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welcome to the first event of 2021 of the prca's lgbtq plus group happy new year and thank you for joining us this afternoon to discuss the topic does your gender or sexual identity impact how you're treated at work i'm lucky enough to be joined by five incredible panelists with experience and insights both in the pr and communications industry as well as through their roles as advocates and campaigners for greater inclusivity in the workplace in particular for the lgbtq plus community but before i introduce that introduce them i'd like to give a little background to today's event and subject choice the prca's lgbtq plus group is partnered with yougov and last summer we together conducted original research into lgbtq plus inclusivity in the pr and communications workplace the majority of respondents are pr and commerce professionals 40 of whom were members of the lgbtq plus community we'll post a link to the full press release in the comments box but in short the findings of the research were the lgbtq plus inclusivity is improving but there's still more work to do the results indicated ongoing discrimination with a fifth of lgbtq plus respondents reporting that they are subject to discrimination at work because of their sexual or gender identity alongside the data set a series of open-end comments in response to the questionnaire the picture these responses paints of ongoing stigma disrespect fear needing to avoid mentioning being lgbtq plus in front of clients bullying and assumptions or stereotyping is startling as an ally of the community i don't want to nurture an industry where we are explicit implicit or complicit in our endorsement of discrimination in any of its forms exclusive behavior is not necessarily overtly aggressive it can be seen in the form of microaggressions in turning a blind eye or simply not considering how others are thinking or feeling one of our panelists martin once said to me that a true ally advocates for those who are not in the room as well as those who are when there's little personal gain beyond being true to your values but everything to gain in terms of fostering a better culture and more accessible environment for all this group campaigns for teams work and an industry that are inclusive embracing our duty to represent everyone as equal as we promote excellence progress in npr at the end of this webinar we encourage all of you to get in touch with ideas of what the prca can do to improve lgbtq plus inclusivity in our workplaces we're now dropping a contact email address for all thoughts ideas or concerns into the comments box please talk to us we want to hear what you have to say you can also find me on linkedin or twitter i'd be glad to hear your input as i'm sure with today's panelists it's my belief that we need to work together to make a difference and find solutions to an unacceptable cultural norm as a symbol of working together we'd also like to invite one member of the lgbtq plus community to join me as co-chair of this group working together to tackle discrimination if this interests you or you know someone who would be perfect please get in touch i'm now going to introduce the panel the makeup of this panel is not intended to be representative of all parts of the lgbtq plus community they are passionate engaged and inspiring individuals open to sharing their personal experiences and views nobody on the panel represents the t in lgbtq plus but as a group we are lucky to have transgender friends and allies one of those who i count among my personal friends was the speaker at our first event after i took over as chair her name is charlie martin she's a racing driver nowadays on tracks and sims as we slip in and out of lockdown life before the event i asked her what she thought of the survey results and will end with her words as motivation for the discussion to follow she said everyone should feel able to be themselves in the workplace whether you view that from a holistic aspect or purely in terms of commercial output the positive outcomes are inescapable when people feel empowered and supported everyone benefits we want this conversation to be as informal as possible so please do share questions as we go start now and all your thoughts in the q a box we are here to listen there is a hashtag prca lgbtq plus and we'll do our best to keep up as we go for now though without further ado let me introduce you to the panel and panelists if you could do me the favor of a little wave when i introduce you or whatever you feel is more appropriate that would be fantastic i'm going to start with chloe davies chloe is a proud bisexual woman mother of two a creative workplace advocate chef and entrepreneur her work sees her campaigning for inclusion and equality in social spaces corporate organizations and the wider community chloe is head of pr and partnerships for myg work the global recruitment and networking hub for lgbt plus students graduates professionals and organizations who believe in workplace equality chloe volunteers with uk black pride as the executive and finance officer working closely with the executive director and the board of trustees to help shape the future of uk black pride she is also community lead for the london queer fashion show she describes herself as a mental health survivor openly discussing her journey with depression and mental health and advocates on usualizing these conversations in and outside of the workplace in all her work around the globe she aims to further connect those within the community while educating allies to continue disrupting and push for increased visibility understanding and appreciation of the community she works to serve next up is ant jackson a senior copywriter at wunderman thompson and proud member of the lgbtq plus community most known for writing little's tagline big on quality little on price and has over eight years experience working with some of the world's leading brands including airbnb bridgestone the olympic games sotheby's and uefa with a passion for creating a more diverse world and was 2020 vice chair of miram roots the agency's dni council a panelist at advertising and black creators mata events and a published writer for diva magazine europe's leading brand for lgbtqi women in 2017 her work with work with pride campaign for omnicom's open pride network featured as part of london pride's parade and in 2019 she led the brand positioning and copy development to launch the uk's first dedicated lgbtq plus market research and content creation social enterprise queer voices heard her commitments in this space led to her being recognized as a wacko future leader in 2020 she's also an advertising mentor a member of the diversity standards collective and of unite wonderman thompson's lgbtq plus group next martin comeycic he's an ambitious multipreneur activist and educator working with companies around europe asia and the americas on their inclusion for all strategies alongside being ceo of the equality diversity and inclusion consultancy diversity pride martin delivers executive education programs focused on inclusive leadership and hr strategy