Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood and I am the host of the
Joanne Lockwood: Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I will be interviewing a number
Joanne Lockwood: of amazing people and simply having a conversation around the
Joanne Lockwood: subject of inclusion, belonging and generally making the
Joanne Lockwood: world a better place for everyone to thrive in. If you want to join me
Joanne Lockwood: in the future and be a guest, then please do drop me a line to
Joanne Lockwood: jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk.
Joanne Lockwood: You'll also be able to catch up with all of the shows on itunes, Spotify
Joanne Lockwood: and all of the users. Plug in your headphones, grab a
Joanne Lockwood: decaf and let's get going. Today's episode
Joanne Lockwood: is episode two with a title Embracing
Joanne Lockwood: Diversity and Inclusion. As a small business owner and
Joanne Lockwood: I have the absolute honour and privilege to be joined
Joanne Lockwood: by my friend Katie Neves. I first met
Joanne Lockwood: Katie at a true inclusion event last summer in London, but we've been
Joanne Lockwood: online business associates for much longer. Katie
Joanne Lockwood: is a photographer and she also runs a speaking business and advocacy called Call to
Joanne Lockwood: be Trans. So earlier, I asked Katie to describe her
Joanne Lockwood: superpower and she said being able to connect
Joanne Lockwood: with people, be very honest and to be able to get her
Joanne Lockwood: passion across, isn't that amazing? So, hello, Katie, how
Joanne Lockwood: are you? Hello, Joe. Thanks very much for inviting me on
Katie Neeves: podcast number two.
Joanne Lockwood: Exciting. So, tell us a bit about yourself.
Joanne Lockwood: What is your business? What do you do? Right, well,
Katie Neeves: basically, I've been a photographer and filmmaker for
Katie Neeves: 33 years, but two years ago I came out
Katie Neeves: very publicly as being transgender after living for 48 years
Katie Neeves: as a man. So I now have a new business as a
Katie Neeves: trans ambassador, which runs alongside my photography business. So I help
Katie Neeves: companies with their diversity and inclusion by doing trans
Katie Neeves: awareness training, public speaking and media appearances. But I'm still doing the
Katie Neeves: photography as well, so I've got those two things on the go,
Katie Neeves: but they fulfil both of my passions. So
Katie Neeves: I'm passionate about photography and video and I'm passionate about helping
Katie Neeves: people with their diversity and inclusion,
Katie Neeves: particularly, I think, with trans. I think what I
Katie Neeves: find is that a lot of trans people don't know that it's
Katie Neeves: okay to be trans, and
Katie Neeves: it really is. I don't think so many
Katie Neeves: trans people don't know that. And so I want to try and fucking
Katie Neeves: lead by example and just show people that
Katie Neeves: I'm so much happier as I am now. And
Katie Neeves: life's good. Yeah. So you must have had a
Joanne Lockwood: dilemma those two or three years ago about your business,
Joanne Lockwood: how people would accept you and the world was ready
Joanne Lockwood: for a Katie like you, or whether
Joanne Lockwood: you'd find your business falling apart. I mean, how have you found the world to
Joanne Lockwood: be in the last couple of years? It's been an interesting couple of
Katie Neeves: years, I say. Good, though. It's good on the whole, good.
Katie Neeves: I've had some challenges along the way. The first challenge was
Katie Neeves: the name of my photography business was, and still is named
Katie Neeves: after my old male name, which is Martin. So it's called Martin Neves
Katie Neeves: photography and film. Now, I think when I
Katie Neeves: was about to come out, it had been an established brand
Katie Neeves: for 22 years then, and I felt that I didn't want to
Katie Neeves: change the name of the business because I could have changed it to Katie Neves
Katie Neeves: Photography and Film. But then I thought, well, nobody would know
Katie Neeves: who I was, so I thought I
Katie Neeves: had to keep the name of the business the same, otherwise it'd be like starting
Katie Neeves: from scratch. So I thought the only way I could do it was to come
Katie Neeves: out very openly and very honestly as being transgender
Katie Neeves: and continue to do that to this day, which I am.
Katie Neeves: So I thought the only thing to do is just to be very open and
Katie Neeves: honest and be big, bold and out there.
