equity: Everyday Ways to Make a Change with

This Episode talks about Neurodiversity, Gender Expansiveness & Rethinking DEI with Chris Hooten

What does real belonging at work actually look like?

In this episode of Everyday Equity, Pooja Kothari speaks with Chris Hooten, speaker and consultant focused on intersectional neurodiversity and gender equity.

They explore what it means to create neurodivergent and gender-expansive affirming workplaces, why traditional DEI efforts often fall short, and how leaders can shift from defensiveness to accountability.

From “unearned advantage” to rethinking bias and belonging, this conversation challenges surface-level inclusion and invites deeper cultural change.

Transcript

 Welcome to Everyday Equity, everyday Ways to make a change. The show that brings real conversations about fairness, compassion, and progress into our everyday lives. I'm Pooja Kothari, and each week I sit down with guests from all kinds of industries and backgrounds to talk about what equity looks like, not just in their work, but in their daily choices and personal journeys.

Because building a more equitable world isn't just for academics, activists, or experts. It's for all of us every day in big ways and small. We can choose to be more aware, more kind, and more connected, and this is where we learn how.

 All right. Hi everybody. Welcome back to our LinkedIn Live. This is Everyday Equity, everyday Ways to Make a change. I'm your host, Pooja Kothari founder of Boundless Awareness, and with me today is Chris Hooten. Now, let me tell you how excited I was that Chris took my call, that he was interested in this LinkedIn live and when we first talked it was like.

Two souls meeting. It was just wonderful. I'm so happy that you get to hear from from Chris today. Chris is an award-winning speaker, writer, coach specializing in intersectional neurodiversity and gender equity. They're based in Seattle, Washington, and I would love Chris for you to tell our audience a little bit more about you and how special your work is.

Yeah. Wow. That's always an interesting question to start off with, right? You never, I never know how to describe myself and my work other than I am a person who leads trainings. I lead workshops, trainings, and leadership coaching for employers and for leaders to. Help people create neurodivergent and gender expansive affirming work environments.

So that's really the core and crux of my work. I started my consulting firm around two years ago, officially, even though I've actually been doing this for a number of years. I always joke that I was born into this life. There's always been a pressure to connect. In ways that are inauthentic.

And I've never been told that my skill level is lacking, but there always has been a lack of belonging in all the spaces that I've been in. Yeah. And so a couple years ago I decided to take a chance and to invest fully in me and and also studying what are the things that are the real barriers for people who are interested in creating workplaces that are affirming.

And so I'm glad to be here with you. Thank you, PJA. I'm so happy you're here. To give maybe an intro to our audience who may not know what it feels like or means or may not have discerned what a gender affirming workplace feels like, what belonging feels like. If that awareness hasn't. Tap them on the shoulder yet, how would you describe what it is or what it isn't to them?

Yeah it's funny because a lot of people will say that belonging is like a, that old added to the old word is, when you see it or you feel it when you see it. I always encourage people to think about it more of as a feeling, right? I think we tend to, especially in the West look at things from a very logical, linear perspective.

If this, then that, also like an equation and I am. I'm more so interested in the words of the people who are actually impacted by these, workplaces and these lack of policies, these lack of protections. So I don't speak for all people, right? And I think it also is helpful for me to give more context about what I mean when I talk about.

Being neurodivergent and gender expansive. So around recent studies in sociology, in other fields, estimated that one in five people in the world. And I always make a point to say the world and not just America and encourage us to think outside of the context of the North America or Turtle Island.

One in five people are neurodivergent. And that simply means that their brains, their processing ability, where they look at things, their perspectives are not what would fall in the parameters of what scientists have traditionally described as being neurotypical. And then that might mean people who have a DHD.

People who are on the dyscalculia spectrum, people who are on the autism spectrum and also might be people who are, bipolar people who have seasonal affective disorder. And it's important to also name that there are a lot of people who have other languages that oftentimes we in the West will try to, in a way to try to connect or belong or feel a sense of attachment to these people.

In Africa or in la, Latin America or in other places we say, oh, that's just like this. Or, oh, that's just like that. No, because we're trying to feel a connection. But this inadvertently erases those people's experiences and also. Isn't true because everything that we are defining is true within a particular context.

And so we can't use our labels and place them on other people's experiences and expect, there to be some sort of belonging there. And so I think that's a, if I'm thinking about what belonging isn't, it's it we want to connect the human desire to connect across language and across culture and across borders.

