Crash Out With Me.

Crash Out With Me: Pride Beyond June

• Madison Butler

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 1:04:16

Send us Fan Mail

The political noise around trans people is loud, but the day-to-day consequences are even louder. Bryce joins us to get brutally honest about what it feels like to live at the intersections as a Black queer transgender man in 2026 while public fear-mongering ramps up and basic safety gets treated like something you have to earn.

We talk about Bryce’s last 12 to 18 months, including a sudden layoff from a tech role centered on belonging, ERGs, and equity and inclusion strategy, followed by a job search that stretches far longer than anyone plans for. That path also leads from Seattle to Florida, and we unpack what “access” actually means when trans-affirming healthcare, employment protections, and community support vary wildly by state. Along the way, we challenge the lazy storyline that the South is a monolith and the privileged advice to “just leave.”

We also go deep on trans athletes and why sports became a culture-war target, even when the facts do not match the panic. Bryce shares personal experience as a former trans college athlete and as a culture strategist who planned a sellout MLB Pride Night designed to expand visibility and community connection. Then we zoom out to the bigger idea: a lot of anti-trans rhetoric is really about policing gender expression for everyone, rooted in colonial history and rigid norms that harm far more than trans people.

If you want a Pride Month mindset that lasts past June, this is your roadmap: humanize, learn the history, and use your power to hire, pay, and protect. Subscribe, share this with a hiring manager or ERG lead, and leave a review so more people find the conversation.


Want to work with Bryce? 

 https://forms.gle/VbyMjEZNibUkUaoRA

https://www.linkedin.com/in/brycejcelotto/

Support the show

Welcome And Why We Crash Out

SPEAKER_01

And we're live. Hi, everyone. Welcome back as always to Crash Out With Me. My name is Madison Butler, Maddie B, if you know me. And the reason I created Crash Out With Me is in recognition of all of us have something going on. All of us have something that is taking up brain space. And quite frankly, all of us are crashing out about something, especially here in the lovely year of 2026. I am so excited for my guest today. Bryce, would you like to give us a little intro into who you are?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, for sure. Hey everybody, and thank you so much, Maddie, for having me. I'm super excited to crash out with y'all. I've been following this series for a minute, and we have a lot of things that we're gonna crash out about today. So definitely happy to have y'all here. My name's Bryce. I use he, him pronouns. I am an equity and inclusion consultant, social impact and culture strategist, also a learning and development wizard, if you will. I've worked in the equity and inclusion social impact advocacy space my entire adult life, essentially, 15 years now, which makes me feel old to say out loud. And we'll touch a little bit more on like kind of what I do and who I am later, but I do a little bit of everything ranging from LGBT advocacy and LGBT kind of high-level policy advocacy work and also grassroots organizing. My do that everything anywhere to like corporate consulting. Um, I've worked in professional sports. So yeah, I have a lot of unique experiences. I also am a black queer trans guy, which we'll be talking more about. So yeah, super excited to be here today. And uh thank you

Meet Bryce And The 2026 Climate

SPEAKER_00

to everybody for tuning in.

SPEAKER_01

Yay! Okay, so what do we want to crash out about today? I know the list is long.

SPEAKER_00

The list is long, yeah. What do we want to crash out about today? I think you know, the few things I really want to talk about today is like, you know, what it is like right now in this moment in time, in this climate we're living in in the year of our Lord 2026, as you alluded to earlier, Maddie. Like, what does it feel like right now to hold, you know, multiple intersecting, intersecting, marginalized identities, particularly for again for myself? I'm black, I'm queer, I'm transgender, I also have a touch of the tism, I'm autistic. Um, so you know, that that makes like navigating this moment really like precarious, if you will. And I've been on quite the journey the last 12 to 18 months. So excited to dive into that. And then, you know, really within that, you know, talking about kind of the shift that I think a lot of us have experienced, both in the workplace and in our communities. Um, you know, how do you navigate that social, cultural shift if you are someone that has several marginalized identities? Um, and then obviously, you know, it's almost the best time of year. It's getting warmer outside. You know, people are starting to spend more time in the sun, which can mean only one thing. It is almost pride season. It is almost June. And I know that, like, listen, I love Pride Month, especially as a queer trans person, but I really want to talk about like, you know, what we can do beyond June, what we can do beyond the warm, beautiful summer months to like really show up for queer and trans folks, particularly again, in the context of the shift that we're all experiencing right now.

SPEAKER_01

I love the call out to summer. As I told you before we got on, I wore my teenies and keeny shirt because I'm also summoning summer. Uh, we had like a couple of 80-degree days last week and I was like, it's done, we made it. And then it's like back to being.

SPEAKER_00

No, not quite, but we're close, right? Like we're close. And like April is the time of year where like if you are someone in leadership by your organization, if you are like an ERG lead, if you are a people manager, or you're just like someone that thinks about, you know, inclusion in general, which you obviously are if you're in this conversation, right? Like April is the time of year where like you do have to start thinking about Pride Month, you do have to start planning for June because it's gonna be here before you know it, to your point.

SPEAKER_01

Oh gosh. Okay, so I heard you say you've been on quite the journey for the last 12 to 18 months. Yeah. So could you give me a little blip into what the last 12 to 18 months has been like for you?

Job Loss And A 23 Month Search

SPEAKER_00

For sure. Yeah. So for some context, um, I mentioned I've worked in corporate equity and inclusion. Um, I've specifically done that work in the last six years, um, again, from professional sports foreign offices to tech companies to more strategy consulting organizations. So I was previously working in tech in Seattle. I worked at a design tech company, and I was their belonging equity and impact partner. So my role there was really primarily focused on supporting our ERGs, supporting our ERG leaders. We had about 14 ERGs with 62 leaders globally. I mean, I was the go-to person, everything from leadership development trainings, building out a curriculum for ERG leads to helping them think about kind of more long-term strategy and what that looked like. And I was doing that work, really enjoyed that work. That's kind of like my bread and butter within the DEI space, I would say. And then July 2024, I was like pretty abruptly let go. And that really like completely changed my life in a way that like I did not anticipate. Um, I was living in Seattle at that time, which is very much like my dream city, uh my dream place. So shout out to anyone here from the PNW. Um, and I really thought, you know, okay, I'm gonna be here for at least, you know, three to five years. I'm gonna be at this company for the next few years, I'm gonna be in this city, I'm really gonna root and build this life here. And was really looking forward to like doing that, right? But again, losing my job in July 2024, it forced me to like step back and reevaluate, like, okay, like what's next for me? Luckily, I did have a severance package when I was let go. So I was able to be financially flexible and be financially comfortable for at least six to eight months. And I really did think at the time in July 2024, when I got let go, I really did think like, okay, I'm gonna have a job by the end of the year, right? Like, you know, I'll use the severance, take a break, because I've worked nonstop since I was 15 years old and I'm 34 now for context. Um, so I've really never taken a break in my adult life. So at first I was like, all right, cool. I have a little bit of a safety net, I can take a break, step back, reevaluate like what's next. But yeah, 23 months later, here we are, boys and girls, and I'm getting closer to being on the end of my job search journey, which is good news. But, you know, I'm I'm still on the market. And I never imagined in a million years that, you know, 23 months later I'd still be looking for a job. Um, I've never been unemployed longer than a month prior to this journey. So yeah, the last 12 to 18 months just really have challenged me personally and professionally. And about the end of 2024, going into 2025, you know, I got so close with so many opportunities. Um, so I was still interviewing for jobs in the equity and inclusion space. Again, everything from program manager to director level roles to more like LD positions, you name it. I probably have interviewed for it in the last 12 to 18 months. And yeah, I really thought like going into 2025 that I was like gonna secure a new position and I was like that close. And then that didn't work out, that last opportunity that I thought I really had. And I ended up leaving Seattle in February 2025 because at that point my severance was exhausted. Um, I kind of didn't have many other options, and life and love brought