Katie Neeves: What I did, I made a coming out video
Katie Neeves: and I sent that to all my clients and I put it on all
Katie Neeves: my social media and then sat back
Katie Neeves: and worried. I didn't know what the reaction
Katie Neeves: would be. I was absolutely bricking it, joe I'll. Say.
Katie Neeves: Technical term absolutely. I really didn't know because
Katie Neeves: everything was riding on my whole livelihood, my reputation,
Katie Neeves: everything was resting on the reaction to that video. I was
Katie Neeves: so worried. But what
Katie Neeves: it the first social media I put it out on was Facebook. And I
Katie Neeves: remember my finger hovering over the mouse, very nervously, thinking, as soon as
Katie Neeves: I make that click, my life will never be the same again.
Katie Neeves: Anyway, I made the click and then I waited. But then I
Katie Neeves: had a job that I had to go out on and I went out on
Katie Neeves: this job very clearly. Now my mind wasn't on the job at
Katie Neeves: all. I just wanted to get it done as quickly as possible. The client was
Katie Neeves: very happy with the pictures and everything, but I couldn't wait to get back just
Katie Neeves: to see what's happening on Facebook. And I tell you, I needn't have worried because
Katie Neeves: when I got back, I was inundated with literally hundreds of
Katie Neeves: messages of support. It was amazing. I
Katie Neeves: felt so loved, I really did. And it went from being
Katie Neeves: something that was something that I was
Katie Neeves: absolutely dreading, to being one of the most uplifting
Katie Neeves: experiences of my life. It was absolutely incredible.
Katie Neeves: As well as being inundated with messages of support
Katie Neeves: from friends and from clients,
Katie Neeves: I also had a lot of messages from other trans people saying that they'd been
Katie Neeves: struggling with it. But what I'd said had really helped and they thanked me for
Katie Neeves: it, so that really spurred me on. It's
Katie Neeves: been incredible. But say you're asking
Katie Neeves: about the reaction from clients.
Katie Neeves: I have lost some clients through it and I expected that I
Katie Neeves: would, because the problem is that as a photographer, I
Katie Neeves: haven't got any long term
Katie Neeves: contracts. It's all short term stuff. So people phone up on freelance,
Katie Neeves: people phone up, they want a job, doing a quote for it. If
Katie Neeves: they find it acceptable, I do it and that's it, and then it's on to
Katie Neeves: the next one. And so if they've got a problem with
Katie Neeves: it, then they just don't ring me, the phone stops
Katie Neeves: ringing. So I felt very vulnerable, to
Katie Neeves: be honest. I had no laws of discrimination.
Katie Neeves: If you work for a company, you can't be
Katie Neeves: discriminated. Well, you can be, but you get taken to a tribunal, if you do,
Katie Neeves: you're protected. I had no protection at all. So running
Katie Neeves: a small business and coming out as trans, very
Katie Neeves: challenging. Very. So, yeah, I have lost some
Katie Neeves: clients, but in the main, most of them have been very good and
Katie Neeves: supportive, and I've had some that have been really good, and I think some of
Katie Neeves: them actually I might have actually had a little bit of positive
Katie Neeves: discrimination because I think I might have ticked a few boxes for them. And I
Katie Neeves: think, well, actually, I'll take that, because I've lost a few,
Katie Neeves: and I have had a few issues
Katie Neeves: in. So I did quite a bit of business networking and stuff as well. I
Katie Neeves: have run into a few issues with some people there as well. I think that
Katie Neeves: some people just didn't want to hear about my trans stuff, they just wanted to
Katie Neeves: hear about my photography stuff. So, yeah,
Katie Neeves: I have had a few problems like that and you get some people who
Katie Neeves: just they don't want to know about anything, about diversity and they just say, oh,
Katie Neeves: I'm old school. Well, I'm sorry, they need to old
Katie Neeves: school, they do. I've had that said to me, I'm old school.
Katie Neeves: And they say that after they've just misgendered me and I think, oh, come
Katie Neeves: on, get real.
Katie Neeves: But in the main, I think because I've approached it how I have, and
Katie Neeves: I've approached it very head on and been very open.