in transforming organizations at the london business school escp business school and mit he also runs his travel and events company trav beat in 2013 martin joined the pride in london organizing committee's sponsorship and fundraising team in only five years it tripled its income making pride the third largest one-day event in london drawing in over one million people martin currently splits his time between london and new york accelerating his ventures and delivering inclusion programs while an active member of the institute of directors adviser to the usa's national gay lesbian chambers of commerce and a mentor to lgbtq activists in the past 18 months martin has spoken about the importance of inclusion for all at gatherings including out leadership summit in paris out in equal summit in seattle and dni leaders conference in london the fourth panelist i would like to introduce is amelia stevens emilia has been a researcher at yougov the prca's lgbtq plus partner since september 2018 first taking part in the graduate training program and then going on to work full time in the reputation and b2b research team she's managed both quantitative and qualitative studies among diverse audiences providing analytical work and insight for a wide range of clients in summer 2020 she completed a research study for facebook looking at among other things the subject of brand responsibility in the light of recent socio-political issues such as the black lives matter protests in the uk and usa emilia has also served as co-chair of bu ugov's diversity and inclusion network since taking on this role she shifted the focus of the network from from a predominantly lgbtq plus angle to one encompassing all underrepresented and marginalized groups and last but not least we have emma wright a senior associate director in h k's entertainment team in her career emma has presided over some of the world's biggest gaming titles including call of duty ea sports fifa and the sims as well as major global sporting events from the fifa world cup to the olympic games emma currently leads h k teams for activision esl facebook reality labs and twitch and provides gaming council for spotify previously mlad led the adidas football account which produced the now iconic paper magazine shoot of leo messi with a goat emma is passionate about social environmental causes and in 2017 set up h k better impact to help brands align to the un's sustainable development goals she's part of h k's equal leadership group creating a louder culture for diversity and inclusivity at the agency out of work emery's co-chair of proud and palace the official lgbt plus fan group of crystal palace football club and has worked extensively with the club kick it out and other organizations to improve the experience of lgbt plus fans in football so without further ado everybody has heard enough from me i think probably for a lifetime let alone one panel so my first question handing over and i'm going to start with chloe is what is your personal response to to the proposition and why do you think that gender and sexual identity have an impact on how you have been treated in the workplace and how you've observed others being treated okay so i don't want to take out the time for everyone else because how long how long do you have to answer a question i guess i'll start off first and foremost before my gender or my identity i'm a black woman um so i think that when we talk about how does your identity define who you are i think the unfortunately the reality in my case is what i look like has been predisposed by society so before i can even you know show my identity actually we have a preconceived notion as as the entire world saw you know in the height of 2020 last year for black lives matter our black and brown bodies aren't necessarily viewed in the same light um when i was thinking about this i actually thought like you know where did i start my mum works at peace jones in sloane square and it's 16 and four four days old when you were legally allowed to work um she said i stopped your pocket money you start on saturday don't embarrass me um and so when i joined there on my induction 1999 a long time ago i the first day they said one in two men here are gay so if this is something you're not comfortable with this isn't the place for you to work and i've been out since i was 15. so at 16 it was amazing to actually go and work somewhere where they were so open about being lgbt and so it was more about the barriers i faced in the workplace are more about being female and being black than they were about being lgbt but i think when we think of the many layers of our identity they always have an impact because it's how other people view you not necessarily how you view yourself i think i'm amazing um and you know that's not that i you know you have to you have to be your own support and you have to toot your own horn so i know that as long as i put my mind to it i'm very good at what i do but the rest of the world has an opinion on how good they think that that is and i think that's the barriers that we're all trying to change and the different things that we are doing the different work that we're doing to change other people's opinion based on what we can see or what we can't and it's interesting because um you say about all of us you know basically needing to have our own backs and advocate for ourselves but there's also this really important role of allies that was kind of central to your bio and i know you and i have spoken before about the fact that martin who i'm going to hand to now has been an ally in all kinds of guys is to both of us absolutely martin i'm i'm interested to know what what your experience is and if it's similar to chloe's or or very different i'm trying to admit myself welcome to the virtual world um the experiences when it comes to gender identity and perhaps the visual identity that you put out there yes a lot of experiences are great and i love how london for example i said bubble allowed us to to be ourselves but um as you already mentioned you know with the intro i i travel quite a lot i'm currently in a country where for example me wearing my london clothing wouldn't be necessarily appropriate and that is in pr that is in marketing in any business simply environments that i am joining every single time i need to question whether i should reveal my gender um well gender identity identity first of all like yes i i identify as a male but then there is you know with the lgbtq layer on it automatically people do judge you and i you know i remember even you know just over a week ago i was sitting at the table you know lovely dinner with people who i barely knew because they came into the islands as well uh clients and then suddenly you know they asking me about my partner and i'm like should i say that i have a husband or should i just say that i have a partner uh you question that because you never know what the reaction can be um uh so yeah so there are you know mix of really great uh you know things like chloe said you know some of the environments are extremely friendly uh but some others and in general unfortunately the pr marketing