And oftentimes that are wanting to do that. We sometimes invalidate interrace people's identities, and I think we should that. And the second thing that I'll mention is, that's Ally related to that is I live with a DHD and Dyscalculia, which is a little bit like dyslexia, but with math. Measurements, distances, spatial awareness, time.

These are things that I've always had out of, I've always been out of alignment with these things. But we are now in a place where we are understanding that there's not just one understanding of time, but there's monoism, which is big in the west. But in Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Oceana.

In Turtle Island and among the indigenous in America, there are people who believe in or follow Polychronis, which is more situational, relational. We'll get there when we get there. And a lot of us grow, grew up hearing things that, made us ashamed of that. If you're early, you're on time.

If you're on time, you're late relating if you're late. That was what I grew up with. And now I'm like, oh, cronyism is a thing. And there's a reason why people are like this, because we just value things differently. And that, and I think that articulates the ways in which your space shapes your understanding and perception of time.

And I think that it also shapes our understanding of who we are. So the last thing I'll mention is, my gender identity, it's, I describe myself as gender expansive. And I think that, I'm not sure who started that term and I'll probably look that up. But I've been using that to describe myself and a lot of other people because we're not, we are, we're trying not to describe ourselves as what we're not.

So tra I used to describe myself as non-binary. And I think that at some point I realized I don't wanna describe myself. It's not empowering to describe myself. What I am not. So I am expansive, I am growing, I am exploring, I am taking up space. I am non right. And so what I talk about gender expansive and being, neurodivergent that's what I just wanted to offer some language around what it means for me when we talk about these things.

I was just talking with another colleague of mine about labels and when I came out, the PR at that time, the pressure of having, people. A so what are you then? Wait a second. Aren't you str you were straight all through how to high school, what is going on? And me thinking like.

None of these letters mean anything to me. And feeling so angry that I, and not knowing how to express that anger of, but why do I have to? And it was the same thing when I was growing up. And when you go to India and my cousins would say you're not Indian. And I would go be in class and people, you're not American.

And then I, my dad said, you're Indian American and you're so lucky that you get to be both. And I was like, doesn't feel very lucky because they're telling me I'm not enough. They're telling me I know I'm not enough. And, still that defining your ethnicity by a label is very frustrating, and I really appreciate how you've explained that.

So while it might seem may, I think this is a good segue to, to ask you about, a little bit more on the professional focus side of, DEIJ, anti-oppression work, whatever people feel like calling it. It's basically all the same stuff. How do you tie it in? How do you tie your personal experiences into your professional experiences and vice versa?

That's a great, Ooh, that's a good one. They're intricately linked, right? They are I think that for a lot of us people who go to the world in a body that might be marked as not fitting within a particular framework we're taught to just go and adapt. To play the game to change who we are, right?

If you're queer, you might be told to, you don't have to be all that, tone it down a little bit. You're a woman or somebody who's femme, you might be told to lean in or to, look up a ted talk on how bo what body language, what pose, take up more space and to get the cortisol and all that flowing right to feel like a man.

And. We really, I think at a time, there were a lot of things that really shifted this, I think for one was the pandemic and the lockdowns. So having people going at home, there really was a tension between, okay, am I gonna be myself at work or am I going to be myself? Am I gonna work from home? And I think people didn't make their workplaces, their homes.

They made their homes a part of their work. And people have been taught, especially in the West. That you are yourself, your authentic self at home, and you conform to other people's expectations. Yes. And when we dis when that was disrupted, a lot of people, especially in the silence of that and with the lack of engagement and sort of spaces where you were at the physical whim of somebody else who could, tell you or sort of push you to be something you're not.

People started to identify things that they were, and they started to really appreciate who they were authentically. A lot of people came out as being neurodivergent. A lot of people discovered that they're part of the gender expansive community, that they're part of, they're trans or non binary or age, gender.

And when they discovered this and started experimenting with it or sort of exploring it, going down that path, there was a lot of pushback. It's a lot of pushback, right? And workplaces just weren't ready for it. And then you have the murders of George Floyd and Brianna Taylor and, ah, Maud Arbery that took place in 2020.

And it was just a keg. It was a powder keg, right? And I think we all remember, but that was a lie. All the books that were written and distributed and other pledges that may or may not have come to fruition, right? And now there's been a backlash because of social proofing. One, one, once, one big institution lays off their entire DEI team, then another one does it.