Moving To Florida As Trans

SPEAKER_00

me to Florida of all places, which we're definitely gonna talk about. So I have been living in Florida for the last year as a trans person. And if you don't know and you're here today, you know, Florida is probably one of the most anti-trans states in the country, just in terms from a legislation perspective and from an access perspective, being able to access things like trans-affirming health care, for example, being able to access employment, you know, there are no employment protections in the state of Florida in particular. Yes, that. And if anyone is here today, if any of y'all are Floridians, you've, you know, probably have heard that Ron DeSay, uh Ron DeSantis is lovingly called Ron DeSatan by many in Florida. Um, yeah. So after, you know, again, the job market didn't work out for me in Seattle. We got into 2025. Life in love brought me to Florida. It's been quite the year in Florida, to say the least. I'll pause there for like, you know, digestion and follow-up.

SPEAKER_01

Let me tell you, I'm not taking a man seriously that wears little things to make himself taller. I'm not doing it.

SPEAKER_00

I'm not doing it. No, I mean, there's nothing serious about him or about again, again, about like the political and social climate in Florida, especially for queer and trans people.

SPEAKER_01

So or I mean, this is like a sidebar, but one of the things I think about anytime I think about Ron DeSantis is when he like shouted out his wife for basically not making him babysit their kids. And I was like, it's not babysitting, it's they're right, they're yours. Yeah. But that's besides the point. So, you know, I think one of the things that a lot of us have talked about over the last, you know, what year is it now, 2026? Really since 2020, I feel like people have gotten a little bit louder around trans rights specifically, only because we realize how unsafe people are.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And I wish I could say that I feel like a ton of progress has been made in the safety perspective or in your identity being less politicized, but that's just not the case, right? And so obviously there's a couple of nuances here. A, living in the United States in totality, and then like make it a little bit more complicated and move to Florida. And even before that, you, you know, you were in North Carolina?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so I'm I'm from North Carolina originally. Um I'm actually back in Charlotte right now, just visiting family and doing some work here. Um, so yeah, I grew up in the South, you know, and I think that is really important to name because I am very proud of being a queer and trans southerner. And I've lived in more like progressive cities. You know, again, I mentioned Seattle. I went to college up in New England and the Boston area. Yeah, Maddie's from Rhode Island, those of you that don't know, and I went to graduate school at Brown, so we had that like vibe. I was you know, I've lived in like large progressive cities. Like, you know, I was in Oakland for four years as an adult, and Oakland, California is actually the place I've lived the longest in my adult life. So I say it to say, like, you know, when I lived in those larger, more progressive cities, there's a very specific narrative that people have there oftentimes about the South. They think, you know, the South is very bigoted, it's very backwards, it's very racist, it's very homophobic. Like, there's like, you know, all the the typical kind of like line of slurs and isms that people have against the South. And to me, that like is really problematic for like a zillion reasons. And one of those reasons is like the South actually has the highest concentration of queer and trans people, period, in the United States, particularly queer and trans people of color, right? So what happens is when people in more progressive liberal cities, you know, are talking about the South in that way or are writing off, you know, the South as a place for queer and trans folks, you're actually erasing like the identity of tens of thousands of people, right? And you're like erasing the experiences of those people who are the most impacted and are the most marginalized in places like North Carolina, in places like Florida, in places like Tennessee, et cetera, et cetera. So I really started doing LGBT advocacy work and like queer work in general. Um when I was 19, I went to a really small college in the mountains of Tennessee called Marival College. I that's where I started school at least, and it's like basically a high school, it's like 1,200 kids, and it's down the street from UT Knoxville. If any of you are familiar with East Tennessee. And I bring this up because like that's where I started doing LGBT organizing and advocacy work, right? Like we had a really small GSA on campus, it was like 10 kids. There was a professor who was like everyone's gay mom. She had three kids, and two of them were queer. So she was kind of like the ultimate P flag parent. And because I went to a very small school in the mountains of Tennessee, and this was 2011 for context, I was the only trans kid on campus. This professor heard about me. She was like, oh, there's a trans kid on campus, like, gotta find him. Um and she basically roped me into like doing activism work. She was super involved in like the Tennessee Equality Project. She was really involved with like the local P Flag chapter and Glisten chapter, helping like high school kids like start GSAs. And again, this is like rural East Tennessee in 2011. So, like, yeah, where I'm going with this is like I started doing this work in really hostile places like Tennessee, like Mississippi in 2011. In 2012, I used to organize with the Mississippi State Schools Coalition back in the day. And yeah, like it's to your point about like the safety piece, I would actually argue it's gotten more unsafe in the last six years, even what even compared to like 2011,

The South Is Not A Monolith

SPEAKER_00

2012, when I was doing this work in Tennessee and Mississippi. Things have gotten much worse in the last six years. Particularly, there's been a really rapid acceleration the last 12 to 18 months that should really be alarming to folks that are not trans, but had trans people in their lives that they love and care about.

SPEAKER_01

Well, and I think you make a fair point, like thinking about you know, the concentration of queer and trans people in the South. One of the comments I got a lot when I moved to Austin, right? Which like Austin in itself is like a progressive little people would be like, oh my god, you're moving to Texas, it's so much more racist than New England. Have you ever been to Boston?

SPEAKER_03

No, it's not.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's not. Have you ever have you ever been to Boston? Yeah. I think there is this idea that simply because you are in a city that says it's blue or progressive, that you are suddenly safe as a black person, as a queer person, and when that is just not actually the case, right? Even Austin, as a progressive bubble, I say all the time they care about like the environment, but they haven't made it to people yet. Um, because they did things when I was there like criminalize homelessness. Um, they really cared about the sky. You can't have lights that point up at the sky, but you also can't be homeless. And so I think there's this idea that if you live in California or in Massachusetts, like you're automatically safe. And that is just not the case. And then there's also the well, why don't you just leave, which is such a privileged hot take because so many people in the South are beholden to the minimum wage of the South. And in Texas, minimum wage is still under like eight dollars. Yeah. And how does that give you the capability of being movable? Yeah. And that's by design, right? Like you are basically forced to stay in not only these states that don't love you, but you're also most likely in a place that you are so far from your local voting place that you can't get there.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And that's for economic reasons, right? It's like people are anchored in their communities for their families. People are anchored in their communities because that's where they've been for generations, right? And yeah, to your point, I hate the argument of like, well, why don't you just leave? Because yes, there's definitely like the economic angle is a huge part of it. But it's also like queer and trans people deserve to build lives where our families are. We deserve to build lives where we have family homes. We deserve to build lives, you know, everywhere, whether that's Florida, whether that's Tennessee, whether that's Mississippi, like we've always been here. I think the thing I like want people listening today to take away from this conversation, especially if you're not a queer trans person and you're asking yourself the question of like, how can I be an ally to LGBT people, especially with June on June on the horizon, right? It's like step one in that is like recognizing that like we've always been here, right? Like queer and trans people have always existed and we always will continue to exist regardless of what laws try to, you know, erase us or what level of violence or rhetoric tries to erase us. We will always be here, particularly in these places where you know our lives are most under threat and our lives are most invisibilized.