world is yet to accept a lot uh and to kind of to get us to the level where you know me wearing for example uh an earring you know it's not going to be suddenly a you know a huge controversy uh you know or even uh men wearing dresses uh you know that's not gonna be a problem when they go to events as well so uh there's quite a lot uh that we need to do um again my feeling my experiences are very mixed on this one uh but yes i do try to be an ally to you know to whoever walks into the room let's let's have a blank page on everyone who walks in rather than go with our biases and judge the book by the cover um you know we shouldn't necessarily be doing this a lot of people still go with the biases i try to not to um and i will point out if someone will do it i'll be like no no there's stick and stones they stay behind us we come into 2021 um and that's the new world so new abnormal and and tying together what what you kind of touched on martin also what chloe mentioned one of the interesting things about diversity is that there are some areas of diversity that are visible and therefore whether we want to or not we automatically become part of a conversation and that will automatically lead to people's reactions to us in some ways there are other areas of diversity which are invisible and one of the things that you mentioned about you know do i say that i have a husband or do i just say i have a partner and then i leave it neutral it's not untrue but it's for sure uncontroversial but maybe you wanted to say husband in the research we found that a number of people from the lgbtq plus community were saying that in the position of being on agency side you're actually not just thinking about do i feel comfortable saying this what would this person think but you actually have the agency client dynamic to take into account as well and the fact that you're trying to win work and business and emma i think you probably know that i'm going to come to you and i also saw you nodding because you worked in client services for some time what what is your experiences at yeah i think um you know the added complication is and martin's touched on this like we're all working in a very borderless and international way now so um you know sometimes we have clients in countries where you know culturally they're in a very different place in the journey of lgbt plus inclusion than we are and legally they're in different places as well and you have to um you have to be a bit of a chameleon to that and i think you know i've i've had mixed experiences as i think everyone on this panel has with um i've had employers who uh kind of wanted and pressured me into presenting more female for client meetings in terms of my dress code and things and um i will always be happiest in teens and trainers and that's not necessarily you know how i feel most comfortable and how you're going to get the most out of me in a work environment if i'm not you know feeling comfortable as my most authentic self and then in another way the uncomfortable truth which i'm trying to get more comfortable saying is that there's been occasions where it's probably been a benefit to me because i've worked in sports for so long and i walk into football environments and while you know i i have female colleagues and former colleagues who have had oh so do you actually like football then do you actually support do you have a team do you go to games whereas i get i i really remember the moment i got asked also do you go to away games as well and i was like oh i'm a bit more into the center of their club here like they're you're asking you know i've got a season ticket but you want to know if i'm on this level of going to away games so i think um you know as agency people there's that very difficult dynamic of being a chameleon to your clients and understanding that some clients are going to be more corporate and some clients going to be more relaxed and flexing yourself to that and being authentic to yourself and being true to yourself and being able to come home and say you know i felt comfortable today i didn't feel and there's a difference between all of this with privacy and secrecy so some things i would just keep private because they're my business that's my private life it doesn't need to come into the workplace but if it tips into feeling like it has to be secrecy and you have to actively hide something that's when i think you start to feel that internal conflict and that um that uncomfortable feeling of i've had to actively hide something about myself it's not i just didn't want to say i've had to you know lie or or change things so yeah i think that that's the constant battle with being in a client-facing role and again in agencies like it's not just clients it's suppliers it's um the hundreds of different people that you speak to every single week month that you have to constantly ask yourself well how much of myself do i put into this on a professional level and on a personal level um which is a real balancing act for all of us i think and can i just ask everybody like and actually the audience as well please feel free to comment on this but maybe everybody can like nod or vigorously shake their head or remain completely neutral do you feel that you are able to share as much of yourself as you would like to in terms of the invisible areas of diversity in terms of who you are when you're at work oh we've got i think that there's also a bit of a generational divide there as well which is really interesting and it would be you know you see this a lot in data about how younger generations find that they feel more comfortable and more able to be themselves than those who've been in the workplace for longer anyway i'm going to come to you out because i want to pick up on the agency client dynamic and the the ironic tension in the fact that actually it's kind of well recognized and charlie touched on it in her quote that she submitted beforehand that diverse teams are more creative and deliver better commercial results and yet you may have a client who is happy with that kind of in the back office but doesn't necessarily want that represented in the front office in the team that's delivered to them as a creative what is your experience i think i'm very lucky to work with a really diverse bunch of people first of all and you made a really good point about about age i think because thinking about my own experiences i feel quite lucky i suppose that i've been in the industry for less than 10 years and my experiences are very different to how i'd imagine close experiences would have been it's like we've gone from being in the in the 90s to people asking anyone who joins the company are you okay with working with lgbt people to you of commissioning a survey asking lgbt people if they're okay in the workplace um so that's really positive to see um but i really feel that unless everyone can be their most authentic self at work and show their own perspectives and their own stories um we're going to keep making the same stuff and we're going to keep coming up with the same ideas really and this is why i think especially in advertising at the moment and and in