And then everyone else looks around and says, oh, we can do this without any social consequences. Fabulous. So they did. And so I, I oftentimes will not describe myself as a DEI practitioner for that very reason, right? Because people were fighting for equity. They were fighting for an end to the police murder of black people, right?

In America, they were fighting for. Accountability and shifting in investments and different priorities. And what people got in exchange was one person in a corner in a room who comes out and makes a community wide, or school, school-wide or corporation wide. Presentation wants a quarter that nobody really listens to and there's really no follow up and then they go back to normal.

And I think that we're really in a post DEI. Space. The work of inclusion and equity is incredibly important. We're seeing more people who are neurodivergent at work, where the upcoming generations are more racially and ethnically diverse. And people are more gender expansive.

And so there's all of these different intersections. Not to even mention the generational concerns and the complications that come with that. So there's never been a higher need for people who are actually attuned to the needs of people who are in workplaces. And at the same time there's been a systematic choice in the part of leaders business leaders to disinvest in this work.

And it's a sort of when I answer the question of how does DEI tie into this work I provide and I support people who are looking to be neuro inclusive and gender expansive, inclusive workplaces and cultures and leaders, and I coach leaders about how to navigate that. And part of that is just being aware of the different ways in which DEI, waxes and wanes and shifts and moves, but not because I wanna be in.

Relation to, but because I need to be aware of the shifting landscape and how it impacts my work. And so choosing not to be affiliated with it is not because I disagree with DEI practitioners. It's more so because I don't think people understand really what DEI is trying to do. So that's, it's very difficult to even define what it is.

And that's because the language didn't come from the bottom up. It came from the top. Indeed. Indeed. Yeah. It's a complicated answer, but I hope that answers it. Speaking of when you are doing more individualized work or when you're in a workshop or with coaches and teaching leaders how to integrate these equity principles into their leadership.

I wanna ask you, some ideas of skills that you give to coaches and leaders. If a leader says to you if I make an assumption or I have to say sorry, like, how do I do it? I don't even know I'm doing it. I'm just a really affable person. I just love talking to people, things have gotten so restricted lately. I feel like I can't say anything. I just wanna relate to my staff. What advice would you give kind of this caricature I'm making of yeah. Of potential leader that might say something like that. I just wanna be myself at work and people are taking offense.

It's really not that serious. I'm just trying to like, be personable. Yeah, this is hard for a lot of people, and I think that it's also a fair assessment because we have organized a workplace where people who have not had to understand of people's perspectives, right? They've risen to the top, in part because they're the people who the leaders in the past related to, right?

When people say, oh, I, I said something about Jim, I just, something about him. I just, there's something, I see something in Jim. It's you see yourself in him. That's who right? Yeah. And there's a reason why you don't see that in Puja or Chris or Deontay, or Jamila, right? There's a reason why you don't see yourself. You don't see that something, there have been many studies that show that people of color and women, and especially gender expansion, people are hired. If they are hired, they're hired for what they've done in the past, what they've been able to prove that they can do in the past, while other populations are hired for the potential.

And that's just what, that's what potential means. It means I see something in you. And the people who are doing the seeing from their vantage point are people who belong to groups that have unearned advantages. I use language like unearned advantage, not because I don't think that privilege matters, but because I think unearned advantage also just makes it more clear.

Part of my equity work is really getting clear about the language that we're using. Yeah. When I say honor and advantage. It's really difficult for somebody to say, oh, I don't want to give up that unearned advantage. Nobody wants to give up a privilege. It sounds like that's nice. Sounds like something that, it's also obscure about who gave that privilege.

What does that even mean? How does it function that When I say unearned advantage, it makes it clear that it's in the context of a landscape that we're all navigating and a competition for resources. Which is what a workplace is, right? And I think we're talking about being equitable. We need to be very clear about the language, which is essentially we are trying to create a workplace or a culture where people have advantages, but they're accountable for that.

And those advantages are not are being brought to the surface so that we can talk about them and account for them. Some people have unearned disadvantages. If you're a person who's, descend of enslaved people, woman, gender, expansive neurodivergent, those are unearned disadvantage in this context, in this workplace.

And here are all the ways that we can prove that being in this identity marker makes it an unearned disadvantage. And here are these protections or policies or ways that we can go about it. And so when I talk about, so that answers your question partly. And I'm showing you the answer because a lot of my coaching is around shifting away from language that is inherently psychologically sort of triggering for people.

