Impactful Inclusion Toolkit

ACTIVITY 29Embrace Gender Identities

“Gender identity belongs to the person who lives it, but one cannot deny that observers will make assumptions about us based on their understanding or comprehension of gender signals.”

—Jamison Green

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Growing up in the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, I was aware of only two genders—male and female. When I entered corporate America in the mid-'80s, I came to know colleagues who identified as gay or queer. However, male and female remained their gender identity as far as I knew. When I could not discern gender, I learned that individuals described themselves as androgenous and that it is completely inappropriate to satisfy our curiosity by asking them about their gender. As I socialized in new circles and traveled the world, I was slowly awakened to my narrow perspective of gender. Continual focus through that lens is highly exclusive of the beauty of individuals that I've had the pleasure of meeting and who identify as genderfluid, moving between gender identities; agender, having no specific gender identity; and bigender, having two gender identities. Gender identity is a personal sense of self. It's how someone conceptualizes their own gender. Getting familiar with language and terminology is a sign of respect and positions us to better understand and support our LGBTQ colleagues.

If you grew up like me with an awareness of two genders, becoming gender fluent is going be confusing at first. My children came out almost a decade ago, and I am ...