most forms of marketing things kind of feel like they've kind of run a bit dry and and it's probably because even though you've got the creative teams who may be much more diverse and there might be many different perspectives um which is brilliant the further up you get in every single person that you need to to get approval from all of a sudden that diversity filter gets kind of narrower and narrower and you end up it's basically speaking to majority sort of white cis straight males again and amelia i haven't forgotten you i know you're there but there is a reason that i came to you last because you not only have your own experience which i would love to hear about particularly as a member of of gen z and seeing like how how things are changing but also you have really been at the helm of not only releasing this data but analyzing the data and seeing what everybody else had to say so i was interested in both what you saw kind of from your professional research position and also what you experience day to day sure and so i'll put my data hat on first and read you a little statistic to start with and then we can go into the boring stuff like my experience um so we asked people to rate themselves on a scale and agreement scale to the statement as an lgbtq person i feel comfortable referencing my sexuality gender identity at work um of the people that agreed with that it was 70 a good majority not everyone unfortunately but a good majority and then we had 19 who either disagreed or strongly disagreed with that and if i'm remembering correctly that's the same proportion of people who have faced outward discrimination in the workplace that is very sad to me i think that is a a pretty high proportion you know that would be if we're looking at that as one in five people that's you know that's that's one person on this panel more than that in terms of my own experience something that i've found very true throughout my career is that having allies of any sort is really important and that's just not the face value of that statement but in terms of having close friends that you work with i think being open is very important if i have a friend or a colleague who's telling me about you know for example a heterosexual man who's telling me about his wife and his children great i think there's an onus on me to be open back with him if i feel safe to do so and tell him about my boyfriend my girlfriend whatever it whatever it might be at that moment you know if if if and where i feel it's okay to do so in terms of negative experiences you know not not really i mean i was at a um i was at a pitch once with my old manager who is a married woman married to a woman and it was a pitchfork project about diversity and inclusion and it was about you know can we speak to um people of color people with disabilities people you know of different and gender and sexual identities and when we arrived they said we're actually really disappointed you didn't turn up with a more diverse group of people and i remember thinking ouch and i remember my manager going well i'm married to a woman yes so proud of you so yeah i think that's about that's about the size of it it's really interesting hearing different perspectives and before we move on to the next question for the panel we've actually had a few things in from the audience so i'm just going to read a few of those out so marcus has said i tried to do this so this this was when i was saying you know do people feel that you can be open at work i tried to do this in order to be as authentic as possible it's hard at times though agree with emma's flex comments so there you go somebody who's had a similar experience to you and then antonia has said my own personal experience another antonia who thought we were going to get to him my own personal experience is that i've never felt more comfortable with being my true and authentic self as a lesbian working within pr and communications than any other environment this is one thing that's kept me in this industry so long it certainly feels for me that pr comms and creative tend to attract more creative alternative types certainly in london or maybe i have a skewed view would be good to hear more from the findings of the research to reset my own potential bias i'd be interested to know different perspectives does anybody have a different perspective to antonio's experience has anybody experienced the country where our industry has been actively exclusive i wouldn't say it's exclusive but i think that um i think you get to a point where you we have to be careful and i think that's now why edi and dni and diversity is a key and um i guess now we talk about intersectionality but not sometimes in the right context is that so we don't become tokenistic we have this idea of you know diversity means okay well you know we can talk about lesbians and you know we can talk about bisexual but when we talk about bisexual you know the bisexual woman is always like you know incredibly good looking and there's not the other dynamics of who we really look like within the community they're just the stereotypes of you know what we look like in film or what we look like on print and so i think that to a certain extent we we are on that dangerous side every now and again of the stereotype of what we think the community should look like and that's you know someone comes in a client comes in and go we want this and you're like that's not really what it looks like like can we try and work on that um so i think that's that's the part where we're in now is kind of to try and undo that work um because i think that yeah you can absolutely be free and i totally agree i think is it is it dan that said i'm you know it's being in this space where actually you know you can flex and then you know the other lady that said but it's one of the most welcoming spaces absolutely i found so many of my own community within pr and creative but um are we all reflected in what we really look like i don't i think a very long way to go from kind of that part and i think that's the part of you know utilizing is a strong word but just utilizing all of our existences in the mainstream in so many different ways yeah and actually to pick up on that um daniel zedd has said i feel like i can be fully open at work but that's only because i'm working for an lgbtq organization now when i was working previously in a pr agency and we'd have a client meeting i'd be told to dress in a certain way essentially not to put on anything that attracts attention now one of the topics we wanted to cover today i think this is a kind of great segue into about kind of microaggressions because it's really easy to focus on two groups of people those who are being discriminated against and those who are actively discriminating they are intolerant and they feel intolerant and sometimes they're even quite proud about the fact that they're intolerant but there are actually other groups there are groups of people who unintentionally discriminate and there are groups of people who don't discriminate but they are just bystanders who let it go when they see discrimination and in many ways these groups can be as