People we have a desire to be a good person. We believe in ourselves and our, in our ego, who wants to protect that? I'm a good person. That's why you can see those books that talk about how to be this thing. How to be inclusive, how to be anti-racist, how to be this, and that's really not the question.

The question is that how can I, as an individual leader do this? Although that's really important. It's part of my coaching work, right? I want coaches. The bigger issue is how do we become the people who are aware of is honor and disadvantages? How do we become the people who are asking the question around who is not in this room?

Who's being impacted by this policy or this move, or the outcome of this meeting, and it's not in this room. Why aren't they in this room and what can we do? So the next time we have this meeting, they are not only in this room, but they're empowered to speak. We are empowered and able to listen and actually implement the things that they're talking about.

And so that's more of a strategic long-term plan because people want. Easy things to do. They want sort of easy wins. And I'm, my work is more so focused on how can we learn about the process of laying down our egos and our stresses and becoming a more aware of and accepting that we have vantage points.

I, I have another way that I sort of use language differently is I don't use bias. I understand the word bias. I more so use the word vantage points, right? This is my vantage point. Being a Black American who grew up in the nineties, in the Midwest, I have a particular kind of vantage point when I see things in this way, and I think that opens the door for people to say, Hey, this is my vantage point, not defensively, but this is my vantage point, and everybody else has a vantage point.

How can we keep each other accountable and sort of keep account of. Chris said this is their vantage point. They have a soft spot for children who grew up in a family without a, a father present in the context of the a student applying for a school. That's not something that should be ashamed of.

We're realizing now that the. I'm gonna get in trouble. But the pla sort of the platonic perspective of the rational being who is completely rational and has no consideration of emotion and feelings. That's just not how this works. Same in that we should just talk about that.

And so this person, I don't know what his name I gave him the name of Jim, but I don't know who he is. But this is how I would approach working with him is saying, Hey, I understand we all have these feelings. More so than thinking about what you should do and feeling the stress of that.

Let's make time for really exploring your feelings and why you feel this way, and what are the factors that got you into feeling this way. Yeah. Yeah. I tell my own participants that, the three most fundamental aspects of being a human being are, and I remember it by a, b, c agency or autonomy.

Having your, the ability to make your own decisions, belonging and competence, being able to affect the change that you, your autonomy is telling you. And all of the, all of us have that, so people are like, oh, belonging, the workplace is so blah, blah, blah, pc. It's actually it's a fundamental element of being human.

We cannot, yes. We cannot go around it. I wanted to ask you something that just came to mind when, as you were talking. And I wrote it down a lot of the times. I'm interested to know your thought process on it. Lately and especially since all the defining historical moments of 2020 and then since when I saw new diversity statements come out.

Of companies probably 20 21, 20 22. It started to include political viewpoints. So it was like we are committed to DEI of, race, disability, gender et cetera, socioeconomic status and political viewpoints. And I remember saying that, and I thought, that's not a protected class. No it's not.

That is not something that where people, so I wanna know what you think about it. 'cause I have a very strong, and it is a reaction against it. But I see it everywhere and I think this is a great opportunity to educate our audience on why political viewpoints is not part of a DEI strategy or a way to diversify your workforce.

Yeah, this is where it gets complicated because I think that when you say it's not a part of the, this is where the tension comes. I see a lot of people who are DEI practitioners, equity workers on LinkedIn, other places, really battling in the trenches of public opinion around what is or is not a part of a di strategy or what should not be included, right?

We saw this with the battles with between the inclusion of being NeuroD, diversion and neuro inclusion. And I think that implicit in this is the assumption of a lack of resources and a lack of attention and support and money. Within these DEI depart, departments or in these d and i spaces within these workplaces.

And I think this is where it's important for us to sort of take a step back and think about strategy. And I define strategy as, what's the space, what are the, what's the actual container that we're having this conversation. What is the spirit what's the motivation, what's the intention, what's the aim that we're trying to get towards?

And then what are the specific things that we can do, right? The language, the behaviors, the actions, when we move, how we move, right? And for me, I think about what are the specific things that we can do in understanding and and we are shaped by this space and the limitations and constraints upon this space that are the most likely to get to us, to get to our spirit, to get to that outcome that we're trying to get to.