SPEAKER_01

Well, and you know, I I think you make a really interesting point about how things have actually become less safe in the last six years. I actually say this to my partner like really regularly. I miss when I never thought about the president.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Do y'all remember that?

SPEAKER_01

I like I actually truly never thought about him, or because I didn't have to, right? But there has been a giant campaign around fear-mongering around trans folks. One of the examples I use a lot with clients is the example in Utah in Salt Lake City when they were trying to ban trans kids from sports. And it was this big thing. They put a bajillion dollars into this campaign. A bajillion dollars into this campaign to scare people. And when you actually pull the data, you know how many trans kids were participating in sports? Three. Two or three, yeah. There were three. Yeah. Who had aged out and one was unfortunately like not good enough to be going to play in in the in the NCAA. Like it wasn't gonna happen. And so so much of it is a fear-mongering. And the other thing is for so many people who live in rural communities where things are a little bit more separated, there's a solid chance they've never met a trans person. If they did, they didn't know. Yeah, for sure. So their idea of how trans people exist is simply through what they see in media. And if your media is simply feeding you bullshit and fear and untruth, like untruth, that is what they lean into. And I think that has only picked up with the more intense access to the internet.

Trans Athletes And Pride Night Sports

SPEAKER_00

Oh, yeah.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, you're not wrong about anything you just said. And I think a couple points, you know, one, I do want to touch on the transports thing for a second because this actually is like very personal to me. So if you if you know me, if if people here like know me, know me, they know that I'm a big sports guy. Sports have been near and dear to my heart since I was a small child. Uh, I was a weird kid. I didn't watch cartoons when I was a little kid. When I was like three, four, five years old. I woke up and watched Sports Center and like Stuart Scott, Rest in Peace, and Linda Cohn were like my heroes as a kid. My both my grandparents were very big into sports. My grandpa, unfortunately, was from Philadelphia, so he was a big Philly sports guy. And my grandmother here in Charlotte actually growing up, she worked at the Charlotte Hornets Coliseum as an usher. And she also worked at the Charlotte Knights, our AAA baseball team as an usher during baseball season. So, like growing up, I went to all the OG Hornets games with my grandma. When Charlotte was still at a WNBA team, I went to the Sting games, you know, and I grew up as a girl, as a woman playing sports in the 90s and early to mid-2000s. And that was like a very like special time, I think, in like women's and girls' sports. If you were like if you're up that age, um, especially because I played basketball and soccer. So like the US women's national team was like really taking off. That was like, you know, Brianna Scurry and that '98 like World Cup team and just like so many memories and like very nostalgic. So sports to me have always been like the ultimate connector, and it's about like community and nostalgia and family. Um, and I mentioned I went to Maribel College in Tennessee. Um, and when I went to Maribel, I actually was an openly trans college athlete. Um, and to your point, kind of like when it was nice when you know, no one we didn't we didn't have to think about who the president was. It was nice to be a trans athlete back in 2011 when no one cared about us, and there was not this national media discourse rooted in misinformation and rooted in fear about you know what trans athletes were. And I can tell you, as a former collegiate trans athlete myself, you know, we are just athletes, period. The end. You know, there's no competitive advantage, there's no unfairness. We're not out there to take a spot from anybody else that's deserving. You know, we are just as deserving as everyone else who wears that uniform who's made that team, right? So um I was an openly trans college athlete at Marival College, a division three school. Um, I played softball there, which is the whole story I won't get into because I did not grow up playing softball. I only played one year of high school softball and then got recruited by several obscure D3 colleges and was kind of like, why not? Like this is new to me compared to basketball or soccer. So yeah, the trans sports battle for me is particular is really personal because I was a college, I was a trans athlete. And then in my previous work in sports, I've done DEI work in the sports space. Like I mentioned, I previously worked for the Cleveland Guardians in Major League Baseball. And one of my responsibilities that I had when I worked in Cleveland was planning our Pride Night among our other cultural heritage celebrations. And for me, being like a queer and trans person who grew up loving and playing sports, that was like a dream come true to plan a Pride Night for a professional sports franchise. And I was really intentional about how I wanted that night to go and how I wanted that night to feel like and the kinds of activations I wanted there to be in the ballpark that night. Because if you don't know, Pride nights for any sport, baseball, soccer, basketball, whatever, are historically always sellouts. They're wildly popular with fans and community members. And so yeah, we had a sellout that night. You know, we had 40,000 people in the ballpark almost, and I really wanted to take advantage of that moment to send a message, you know, especially about trans athletes and trans people that like we're here and we belong. And so one of the things I got to coordinate when I did that was our first pitch that night. We had a local high school, uh, high school girl who was a trans athlete herself. And we had her throw out the first pitch, and then she actually threw that first pitch out to a player named TJ House. And TJ is no longer active in Major League Baseball. He retired a few years back. Um, and TJ is actually the current, currently he is the only living former MLB player who's out as gay. And he played for the then Cleveland Indians for a very long time. So I want to take advantage of like having that. Like we have the only openly gay former player. Like, why are not, why aren't we like building a relationship with him? Why aren't we like using him and his platform to like talk about LGBT inclusion in sports? So I got, yeah, I got I got this trans high school athlete to throw out the first pitch to TJ. And obviously they got to meet and connect and hang out. And that was just like a really special moment. And we had the other big thing I did that night was on the concourse pre-game, I had a Pride fair set up. So we basically had like 16 local nonprofit organizations who were able to table and share information about like their organization. And a lot of these orgs were super small grassroots orgs. So I saw someone said they have Cleveland Pride merch in the chat. So if you know like Trans Ohio, right, or kind of these like local grassroots organizations, I brought them to the ballpark for Pride Night. So they weren't able to like get their message in front of you know 40,000 fans that otherwise would have never, you know, known about their work or known about what they do. So I think to your point, and I saw someone else in the chat said something about this about like ignorance, right? There's just so much ignorance about the trans community and who we are. And that's why I'm very open about who I am, and I always have been since I came out at 18 years old, because I do think it's really important to change the public narrative and change the public perception about who we are, right? I'm also a military veteran as well, and have been involved in like a lot of advocacy work around like trans military service. So yeah, I just think it's about changing the narrative, and that's why I do the work I do. And, you know, I

How Proximity Changes Public Narratives

SPEAKER_00

yeah, I just I think that's really important, especially what we're living in right now.

unknown

So

SPEAKER_01

I'm gonna ask a question that was definitely not on my docket of question asking. But I think go for it. One of the questions I ask myself a lot, and this is not necessarily just about the queer community or the black community, but just overall, when you are trying to change the narrative for people who have never actually interacted with you, right? Because when people interact with you, they they suddenly make you the exception, not the rule, right?