powerful to convert or engage with as as those who are kind of actively intolerant and of course we want to have conversations with them as well about what might be driving that um but i'm interested to know kind of what your experiences are and also if people have examples of microaggressions because i know you know even in in my life i have heard i would like to think i haven't said things but i've certainly heard things where i wouldn't necessarily have registered their microaggression because i've put this layer over the top of oh but that wasn't how it was intended so what do you guys think who wants to volunteer i'm looking for a willingness in a very hectic way use the raise hand function so uh not my first zoom call everybody um this is something actually that that we've dealt with a lot uh with proud and palace and the work we do the football club because uh one of the one of the big i guess things that we have is you've got um in any football stadium where uh people are boiling over and football as much going fans it still attracts a certain demographic um you know we've had issues at crystal palace for a long time that our main rivals are brighton and brighton as a place is known for um you know it's high lgbt plus community and brighton pride and all of this so for a long time the the rivalries built into homophobic chants and stereotypes and all of this so we one of our big things that we wanted to do was give other fans and that included fan groups and podcasts and all of this the language for how to challenge someone if they're sitting next to you at the game and they say something that you're not comfortable with and to normalize that challenging and uh we worked with over 40 different fan groups of crystal palace and had this campaign called there's 99 reasons to hate brighton homophobia doesn't need to be one of them we had this really fun thing on twitter which was like right let's try and come up with all the other reasons that there are that we don't like brighton as a football club you know they're terrible kits and a terrible stadium and all of this and um what we really found is that it made especially on social media uh because we created this um jpeg that people could use you could tell when you get pr people working and activism all gets very creative and over the top but um we we have this jpeg that people could use on twitter to challenge people and say this isn't all right and it's not just proud and palace saying it it's you know five year plan fanzine and um hr tco and all of these other people you know and and fan groups everywhere from dubai to sydney to san francisco all had their names on this thing and it just became this really powerful way of of enabling football fans to turn to the person next to them at selhurst park in the middle of a game and go no that's that chance not all right anymore and then move on and then we can all get back to the game and watching palace lose which is what we do best um but it's a re it's a really difficult thing and i've i've tried to stop using this quote because of the problems with the author but i still find it so um relevant to this which is a line from harry potter where dumbledore says it's a brave thing to stand up to your enemies but it's a far braver thing to stand up to your friends so to turn around to your colleague your teammate the person that you've sat next to a football stadium for 10 15 years and say that's not all right is is such a difficult and and brave thing to do and you know then you are doing all the dynamics of your workplace and it might be someone more senior than you and i've seen in the q a someone's saying about how you challenge a client if they say the wrong thing without there being professional repercussions um and i do i feel a lot for bystanders because um you know it they've seen hear a lot of things and then there's it's a really difficult and brave thing to challenge so um i think the role that allies play in all of this can't be underestimated and and their bravery when they do step up and say something is how we'll progress in a meaningful way i think it's funny actually that you ended with allies emma because i was going to say i've i've witnessed um members of many different underrepresented groups but you know we're talking specifically about the lgbtq plus group today kind of speak up in their defense and it's bizarrely seen as more antagonistic than when an ally does it and the number of times that i've just been able to basically say you know that's not okay when somebody said something and it just lands and they actually address it whereas they see that there's this odd confrontation if somebody who's actually defending themselves makes the point um and to that point we've got a couple of questions and i'm going to address the first one to ant so it's from sean carroll and he says how do you think agencies can combat client-side prejudice without losing business and allowing employees to be themselves is it possible i think for me that starts with your values and i think one of the sort of key parts of sort of having relationships with your clients is being clear with them at the start of that relationship and going okay this is what we're all about and this is what we stand for and this is what we live by and this is what we want to show in our work and if they're on board with that which i mean they should they should be um then i think you're in a you're sort of laying out the the foundations um fairly early on um so like for example where i am at wendell thompson at the moment we're looking at we've we've got our um diversity groups we've got our lgbt group and we're looking at sort of how can our values um from sort of the top down our agency values marry up with our values within that organ without within those individual um groups and and that's that's what we need everyone to live by so going into every single meeting it's how do we put a diversity lens on this work what we're looking at the creative brief what audiences are we speaking to we're probably not speaking to an abc one demographic of gemma who's 35 years old and she's got two kids it's probably a lot more diverse than that so so where are these opportunities we need to be um we need to be i keep jumping around we need to be shaping culture as much as we are representing it um and i think within pr um and marketing and advertising we've got a real opportunity to do that um and really when we're looking at lgbt in particular when you're talking about something like the pink pounds um especially with the younger generation there's a high percentage of people who identify as something other than heterosexual so it's a growing it's a growing we call it a minority at the moment but i don't think it necessarily will be with the way we're now looking at gender and sexuality um so really if if you want to survive in the next 50 years time you need to be thinking about diversity as as one of your business strategies and objectives and part of it as well is that that path to usualization as chloe says but through multiple different touch points through the work that we do as ant's been speaking about through