Katie Neeves: And I said to people, I've cut people quite a lot of slack. The people
Katie Neeves: who have known me as Martin for years, I know that they're
Katie Neeves: going to slip up from time to time and they're going to call me Martin
Katie Neeves: sometimes, or they're going to say he and him. Because
Katie Neeves: I know the people who are supportive and the people who are not. So
Katie Neeves: I know if it's somebody who is supportive and they normally get it
Katie Neeves: right and they just slip up, it's not a big deal at all, I'm not
Katie Neeves: offended in the slightest. And they beat themselves up about I don't beat them up,
Katie Neeves: I just sort of say, no, don't worry about it, they just apologise
Katie Neeves: and move on. But I know they're beating themselves up about it. But
Katie Neeves: I also know the people who aren't supportive and the people that deliberately misgender
Katie Neeves: me and then that's abuse and I won't stand for that. But you
Katie Neeves: know, don't you? You know the people, yeah, I have a very similar outlook on
Joanne Lockwood: life that I kind of categorise people into several boxes. One box
Joanne Lockwood: being, you've known me for 30, 40 years, it's difficult
Joanne Lockwood: and I know it's difficult and you
Joanne Lockwood: can't bully people. You have to work with them and educate them
Joanne Lockwood: and give them time, as you say, cut them some slack. And then there's other
Joanne Lockwood: people who have only known me as Joe, and that's where I get more
Joanne Lockwood: frustrated, where people have only known me as me and
Joanne Lockwood: they're lazy or they don't make the effort or randomly, they just get it
Joanne Lockwood: wrong. And that's a bit more frustrating, I find. Exactly
Katie Neeves: the same, yeah. Because generally, the people, the new friends, the people who have
Katie Neeves: only known me as Katie, tend not to get it wrong. Then
Katie Neeves: when they do, it does hurt, doesn't it? It's confusing. It's
Joanne Lockwood: like, Where did that come from? And
Joanne Lockwood: they go, I don't know, it just came out. Sorry.
Joanne Lockwood: The previous podcast, episode one, I talked to Dr Linda Shaw about this, about how
Joanne Lockwood: the brain and heuristics and the biases kick in and
Joanne Lockwood: reptilian fast brain stuff kicks in and you can't always control
Joanne Lockwood: it. So, yeah, it's strange. I suppose I get mostly frustrated
Joanne Lockwood: by service providers. So someone who's working in a shop, a
Joanne Lockwood: restaurant, airport Cheque in Trains,
Joanne Lockwood: where people are paid and their role is customer service, that's where I get most
Joanne Lockwood: frustrated because I would like to think
Joanne Lockwood: I find often people not either
Joanne Lockwood: educated or they're just a bit lazy beyond what they should be. So those are
Joanne Lockwood: the people I tend to get most frustrated with, ordering coffee in Starbucks
Joanne Lockwood: or Costa or one of the concessions on Waterloo Station. And you get, what
Joanne Lockwood: do you want, mate? Or you ask her and you think, Come on, really?
Joanne Lockwood: I've had a long day. Can I just go home without you adding to my
Joanne Lockwood: burden? Yeah, exactly.
Katie Neeves: I did a job recently for a photography job and it was on a
Katie Neeves: building site and the client
Katie Neeves: was actually there. He's a developer and he was there. And it's funny,
Katie Neeves: when he phoned me, he found my website. Of course, it's got Martin Neves
Katie Neeves: Photography all over it, but it's got a bit about me. It's got a picture
Katie Neeves: of me and it says, I'm Katie, and explains all about my
Katie Neeves: transition and things. I'm very open about it. And so he phoned
Katie Neeves: me to get me to, quote, for this job and he subsequently booked me for
Katie Neeves: the job. And then when he was on the phone, he so he
Katie Neeves: hadn't read it all properly. So who's Martin, then? So I said, oh,
Katie Neeves: I used to be called Martin, but I'm in transition. And he said, oh, right,
Katie Neeves: okay. And I assumed just he accepted
Katie Neeves: it fine. I then got the job and I went out on the building
Katie Neeves: site to do this job
Katie Neeves: and all the builders that spoke to him, they were fine. They
Katie Neeves: clearly saw me as the real me
Katie Neeves: and calling me my dear and
Katie Neeves: everything and fine. But then at one
Katie Neeves: point when we were talking as a group and there's some builders
Katie Neeves: there, and then him and me, and then he referred to me as he
Katie Neeves: and him. Where did that come from?