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_01

They like you despite your gay or despite you're black or despite your trans, because they know you and they like you and they don't have the like thought of like, oh all everyone could be as lovely and wonderful and beautiful as you. That's not the thought they have.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So what do you think the biggest barrier in changing the public narrative is today?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Okay, so I'm gonna answer this question with a story because that's how I answer a lot of questions. So in 2012, I worked on the marriage equality campaign in Maine. And me and my boss at the time, I'm gonna give her a shout-out, Fran Hutchins. Fran's wonderful. She's the executive director of Equality Federation. And if you are looking to support your local LGBT organization, your state-based LGBT organization, please look up Equality Federation and the work they do. They're lovely. But at the time, Fran was my boss, and we were in northern Maine. So we worked out of the regional field office in Bangor, Maine. I mean, I don't know if any of y'all have been to Bangor, Maine before, particularly in 2012, but it is very white. It's like, you know, the furthest and most like northernest point of Maine. It's a very tiny population of humans that live there. And most of the people that live in Bangor tend to be older, tend to be very Catholic, you know, tend to skew a little more independent in their like political views. Maine is kind of like the wild, wild west politically, particularly in New England. And the reason I'm telling the story to answer this question, you will see in a second, I think. So after Proposition Eight in California, a few years before the 2012 campaign, failed and California failed to pass marriage equality, you know, there was kind of this big freako within like the LGBT movement, within like the political circles of the movement. And people were like, how did we not pass marriage in California of all places? You know, this is the most progressive state. Like, we should have had this. Like, what happened? And they realized after Prop 8 failed that they didn't really know how to talk to voters about same-sex marriage. And again, for context, this is like, you know, Prop 8 was like, I don't know, 08, 09, and I'm talking about 2012 and the marriage equality campaign in Maine. So in those in-between years, progressive political circles and progressive political groups raise millions of dollars to do research on how do we talk to voters about same-sex couples in a way that they get it, right? How do we talk to the average white, straight, you know, heteronormative, middle class voter about same-sex marriage so they understand, you know, why they should vote yes, why they should support this issue. And our campaign in Maine in 2012, we were the testing ground, if you will, for using this messaging that had come out of all these years and all these millions of dollars of research to figure out how do you talk to voters about same-sex marriage. And the reason why Maine was the perfect state to do this in was mostly about size, right? Maine is, it's it's kind of sort of like spread out geographically, but it's still a small state. And population-wise, it's very, very small. So we actually, we being the campaign that year, the campaign, the campaign for marriage equality, we had conversations with like 40% of voters in Maine. And I say like, when I say conversations, I mean either face to face at your door or through phone banking, which if you've ever worked on campaigns before, you know that is an extraordinarily high number, like 40% to actually talk to that large percentage of voters. And so what we did in Maine with the marriage equality campaign was we made the air, the issue of marriage equality personal for folks, even folks that, again, were straight, Catholic, conservative, or independent leaning. So we would go in and I would ask the question, hey Maddie, do you support same-sex marriage? And if Maddie said no, I would my follow-up question would be, well, do you support any form of legal recognition, you know, domestic unions or you know, domestic partnerships? And usually nine times out of 10, even if they said they didn't support marriage equality, they would say, Oh, yeah, I want, you know, they should have some legal rights. I'm not homophobic, you know, I don't, I don't hate gay people. I think they should have, you know, rights. But I just, I just, why do we have to call it marriage, guys? Like, can it be like something else? And like that was the end, right? Like, once we understood, like, okay, you believe that like gay and lesbian couples should have rights, but your problem is with the word marriage, let's dissect that. Let's talk about that, right? And the follow-up questions in the script were like, you know, do you know gay and lesbian people? And they would always say, Oh, yeah, my neighbor Tina, you know, Tina and her partner Terry have been together for 15 years. And I'm like, well, like, are you married? You know, and they would say yes a lot of times, and we would have that conversation, right? And like make it human for them. And, you know, I would have these 15, 20, even sometimes longer, 30-minute extended conversations with again, predominantly older white voters in northern Maine. And, you know, by the end of a lot of those conversations, I would I would move them to the point of like, okay, yeah, I see why, like, you know, Tina and Terry want to get married. Tina and Terry want to get married for all the same reasons that I have been married to my spouse for the last X number of years, right? It came down to love. It came down to family. It wasn't just about like rights and benefits, right? So to go back to your original question, and I hope me using that as an example kind of like makes sense to people. A lot of it is proximity, a lot of it is exposure. And again, this sounds super oversimplified, and to some extent it is, maybe, but it really is about getting folks to understand that like we are just people, right? And I think that the like the other caveat I would add to that is like people think that like issues of gender and like gender identity and gender expression like only impact trans people, right? And this is something like when I do a lot of my like workshops and trainings, I talk about like really heavy on is like when we think about gender, like everyone has a gender expression. Everyone has a gender identity, right? It is not just like something trans people made up, right? Like, like with pronouns, for example. You know, sometimes people complain about pronouns, like, oh, you know, it's so woke, like, you know, having your pronouns in your email or on in your LinkedIn, like whatever. Like pronouns are all of a sudden woke. And it's like you realize that like you too use pronouns every day in your life to describe yourself, to describe your loved ones, to describe your coworkers, right? So a lot of it is just like there's two pieces to it. It's like that humanizing it and like having those conversations and getting folks to realize that, like, guess what? You've probably shared a bathroom with a trans person and the world hasn't ended. Guess what? You've probably, you know, run into a trans person at the grocery store and like your life is not over, right? So it's like part of it is like humanizing it and getting folks to understand that like we are just people. And then like the other part is getting folks to like really deconstruct like what gender means for them and what gender looks like for them and their own lives, um, even cisgender people. Because again, the issues that we're talking about in the trans rights community and or in the trans community, I should say, they're not really about trans people.

Gender Policing And Colonial Roots

SPEAKER_00

It's not just about us. And I think that's kind of like the cherry on top of this cake that I'm baking right now. It's like our fight for autonomy, our being trans people, right? It really is for everyone, especially cisgender women, right? Like a lot of the rhetoric and legislation that we're seeing attack trans people and our rights to medical access and medical care and bodily autonomy, it is the same exact language, it is the same exact framework, it is the same exact approach that those people who are doing this use against women, for example, cisgender women, when it comes to reproductive rights, right? That's like the most obvious, glaring example. But yeah, like I think folks have to understand that like when trans people are free, and by free, I mean like we have the safety to like go about and live our lives. We have equitable access to employment, we have equitable access to housing, we have equitable access basically to all of these systems and structures that people just need to survive. When we have that, everyone has that, right? It's like this is not just about trans people, it's about ensuring that like everyone has equitable access. And it just so happens that right now, as trans folks, we are the flavor of the month, if you will, when it comes to who is being targeted, right? But it's not just gonna end with us. And I want people who are not trans who are here today and listening to like understand that that what is happening to trans people right now is most likely going to happen to your community next, unless you are a white, straight Christian man.