how we engage in the workplace through how allies stand alongside members of underrepresented groups whatever group that may be and as i mentioned in the introduction you know as as martin said advocating for people when they're not in the room because that is incredibly powerful and i'm going to come to you martin actually with the next question which is from alfred slade he says in the event that a key client makes an offensive or bigoted remark how should we balance the need to challenge this behavior with the risk of personal or professional blowback and i feel like you would be a very measured person and giving advice on this question well i'm not sure if i can be measured on this one um i guess with the companies and organizations i work with including let's say london business school for example i know i go in front of people that come from so many different uh walks of life from some of the different parts of the world and we have a lot of people specifically coming to listen to what we say from middle east now me as a gay man you know i do not necessarily should be saying about my sexuality in front of people especially when we talk about let's say leadership to people from middle east but i very early in a stage when uh when i was joining the organization and i'm not talking only about the lbs but also other ones too i said look i'm i will never hide my sexuality if that is gonna be something beneficial for me to say during my lecture i will say it out loud and i will never be afraid now question mark how do you do it um you just do it naturally is i always say uh you know point out when there is a problem with the client just don't be oh my gosh this is really wrong thing to say because yes you can lose the business unfortunately you can uh have someone on the other side who's gonna be offended by you even pointing this out but what is very important is to um to take time and educate someone why perhaps it's not okay first of all um you know if it's a client you know say look as a company and again your the company that you work for hopefully is going to be behind you on this one will simply say look you know we support you and if the client is going to go then the client is going to go um and you need to simply be uh restrict with certain things um and and and but they also have definitely a backing with uh you know with the company that you work for um if the company believe in you know inequality they support lgbtq community and again looking at the very much intersectional levels as well uh then you know make sure that the client that you approach is simply gonna sign up to the terms and conditions too uh we need to create the worlds you know that is gonna be better not not only for us but for people that will come after us you know i always say and i know you know our conversations with katie as well like you know prca for example they do as an organization i would say you have a duty to start hashing this out to say to all your agencies look these are the guidelines that we that we should follow because this is something that we believe is good for not only the specifically you know commercial benefits for the company but also for your people that work with you which should be the most important obviously part um and you know i've had situations in the past where i did refuse to service individuals or organizations that simply did not uh want to sign up to the very basic terms and conditions non-discrimination you know terms and conditions which again is a standard thing if you will not appreciate the person that comes in whether they are then identify as an lgbtq or not i want you to treat them as a human being this workplace you want to come in let's do the business we can make the world a good place if you know if we will not be as judgmental uh pointing out is very important is a difficult thing to do uh but very important thing to do uh yes like you know katie you pointed out as well is stand up for the people that are not in the room uh we need to remember about those who are not present in the room not every single meeting that you have with the client is gonna be uh attended by person of color you know person with disability person you know a woman or non-binary person trans person lgbtq whoever you are from the community not always is all gonna be there so please do always look out for each other and they will look out for you too that's that's something that i've learned in in the past year that decade over a decade in this in the field people do come and support me that way too because i stood up for them when they were not in the room so do the same you will not lose the client if you lose that's the they lost you will get and as a and as an agency in 2021 and beyond as and already said if you do want to survive in the next 20 30 50 years you need to your client needs to need to be up to date if they are not i would tell you you find more people who will just pay even extra money for your services because there are people who are willing to spend money with inclusive organizations and agencies so don't be afraid to lose the client if you do that well goodbye just wait goodbye and simply go to the next one here i think it's really important this idea of your employer being an ally as well as individuals who you know in in your personal or professional life being allies and that that kind of responsibility now i want to come to you emilia to talk about the ways we go about behavior change but first of all i just want to say i'm actually very excited by the amount of interaction we're getting in the chat and the q a but putting that to one side i wanted to say that sean who asked the question that i put to ant has replied saying can definitely relate with the pressure of having to act and dress a certain way to make sure you fit in with everyone else in the meeting especially within corporate pr which just seems so old-fashioned and outdated and then joe and i think chloe you've got something to say about this said just to share an experience that contributed to me leaving a previous role i was once in a conversation with a high-paying client who referred to nancy boyes to describe the competition i was told to brush it off and toughen up by my former line manager they paid the bills was the response he meant nothing by it chloe what have you got to say yeah he didn't not mean anything by you know i've i've learned in 2021 to be unapologetically who i am and i think it's like martin said you know it's like aunt was saying your organization now integrity is everything and your own personal integrity has also got to be the strongest background you know you really have to know how much of yourself you're going to give an organization but also the expectation of how much they should give you and if they are not prepared to show up for you that is incredibly bad behavior so well done for leaving but that should also be the benchmark of how i never want to be treated again by an organization and so when we think about you know what to do if a client says the wrong thing you know when case talked about microaggressions the one i hate the most that i always often get