And I think that. From that perspective, it becomes clearer how we can make a decision about what is or is not in alignment with our aim. I think what's tough about the answering your question, I know it sounds like I'm sort of, going around about way, and Frank, and this is, I am, because we have not defined what our outcome is as a, as equity workers, as DEI people.

And part of that is because DEI was not bottom up. It was given to us. DEI was okay, here's the compromise. We're not, we're gonna give you Juneteenth, which, as a person who was a descendant of enslaved people, right? Whose grandfather was a sharecropper in Clinton, Mississippi, the site of a racial massacre.

That took the lives of dozens of black people in 1870, right? 1877, in Mississippi. My grandfather was born as a sharecropper in the same land that his. His grandparents were born enslaved on, right? I appreciate Juneteenth, and that's not what we were talking about. We were talking about all these other things.

And so when you're, I think it just reflects the lack of power that we have as people, not just as di practitioners, but as people, as workers in these workplaces. I know I'm getting radical here, and that's fine. People don't have power to define even what our we want.

So when they say, Hey, we've decided that political viewpoint, diversity of thought is what they're sort of framing it as, right? Diversity of thought, diversity of political views. This is what we've decided. We're gonna include upon our DI strategy. There's very little things that we can do to push back because we don't have the power to define that for us, right?

And so I think that's a lot of the reason why we see low levels of engagement. From employees and workers and other leaders in workplaces. Part of it is also pushed back because people are afraid of what it might mean. They're afraid they're gonna lose out. And that's people who are, who have unearned advantages, right?

And for people who don't have those advantages they're thinking, okay, there's no KPIs implicit upon participating in this group. I'm taking time outta the workday. They're not, they're not really they think of it as, I'm not committed. And it's viewed as, here's the thing that we're giving you people so that you don't complain.

And not where I am more focused on, which is what are the things that we can provide that actually holistically promote holistic wellbeing and wellness within workers so we can be a workplace where people want to go to work. They legitimately feel a sense of purpose, a sense of belonging, a sense of mastery or competence, or at least the prospect of it.

And I think until we get to a place where people have the ability to feel competent and say, I'm not talking about DI practitioners, right? Because we can go on LinkedIn and wherever we want to go, or Fortune, or what, whatever article and hash this out in, in the space. But that's just an attempt to try to influence the people who are making the decisions.

And not the people who are actually living with the experiences of that DEI policy. I'm focused on trying to do both. How can we meet the people who are on the bottom, who are actually the recipients of these policies, right? And help them to be a part of the process that they can take ownership over this.

So they can actually, like you said, have power to define their own experience. If we're talking about like a 30,000 foot perspective, DEI is just a very small subset of a much larger phenomenon, which is more so focused on agency at work. Do we have democracy at work? Do we as workers have the ability to go to work and make a, have a meaningful impact in how we shape the conditions with which we work within?

And so I think that it's important for us as DEI practitioners, if we are D I'm not even DI, but people who are di practitioners, to be clear and frank about that we're losing people's trust when we don't actually name the fact that there's a lot of unionization happening. There's a lot of people organizing their workplaces.

There are a lot of concerns. And I think that when we don't talk about those things because they're not brand friendly and businesses don't like that talk and they get scared by it, we lose the legitimacy of the people who we're trying to talk to, we're trying to connect with, I think we need to be clear about them.

Speaking of clarity, we have a comment from tho who says, superb conversation, clarity of thought process, and definition is well explained. Love it. And this is why folks. You can find Chris Hooten on all socials at Chris Hooten Consulting the website on Insta and on LinkedIn. Chris Hootin consulting, bring Chris in and you will benefit so much.

Thank you. Look how clearly they talk about everything. Come on. If you want some great coaching, some really good education, and a sprinkle of very important history, give Chris a call. Go on there, Insta or LinkedIn, Chris I could sit here for hours and just listen to your amazing amazingness.

Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. I'm so glad we connected and this has been so great. This has been amazing. Thank you. We will be back in two weeks and we look forward to seeing you there. Bye bye. 

 Thanks for joining us on Everyday Equity, everyday Ways to make a change. If today's conversation inspired you, keep the momentum going. Connect with us on LinkedIn at almos awareness. Subscribe to our YouTube at Boundless Awareness and explore more free resources to support your anti-oppression journey @boundlessawareness.com.

Remember, progress isn't about perfection. It's about showing up every day with curiosity, compassion, and the courage to do a little better. I'm Pooja Kothari, and I can't wait to keep learning and growing with you right here on everyday equity.