SPEAKER_01

And I actually want to run back something you said, which is gender identity issues actually impact everyone, right? And so it immediately brings me to the lesbian couple last summer here in Boston who sued the Liberty Hotel, because one of them was kicked out of the bathroom because they are a mass presenting lesbian. Yep. And they were kicked out of not only the bathroom, but the hotel for being a man in the women's bathroom.

SPEAKER_00

Yep, I saw that.

SPEAKER_01

And they're not trans, they're just a woman with a short haircut, which anyone could be a woman with a short haircut, right? Like you don't have to be a lesbian, even though that's like you know the thought. Like the last woman I had on my podcast has cheese balls and has a beautiful boyfriend. And so I just think it's a really interesting thing that we think about the bathroom specifically as a trans topic when in actuality people are impacted by these things even when they are just regular cis hetero who have chosen a different aesthetic.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And to your point about aesthetics, right? It's like gender expression, right? And like again, that's the thing I want cisgender people who are listening today to understand. Everything, all the anti-trans rhetoric that you're hearing in the media right now, I know this is gonna sound counterproductive to everything I've just said. It's not actually about trans people, guys. It's not actually like being trans is not the problem. The root cause of the problem, the root cause of their beef and their gripe has to do with gender expression, right? It has to do with how dare you, how dare you, Maddie, as a black woman, have the audacity to dye your hair blue and have the audacity to, you know, wear bright colors and you know, have fun makeup or have fun earrings. Like, we know what the things you do to express your gender, right? So again, we all have gender expression. That's like your outward appearance, right? So again, gender expression is typically classified by your hair, by your mannerisms, by the way you dress, right? And yeah, a lot of these anti-trans bills we're seeing, a lot of the anti-trans rhetoric we're seeing. Again, it's not actually about trans people. It is about gen, it's about policing gender expression and ensuring that people's gender expression stays in these very narrow, very confined boxes that are created by Western colonial norms of what gender looks like. It's very much rooted in colonialism and colonization practices. That's the other thing I need people to understand about everything that's happening right now, basically. And I'm gonna put on like my history teacher hats for a second. So, like, I'm also my master's degree is in teacher education. Maddie knows I used to teach high school history. I was like a GSA advisor back in the day, like the whole nine yards. And like, I used to joke with my high school students when I taught high school, but it's not really a joke. I told them, like, hey, if you're ever taking a history test, whether it's in my class or in any other class moving forward, and you don't know the answer to a question, just write colonialism or racism and you'll get it right. Because everything in history comes back to colonialism and racism, right? And and the and gender included, right? So in pre-colonial, in the Americas, pre-colonial contact, so meaning before European colonizers, you know, came over and claimed this land and murdered millions of indigenous people and stole their land, right? Indigenous societies pre-colonialization were very like gender fluid. And people's gender expression was very, very fluid. Men had long hair oftentimes, and actually, typically, like men with longer hair were actually celebrated and typically seen as like having higher status, and they were oftentimes kind of like the chiefs or the leaders of their tribes, of their groups. You know, men also wore very elaborate jewelry, you know, whether it was like chess pieces, like beautiful beaded necklaces, or even like heavy earrings. So, like, yeah, pre-colonial America is both in what we call the United States currently, and like even in Central America and Mexico in particular, you know, still to this day, a lot of indigenous cultures within Mexico and Central America, so like, you know, Guatemala, et cetera, et cetera, they have a whole like group of people that are called third gender people or muhexes, and they're still to this day like very celebrated, like in that culture. They are actually put up on a pedestal, right? So I say this to say, like pre-colonial US, if you will, like gender norms as we know them today were not a thing. Gender norms as we know them today were imparted by Western European colonizers who came to this country, saw the Native Americans and their cultural practices, and said, Hey, you're unfit, you guys are savages, your hair is too long, your style of dress isn't correct, we're gonna force the men to cut their hair, we're gonna take away your indigenous clothing, and instead we're gonna put you in suits and pants. And, you know, they impose gender norms as a way to control native populations and ultimately eradicate, you know, indigenous and native populations and their culture. So, yeah, I really wish more people knew about history, and I wish that history was more like celebrate it and uplift it in our country. Because again, me being a historian by training and being a history teacher, like I very much look at a lot of the issues of the world today through that lens. And like so much of like the anti-trans rhetoric in particular, in particular, like it's all rooted in history and it's all tied to that. And like I could keep going about that for like, you know, the rest of our time, but I will spare you all uh a history.

SPEAKER_01

Well, it's so funny that you say that. So I've had two super controversial posts in my LinkedIn history, too. One, Kendrick Lamar at the Super Bowl, and it was literally three lines. My other most controversial post, Harry Styles and a dress. And my call out was that it is only Western civilization that has normalized the fact that men have to be wearing pants. Yeah, it's true. And when I tell you, people were like aghast. Their flabbers were gasted, they couldn't handle it, they were like, no, you're wrong. And I was like, I just need you to hop onto Google. Use the Google, use the Google. Like it is very normal in other cultures. And I was like, and Harry Stiles is like a pretty celebrated man, right? Like we know that about him. He has no trouble in trusting the ladies.

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_01

Ladies love him. They love him in dress. See how that like nothing changes. And it just really interesting me that people I think they know it, right? Because they do have representation of Middle Eastern culture, of Indian culture, of all of these different cultures in their pocket computer.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And they still choose to decide that, like, if it's here in the US, then you have to, you know, assimilate to Western culture. I mean, I was literally, I don't know why Facebook feeds me like random things that I'm not interested in all the time. But I got this post from Cape Cod the other day. And it was a rock, a rock, a rock outside, painted with the Jamaican flag. And the woman was like, if you move here, why can't you just assimilate to our culture and fly our flag? And it's just like, it's a it's a rock. Like, I think we're, I think we're gonna be okay. But and it's funny that you said the bangor main thing because I've been to Bangor Main one time and it was to see a hosier concert. And the next morning I went to breakfast and the woman was like, How is the concert? And I was like, clocked me. You knew I was not from here.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, yes. If you're if you're in Maine and like they they can immediately tell that you're not from there, especially if you're a person of color, because Maine is literally 98% white. That's not like me making that up. Me and my former boss used to joke all the time because she's Asian American. We used to joke that we were like the 2% of non-white people in Maine. But people in Maine, if you're like not from there, they yeah, they'll clock you immediately and they'll be like, oh, you're from away. That's like a very manner, it's a very manner statement, is like you're from away. Um, but nonetheless, I love Bangor, love Maine. We won the campaign in 2012. You know, Maine was actually the first state that passed marriage equality um at the ballot box with an affirmative yes vote. Um, so that was a super historic moment, obviously. And going back to like my earlier story, you know, all that messaging research and all the years and millions of dollars that were invested in figuring out, like, okay, how do we talk to voters about same-sex couples? Right? Like it paid off. It did pay off in 2012. And just so folks know, like that work has been going on behind the scenes for the last like five years within the LGBT movement. Like, there are funders, there are organizations who have spent the last, you know, many, many years doing similar, you know, messaging research and doing similar kind of like, yeah, just similar work in terms of like, okay, the next target is on trans people. This is gonna be the next issue within the LGBT community for the next five to 10 years. We do have to figure out how to like message this to the general public. Because to your point earlier, Maddie, like unfortunately, a lot of people don't have trans people in their lives, at least not like openly and visibly. So, like, if you're here today looking for like an ounce of hope, or you're like, oh, what are people actually doing about this? Like within the movement itself, like there is momentum, you know, and there is research toward like figuring out a more coordinated kind of like mass comm strategy in terms of how do we humanize trans people to the general public. And it's like unfortunate that we even have to have that conversation, and it's unfortunate that we have to invest millions of dollars into having that conversation

Passability Pressure And Seattle’s Trans Joy

SPEAKER_00

with people. But yeah, that's like unfortunately the climate like we are in right now.