honest experience like this what chloe you speak so well like how am i supposed to speak versus they might say to amelia or katie and emma oh my god you were fantastic but chloe you spoke so well because the idea of what i look like and what i sound like and the stereotype of who black women should be isn't necessarily my voice so whether we are lgbtqia plus or whoever within the spectrum whether we're black white chinese or whoever um it's about how we represent ourselves and that as a an industry it's about like martin said if the space is not there then we create the space and we bring that person into the room so you know when we're pitching how often i've been on a pitch course someone said hey what do you think about the black community and i'm like i am not the voice for all the black community just like you know ever emma what about you know football i'm like well i like football too but you know again not on that scale yeah emma what do you think about rugby and it's like no i said football i didn't necessarily say rugby it's this idea of what we might do but being able to just you know hold your ground and actually say no that's not how it's going to work and especially having you know the moral compass of these are our diversity standards within our organization this is our ethos it's what we believe and this is what we will not work with um because we all remember the pr nightmares of 2020 and there were quite some big ones so i think in 2021 we're not going to get away with the oh well we're still working on that if you're at the beginning of your journey call but you need to be on the journey now it you know we're not going to have the option of not doing that anymore and there's this point as well about putting yourself in other people's shoes and not simply thinking oh well i'm not part of that community so that's not my problem and it's really interesting actually because you know joe you shared that example and i read it i've had exactly the same experience with sexual harassment identical yeah but he's from a prospective client so you can literally tell him not to do what he's doing but don't complain about him because then the new business would go away um anyway emilia what i would like to talk about is is this issue of judgment so obviously there are many people probably on this call and outside of this call who feel judged by those who discriminate either knowingly or unintentionally but equally there's this point about human behavior and i ask you because you kind of interact with human behavior and how how we respond to things all day every day whereby if we call out that behavior in certain ways people may reflect and change their opinions i mean if we're lucky they they may even over time like shift their values but if we call it out in another way they may actually dig in and go into sort of fixed mindset rather than growth mindset and become more entrenched in in their original position because they feel backed into a corner do you have any kind of experience or advice on how you would suggest navigating that oh where to start um i think there's i think there could be a place for humor in correcting if we can use that word behaviors from people that you think are inappropriate i think there can be a place for explanations and i like i i thought it was quite interesting what we were saying earlier about how it can be almost that the lgbtq plus person ends up looking like the aggressor if they um call out behavior and i think that's because i'm not i'm pleased i've not experienced it in my work in my current workplace but i think it's the case that if i'm having a conversation with someone and they say something homophobic biphobic you know anything like that and they're talking about a gay person who's over there and not involved in the conversation it doesn't touch them they're not going to be they're not necessarily going to be held accountable whereas if they've offended amelia the person standing in front of them it may immediately become something more tangible so i used to work in a sunbed shop in southeast london so i've definitely had experience as a kind of hormonal 17 year old aggressively outing myself to my customers who were like oh you know saying this and that and the other kind of homophobic things and which we got a lot and as i say i think there's a place for humor but i was also having a conversation with a friend the other day about those kind of hideous videos that were all over social media a couple of years back of white men harassing harassing islamic women on public transport and i think everyone watches that and goes i wouldn't let that happen i would not let that happen but i think in a workplace it can be a lot more difficult because you can't stand up call them all the names under the sun and get you know it's it's not it's different it's the workplace there's an expectation of being professional and i think you would hope that in 2021 it wasn't like the people on the on the public transport it was just the kind of as we say the jokes and the microaggressions but as i said i think there's a place for humor in calling people out i think you can say you can you just say to them that's not right and do you know why that's not right do you need me to explain to you or even just saying to them tell me why that's funny tell me why that joke you're making is funny and tell me why it's not offensive absolutely and did you want to add something yeah i was just going to say amelia's made a really good point on humor it breaks down barriers and i think when it comes to judging people breaking down barriers is one of the most important things you can do humor is a difficult one sometimes it's like for example i've i've made jokes about myself and being a bisexual woman and it's funny because i say it but it's not funny if it's someone who i haven't met before who says it in a new meeting room um and i'm around a table of strangers so it's some people will feel very uncomfortable with humor and it can easily sort of go into the world of becoming a microaggression and someone can sort of brush it off and say oh i was only joking they might not find it funny so i think breaking down barriers and using humor can be great but in a safe space um so for example something that we did last year was um we held an event that was called ask a queer person anything and it addressed the elephant in the room head-on and it went you you know you've all got these questions like when we're talking about microaggressions i've been asked things like oh who's the man or um how does it work or something like that but but it's it's a space that actually everyone who signs up to it can go yeah i'm here because i want to know this and i don't quite know how to how to go about asking that but people are so scared of saying the wrong thing especially when it comes to lgbtq it's always changing no one knows everything we're all still educating ourselves so just sort of having a safe space to go right let's let's let's be out in the open about this and let's be brave let's let's ask those questions but with people who are comfortable to be there to answer them not just going