SPEAKER_01

So before I pivot to the work stuff, Mohammed had a comment that I actually think is really important, which is trans people don't owe anyone passability. And I think it is this never-ending either they're mad that you're passable or they're mad that you're not.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And you very much can't win, right? One of the things I think about all the time is like Dylan Mulvaney being in the Bud Light commercial. Um she is lovely, beautiful, and people are like, well, it's just that she's annoying. I don't know, man. There's annoying people in commercials all the time. It doesn't make me like dump their product in my front y'all on my TikTok, right?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

But like what the world would consider passable, very like petite and very leaning to the Eurocentric beauty standard. For sure. Still not enough. And then you go the other way, right? People who totally take gender completely wherever they want to, and that's still not enough. And so, how do you navigate that conversation with people?

SPEAKER_00

For sure. Well, I think I start by saying, like, going back to my point about how like issues of gender identity and expression impact everyone and not just trans people, like leaning into that to start that conversation in terms of like we are all performing gender every single day. Like, gender is a performance, period. Again, for everybody. You are performing gender again by the glasses you choose to wear, by the shirt you choose, like me wearing this polo today, for example. Like, I am performing gender, right? I am performing male business, I am performing male business casual by wearing like, you know, a knit polo shirt, right? So, like, first and foremost, like just again, framing in that way that like we are all performing gender based on these cultural norms that most of us were raised in and most of us were socialized in, right? And what bothers people so much about trans people, particularly trans people that live outside the binary, that live outside the norms, if you will, of gender performance, is that, right? Is the fact that, again, how dare you have the audacity, how dare you have the freedom to be yourself, right? Again, it's not their actual gender necessarily that is the problem. It's the audacity of being like brave enough to step outside the lines that pisses people off so much. That is what conservatives are angry about. They see you living your life, genuinely you, genuinely happy and genuinely free. Meanwhile, they are ball and chained, you know, to their very sad version of what romantic relationships look like. They are bald and chained to their very sad version of like what they have to do as a man and who they have to be as a man. Like, I really do feel like that, like most cis men, the reason why they, most cis straight men, I should say, the reason why they are like so angry. And we've seen like the consequences of that, unfortunately, play out a lot in the media lately in the last couple weeks. It's because like you're constantly having to try to be something you're not. You're constantly being forced to like live up to a standard of masculinity that one isn't real and that two you'll never achieve because it's not real, right? And so I think like that's what bothers so many folks, especially on that side of the aisle, about trans folks. Again, especially folks that like don't quote unquote pass. And, you know, I joke with people all the time when I meet people for the first time or they ask me my pronouns, you know, I always I have a really cheesy line and I say, oh, I'm I use he hem pronouns. I'm a really boring trans person, right? Because I am like, I do live like pretty like binary, if you will. Like I don't necessarily use the word like man to describe me, because that word has just always felt like icky to me for a variety of reasons. But like I would say, like I do identify as like trans masculine. I do exclusively use he him pronouns. I don't use they them pronouns or any other sort of like fun gender neutral pronoun. Um, which again is why I always make the joke, like, you know, I'm a pretty boring trans person. Like, I'm just like, I'm just a he hem, I'm not a bathem. Um, much love for my they thems and my life and other like non-binary people in my life, but it's not me. And I think this is one of these things where actually, like when I lived in Seattle, I actually had to challenge like my own notion of like passability a little bit and like what it means to be trans, if you will. And even as someone who's been in this community for, you know, 14 years now, and even as someone who does this work professionally in terms of like LGBT advocacy and LGBT trainings, whatever, Seattle is like the most trans city in America, period. And it's not even close. And again, I've lived in DC, I've lived in Oakland, San Francisco, I've lived in New York, I've lived in Boston. Don't get mad at me in the comments, y'all. Just go to Seattle and see for yourself. I when I lived in Seattle, I lived in Capitol Hill, first of all, which is like the gay hood, the queer neighborhood in Seattle, like the heart of the city. I would easily see like at least 10 to 15 visibly trans people a day. Easily. And like every business, you know, that I would walk down the block in my neighborhood, every business had a trans flag. Like it really was like low-key kind of jarring. Again, even for me as a trans person and like a queer and trans activist, it was like low-key kind of jarring to like live in a city where I was like, whoa, I'm kind of like surrounded by trans people. Like this is like weird. It's cool, but like it's kind of weird. And like a lot of trans people in Seattle are very like out there. You know, it's Seattle. The reason why people move to Seattle is because it's a city where you're allowed to be a weirdo. It's a city where no one bothers you, you're allowed to do your own thing, no one really cares, and like they're not gonna say shit to you. So it's like, so it's like when I lived in Seattle, I was like surrounded by trans people. There's a park in the middle of my neighborhood in the middle of Capitol Hill called Cali Anderson Park. And Cali Anderson is like the heart of Capitol Hill and kind of the heart of Seattle in a lot of ways. And like every weekend there was like a flea market swap or like a farmer's market. Like there was also, you know, there was always something like very cool and queer happening in the park. And even on a regular day, when you would just go to the park to lay out, you would again, you would see like 20 trans people. And yeah, a lot of the trans people in Seattle that I was like surrounded with by were not like, you know, they were not like traditionally binary trans folks. They were folks that like really pushed the edge of like what gender looked like to them. And they were really creative with their outfits and their hair and like their hair color and just like wearing a skirt, but like also wearing like a button down on top, you know, like whatever. They were just like super playful with their gender expression. That again, even for me, was like low-key kind of weird at first, just like be around. And I realized, like, wow, it's really beautiful to be in a place for the first time ever, for me, probably, where people really do feel like free to be themselves, even if that means their gender expression is more like non-binary or is more outside of that passing norm. So, even like, again, it challenged my own perceptions of gender, but in a way that I'm like really thankful for. And I wish more people were like able to have that experience of like just being in a community where people can be themselves.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I also wish more people were open to being challenged, right? Like, I think one of the conversations that I've been having more recently, and I've also seen a couple other people having it, is like there was this idea with the uprise of DEI in 2020 that life should be frictionless. When in actuality, you should be constantly trying to challenge yourself and be uncomfortable. And even if it's just uncomfortable with your own identity, right? Like I've had tons of moments as a black woman, specifically in the way that I show up and present that like sometimes I also feel uncomfy in the room. Then I have to unpack why the heck do I feel uncomfy and stick with that?

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_01

And so I actually think that's like a really beautiful thing to say out loud is that even in your own identity, there have been things that have challenged you to think differently about not only yourself, but the world around you.

SPEAKER_00

For sure. For sure. And I think to your point about like, I want to hit on something about like what you said about like, you know, challenging like your own identity, right? Or like sitting with like different parts of your identity. So,

DEI Boom And Identity Work That Sticks

SPEAKER_00

you know, and and and also talk a little bit about like, you know, the early days of the DEI movement, if you will, in 2020. So, so first and foremost, like when I started, so I started a consulting business in 2020, which Madison knows this. I we worked together a lot back in the day. So I ran, I used to run a consulting business full-time called Swarm Strategy. That was my baby from 2020 to 2023, where I did DEI consulting work with a variety of clients from professional sports teams to tech companies to cannabis companies to marketing firms. I worked with Fenty Beauty, which was super cool, like Microsoft, like big global brands. But like, you know, I had a really love-hate relationship with like being a DEI consultant, especially in 2020 when I like started Swarm because I never intended to be a DEI consultant. I never intended to be like a LinkedIn influencer, which like I accidentally became definitely not in the level that Maddie is, but like, you know, I got my little They gave you a top voice badge. Yeah, I got my little LinkedIn top voice badge for LGBT voices in the US and Canada in like 2021 or 2022. You know, I've I've been like featured in some articles and stuff, but I had a really, really hard relationship with it for like the first couple of years. It felt really icky, to be honest, because like I never like aspired to like be in corporate America. Like I actually like resisted it for like a really long time. I was like, like I mentioned before, I break my career up into three chunks. Like, so version 1.0 of my career was like very much like national LGT advocacy. I worked at all of the big queer orgs in DC, the National Institute for Trans Equality, which is now advocates for Transequality. I worked at the task force, I worked at Glisten, which has rebranded to Glyson now, which is terrible, but it's another story. But like, long story short, I worked in all of like the big gay ink nonprofits, you know, and I did like really high-level policy work as like a super young person, like 19, 20, 21 years old. And then I transitioned into teaching and education, got my master's degree in education, taught high school for a few years, did like community-based education work um and loved it. But then COVID happened, right? And I think like when COVID happened in March 2020, I was living in Oakland, California for context. And my job at the time was I was working part-time at the YMCA just for funsies. And my real job was I was running, um, I was running a literacy program in Oakland at an education nonprofit. And our programming revolved around reading to kids in person entirely, which obviously we could not do once the pandemic started. We can no longer read two children in person and like do tutoring programs with them. So I was furloughed. And, you know, prior to all of this, like in the background, like for many years before I pivoted into DEI, quote unquote, you know, I had friends that were in the space. I had friends and colleagues that were in social impact consulting or who did kind of like corporate social responsibility or some version of kind of like what DEI was before it was like a mass industry. And I had helped them a lot with their projects, just kind of in the background throughout the years. And I had supported them with some work. And a lot of them were like, wow, Bryce, like you're really good at this. You know, you should be doing this as like a career, right? Like you should be doing like strategy consulting or you should be, and like middle, middle, mid-20s, Bryce was like very, very resistant. Like 25, 26-year-old Bryce was always like, I want no part of this. I love teaching, I love working with young people, I love doing more like community-based work, more nonprofit work. Like, yeah, I know my brain can go there, but like I don't really want to do this. So, like, yeah, in early in 2020, when everything happened, I was laid off for my job in March, and I was like, Well, what do I do now? Right? We were all living in COVID times. And I was in Oakland. And because I was in Oakland, I had a lot of friends, or at least people who I knew who were other black folks, other queer folks who were working in big tech, who were working in places like Meta, Google, you name it. So when everything happened, summer 2020 with George Floyd and Brianna Taylor, you know, they started coming to me because they knew I had a background in advocacy, they knew I had a background in racial justice, especially given my history education background, where most of my research, most of my work has always focused on black history, what have you, um, and the history of other marginalized communities. They knew I, you know, had experience with organizational culture, having worked in nonprofits previously and kind of getting my feet wet there. So, yeah, long story short, they just came to me and they were like, hey, Bryce, like I feel really isolated. I'm the only black person on my team. I feel really alone, you know, blah, blah, blah. And like the way that I think me and you actually connected, and the way that I connected with a lot of folks in this moment in time, was I wrote an article called Supporting Black Staff in Times of Crisis. And I wrote this article a couple days after George Floyd was murdered. And I really wrote this article for my friends. I wrote this article for those friends that were working in big tech, and I said, Hey, take this to your managers, take this to your boss, you know, here's some strategies, here's some tips, like here's what companies and organizations can do right now to show it for black folks, right? And I posted that article on LinkedIn. And at the time, I did not have 22,000 followers like I have now. I had like 800 followers, maybe. Um, and so I posted that article thinking nothing of it, being very naive. And then I like woke up the next morning and it went viral and it had like 20,000 likes and shares, and I had all these connection requests, and people were like, oh my God, this is so great! Can you help my company do this? And I was like, Yeah, I guess I can. Like, again, I've been doing, and that's the thing that goes back to my original point. Like, I've been doing DEI work my entire life, right? Like by default of being a black, queer trans person, especially a black, queer, trans person who like grew up in predominantly white spaces in the suburbs of Charlotte, North Carolina in the 90s with my white mom, right? People were always like, Oh, are you adopted? People would always make all sorts of assumptions about my identity and who I was. So, like, I've been living in this like literally my entire life. And then, yeah, professionally, I've been doing this for a decade before it became like the corporate DEI complex, right? So I say this to say I actually had a lot of mixed feelings about like doing DEI consulting. And when I first started it, the first like six months in 2020. So after that article posted, it went viral. I got a bunch of clients, and like within like a week, I was like consulting, and I was like, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Like I did, but I didn't, right? Like none of us really knew what we were doing. It was like a very volatile time in like the world and in life. But yeah, I don't know. I I'm kind of on a tangent here and I want to circle back to the identity piece real quick because I know we have other stuff we want to talk about. But I think like one of the really important things I do in my work is really force people to grant, not I don't know what to say force, but I create the conditions where like I can't think of a better word. I force people to sit in their shit. I force people to like sit in their identity, right? So one of my like kind of flagship activities that I've facilitated a zillion times with a different with millions of different kinds of groups, is I do this thing called building your identity brick by brick because I'm a big Lego nerd. And basically the premise of the activity is I give people Legos and I say, hey, build something that represents your identity. And it can be anything, it is purposely very vague. And before this, before you get into building, I do a little bit of scaffolding. We do the identity iceberg, right? And we talk about what parts of your identity are above and below the waterline and all that jazz. And then I tell you, yeah, build something that represents a piece of your identity. And again, it's purposely really vague. I actually kind of don't want you to build something that represents like your race, your gender, your sexuality. I kind of do want you to like dig into other parts of who you are, right? And then you build for 10, 15 minutes. I give you a little index card and I say, hey, title, what title your creation, what have you built? And tell me like two or three bullet points about what this is and what it represents. So you scribble in your little card. And then after that, usually I facilitate this in a group of like 15 to 30-ish people. I've done it with bigger groups too, but the goal is to have a gallery walk, right? So you get to go around the room and like see what everyone has built and like see like what pieces of their identity, literally and figuratively, this represents. And then once you go around and kind of make note of what everyone has built, I bring y'all back together and I facilitate a conversation to Maddie's point, like about identity, right? So about like, hey, like what did you build? What did it represent? When you walked around the room, like what did you notice about like your colleagues' builds? Like, what did you notice about like the things y'all had in common, you know, in your identity? Maybe you learned, you know, something new about like your manager's identity or this really close team member you work with all the time. And like we have that conversation, right? Like the Lego activity allows people to like be really vulnerable and open up about different parts of their identity. And then I use that as a segue to talk about, you know, trans identity or talk about blackness and anti-blackness in the workplace and to talk about, you know, what it means to be inclusive of queer and trans folks in the workplace. So yeah, it's just like I think what you touched on about identity, it's so real and it's so critical to be able to take a step back and like reflect on that with yourself. The issue is most people are not given intentional space to do that in their lifetime. And I think that's something that like me being a mixed kid who grew up with a white mom, me being trans and having been in the military and been a trans athlete, me being autistic and like, you know, being diagnosed finally like six years ago now, like I've always been forced to sit with my identity. It's never really been a choice for me. And so I think a lot of my work is about creating spaces where like other people have the opportunity to opt in to that work, but it's not really an option, right? It's like again, creating the conditions that like get people to finally slow down and stop and pause and realize, like, oh yeah, like this is all of our work, right? It's not just my work as a black queer trans person. It's not just your work, Maddie, as a black queer woman, right? It's it's all of our work. But you have to like