up to the first sort of lgbt person you can see in the office and and stopping them when they're off guard so um we've only got six minutes left um and i actually think the conversation's flowing pretty well and we probably could all stay here for at least another hour so what i want to say is we're not going to dig too much into exactly what the prca should do right now because what i think would be fantastic would be using the email address that we've posted twice now in the chat if people get in touch afterwards with all their ideas and don't forget as well if you've got nominees for my co-chair um somebody from the lgbtq plus community please do send those over as well then that would be great but what we are going to do is we've got one more question in the q a and also interestingly kind of counterpoint to uh emilia and ant's discussion about humor marcus has said i corrected a client who simply assumed i had a wife by using humor and feel like he came out looking victimized even after i said i wasn't offended i just wanted to clarify awkward on a zoom call but we've moved on past it fine so you know it i think we all are aware it's a very sensitive area to navigate but one of the ways in which we can navigate it is by learning from one another's experience and sharing those and i hope as well as getting in touch with with kiri using the email address provided i'll say it one more time in the chat before zoom ends and then it goes away and disappears forever certainly from my perspective and i think i'm speaking on behalf of everybody on the panel today like do reach out through social media if you'd like to as well very happy to continue this conversation beyond this webinar but before we wrap we've got one other question in the q a so i'm going to read it out and let's see what we've got to say it's from an anonymous attendee i feel like lgbtq diversity issues have been slightly sidelined by black lives matter and the emphasis on that movement which feels to some extent like it's become the workplace dei issue du jour which i'm not arguing with it is deserving of a lot of attention but how do we make sure that all voices communities groups etc remain part of the diversity conversation i'm in hr and i feel that to some extent if i recruited an lgbtq new hire that would be certainly welcome but it wouldn't be viewed as favorably as if it was an lgbtq and black new hire so honestly who would like to answer this question chloe's come off mute if anybody else would like you can't talk about black lives matter without talking about black lgbtq plus lives so if you're catching up now i'm sorry um but the reality is we have talked about lgbtq plus lives for 51 years openly in the workspace and yes there's an incredible amount of work to be done but from a hr professional can you say you've done the same for black lives and so whether you have to do that for a quota or not the fact that you'll be giving lgbtq plus people regardless of how they identify via race the same the same shot the same standard the same chance if you can consistently say yes you can answer that question then you might be the exception to the vast reality that we saw play out around the globe all the way through 2020 and so i'm sorry that you feel that way but unfortunately as a black person that doesn't see themselves utilized in society in the same way that my white counterparts do i would welcome the fact that the rest of the world is waking up and saying we want to share space with not only black people but people of south asian descent that we're giving more space to people of asian and oriental oriental descent in ways that we've never done that but we're actually going to do that responsibly because this is true allyship we've been fighting this battle for women for 101 years and we still haven't got it right we're fighting this battle for lgbtq plus people for 51 years and we're still not getting it right and really this is the second time in 10 years that black lives matter has ignited and we didn't get it right the first time so if we're truly starting to get it right now and that's uncomfortable welcome to being uncomfortable we're all uncomfortable right now but only from that place of uncomfortability is where we get true change um so yeah i'm not going to apologize for not giving a possibly nice response because it's uncomfortable for everyone but this is where we do the work and you know katie you talked about what does allyship mean i would hope i am an ally to everyone within my fellow lgbtq community and beyond and get to where i am today on my own and i hope to help everybody else that i possibly can that is true allyship so um you don't lose by uplifting another characteristic i would hope you know i'm trying to drag parents into everything i can do because it's you know for me it's in real time what's most important but that's that's how we win that's how we collectively win as a society so you know emma as a fellow football fan i'm an arsenal fan don't hate me but we can talk football you know we can i can bring you into spaces and that's what you're supposed to do pay it forward share share the opportunities so um you know i'm happy if anonymous would like to get in touch i'm on linkedin but it's how it's how we win for everyone we have to i would i would also like to suggest that maybe rather than one underrepresented group having too much attention the issue is that the other group deserves an equal amount of attention so if the issue is that in your workplace people are now paying attention to racial equality but they're not paying attention to uh sexual or gender identity equality then maybe that needs to be elevated um rather than kind of slightly putting to to one side the the other issue and and you know i think this the point of inclusivity it's not that it's inclusivity for one group or inclusivity for one group at the expense of other groups it's inclusivity for everyone and i've sat in a room before where i've had a friend who is a straight white male and people have made disparaging comments on him and i know a lot about his background and they don't with all kinds of assumptions of the privilege he must have had that he definitely did not have and i've advocated on his behalf because inclusivity is inclusivity and not making assumptions about people and not stereotyping and giving everybody space to breathe and be themselves so it's six o'clock which means we have to say goodbye but i really appreciate all of your comments there's lots of enthusiastic things coming in through the chat and everybody interacting there are lots of ways to get in touch if you can't find us by any other means please i have a very unusual name you can find me on any social media send a message saying it's impossible to get in touch but i really want to be part of this conversation we will all continue to be part of it obviously emilia represents our partners yougov so they definitely will be working hand in hand with us there are more events coming up thank you as well to the prca for helping to coordinate this i hope you have a lovely evening keep sticking up for one another and stay strong good night