Allyship Means Risk And Real Support

SPEAKER_00

create the conditions for people to sit back and do the work with you.

SPEAKER_01

I love that. Um, also somehow we made it through the whole hour. Didn't get to work.

SPEAKER_00

I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01

Um, so I mean, I think maybe it sounds like we need a part two.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I mean, I would love to do a part two. And I I will say this really quickly, and like I know we're wrapping up, but you know, I know we didn't really get to like workplace tips or like workplace strategies, and that is how this conversation was framed, and that is often how these conversations are framed. But I do think it is important to like be human and like be authentic and genuine in this work. And that's something that I've always appreciated about working with you, Maddie, is like the you creating space for these conversations and giving folks like me a platform for these conversations. And I think if you are someone here today and you came to the conversation looking for like workplace tips and strategies, and like you're walking away, like, oh no, I didn't get that. You did. You did get it, just like in a different way. And the message I think to y'all in that case is like, you know, remember that like people like me exist and we don't exist in the vacuum, right? Like I've been on the job market, like I said, for 23 months, and the fact that I don't have a job is egregious. And I've been told all sorts of things. I'm overqualified, I'm this, I'm that. But in reality, I know a big reason why I don't have a job is because I intimidate people. I intimidate people because I'm a trans person with an Ivy League master's degree. I intimidate people because I'm an autistic person and uses my voice. I intimidate people because I'm a queer person who's navigated spaces that were not made for me. I intimidate people because I'm a black person that's lived in corporate and that's worked in corporate and been really successful in corporate spaces. I've gotten to the highest levels in places like Major League Baseball. So I say that to say like if you're here today and you have any sort of power in your organization, if you're a hiring manager, if you create HR policy, if you, you know, run an ERG, if you're in the C-suite, whatever, you know, just like recognize that like there are tons of other people out there, like like me, that have similar stories, that have similar backgrounds, that are highly qualified, that are really, really talented, brilliant people who you all are missing. And it's not on accident that like we're being missed, that we're being left out. I think if there's like one takeaway that I want folks to walk away from the conversation with, it's like I hope you realize like the depth of like the levels that like systemic discrimination and systemic harassment and systemic violence, you know, runs deep against people like me. And yeah, it's not an accident, it's intentional, right? And it's like I'm still here, I'm 34 years old, and I'm reiterating my age because most black trans people do not make it to be 34 years old. Um, the average life expectancy for a black trans person is like 25 to 28 years, you know, and even that is like pretty high for most black trans people. There aren't a lot of black trans elders, unfortunately. And I want to be a black trans elder. I aspire to be a black trans elder one day. But in order for me to do that, people like y'all, people who are allies or who want to be allies or who claim to be an ally have to actually be an ally, right? Which means like using your voice, using your power, you know, hiring us, paying us, you know, bringing us in to do Pride Month speaking engagements, but not just working with us in June, like working with us year-round. So yeah, I'm sorry that we didn't get to like the real depths of like workplace strategy, but I do hope that folks at least walk away from this conversation with like a little bit of that understanding and a little bit of like what I just said

Booking Bryce And Closing Thoughts

SPEAKER_00

basically.

SPEAKER_01

And remember, allyship is a verb. It is not another book club. I don't need you to share another article. No, um, I need you to do like real hard work, even when that hard work comes at the risk, because Bryce gets to take risks every day. He doesn't have a choice, he doesn't get to opt out of the risk.

SPEAKER_00

That's true.

SPEAKER_01

He has to exist as himself. I have to exist as myself, as a black woman, a black queer woman. And so someone made a right great comment here as well earlier. Pride is also in the same month as Juneteenth. And it is also okay to brook queer speakers for your Juneteenth conversations because black queer people exist. Yeah, and so much of the Pride movement was because of black trans women.

SPEAKER_00

100%. Black trans women and also like the Black Panther Party really stood by, you know, queer and trans people and organized with queer and trans people, especially in, you know, the Bay Area and communities like that. So absolutely, you know, this work has to be intersectional. It always has been intersectional, it always will be intersectional. You know, also want to shout out like the disability rights movement. Like, there's a lot of overlap between disability rights and LGBT rights and a lot of history there. So, yeah, you know, I would love to talk to you all more about all of this, about the history, about what you can do about some of those workplace strategies. So, you know, as we wrap up, like please follow me on LinkedIn. If you're not already already, feel free to connect with me, message me, DM me after this conversation. I will probably repost my booking link for spring and summer 2026. So if you are interested in bringing me to your company or organization, whether that's for Juneteenth, whether that's for pride, whether that's to talk about neurodivergence in the workplace, whether that's to talk about a combination of all of those fun things, you know, I would love to work with your company. I would love to work with your organization. So please connect, please reach out. And yeah, the ultimate act of allyship is helping a black trans guy pay his bills. So uh yeah, pay and hire black people, pay and hire black women, pay and hire black trans people, black queer folks. We need the support now more than ever. So again, like to seriously thank you to Maddie for having me in the platform. And thanks to everyone who took the time uh on your lunch break to be here today.

SPEAKER_01

If you are listening on the podcast version of this, you'll be able to find Bryce's LinkedIn booking link all in the paragraph body underneath here. And again, make sure you check the comments if you are on the live version for his booking links. Please hang out with Bryce, book Bryce, work with Bryce. You got a job. Bryce is in the market. And as always, thank y'all for crashing out with me. Thank you for crashing out with me. I am sure I'm gonna go to and bribe you for a part two because clearly the people want it. But again, happy, happy, happy rest of the day to y'all. Enjoy your crash out, use it productively, and I'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_00

Much love y'all. Bye.