Katie Neeves: So I just corrected him so she. And then after that,
Katie Neeves: he couldn't actually bring himself to say she or her.
Katie Neeves: He was just saying Katie the whole time, so
Katie Neeves: he couldn't get the pronoun. I thought, well, okay, well, that's a win. So I
Katie Neeves: don't know whether that was him just not accepting me as
Katie Neeves: female, but I don't know. But it just seemed a bit odd that he couldn't
Katie Neeves: actually bring himself to say her or she.
Katie Neeves: Yeah. I find some people it's easier to use your name, and I
Joanne Lockwood: say this to people when I'm training, that if you're not sure you're not
Joanne Lockwood: comfortable, just use someone's name all the time because they say that's their name. You
Joanne Lockwood: can't get it wrong. That is often the best way
Joanne Lockwood: out. If you're worried about making a slip up, just stick to the
Joanne Lockwood: name. Yeah. Or even just go for they them.
Katie Neeves: Because that covers everyone. You can't get it
Katie Neeves: wrong that way, can you? No, not at all. Well, there's some people do
Joanne Lockwood: question the use of a singular. They them. But we all know the challenge
Joanne Lockwood: with that as well. But yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: as you said just now, you had this big dilemma. You'd obviously planned it, you
Joanne Lockwood: were going to do what you had to do, and you picked a date.
Joanne Lockwood: So how many times, maybe in the last year before that, had you
Joanne Lockwood: had that go no go situation? Or was this kind of this was the first
Joanne Lockwood: attempt at doing it, or. Had you backed off before it was
Katie Neeves: actually the first attempt at doing it? Yeah,
Katie Neeves: I did it all pretty much to plan. Yeah. It's
Katie Neeves: funny, actually, because I did it, I only admitted to
Katie Neeves: myself that I've had gender dysphoria all my life
Katie Neeves: and previously considered myself as a cross
Katie Neeves: dresser. So that was right up until
Katie Neeves: what was it? October November
Katie Neeves: 2017, when my gender dysphoria just went through the roof? I
Katie Neeves: wasn't expecting it to do it at all, but it just went through the
Katie Neeves: roof. And then I just didn't know what gender I was at all. And then
Katie Neeves: after a whole journey of discovery, then went up
Katie Neeves: to it was January the 11th,
Katie Neeves: 2018. That's when I admitted to myself that I was trans.
Katie Neeves: And then it was then, like, full steam
Katie Neeves: ahead, right. I've missed myself. I need to do something about it.
Katie Neeves: And then I just started planning for it. And because of some of the
Katie Neeves: work that I had in some of the weddings that I was photographing, particularly, that
Katie Neeves: was the main concern. I wanted to start living full
Katie Neeves: time as female from early September. And that's exactly
Katie Neeves: what happened. It was September the second 2018 that I
Katie Neeves: started living full time as female. But what I did do, I came out to
Katie Neeves: everyone earlier. I came out on the 26 April
Katie Neeves: 2018, so I had quite a few months in between and that was
Katie Neeves: really, really awkward. If I had the time again, I wouldn't come out
Katie Neeves: as early. But what I did, I did a straw poll of quite a lot
Katie Neeves: of my trans friends to say, well, look, I'm planning on
Katie Neeves: coming out in September. Sorry, going full time in
Katie Neeves: September. Should I come out earlier because should I come out
Katie Neeves: now or should I wait till a few weeks before? Because the original
Katie Neeves: plan was to come out just a few weeks before and then just go straight
Katie Neeves: into it. And pretty much unanimously they said,
Katie Neeves: no, come out earlier, come out now, sooner rather than later.
Katie Neeves: Give people time to get their heads around it. I
Katie Neeves: thought, okay, so I did so say 26 April. That's when I came
Katie Neeves: out. But people actually got their heads around it a lot
Katie Neeves: quicker than I gave them credit for. And then I found that they started
Katie Neeves: getting impatient with me because what was happening is I was living that double life
Katie Neeves: where people knew that I was trans, I'd come out as trans. They
Katie Neeves: knew my female name was Katie, but
Katie Neeves: business networking and on jobs, I was still presenting as
Katie Neeves: male. So it was a very confusing time, all
Katie Neeves: getting a lot of people some people were calling me
Katie Neeves: Martin, some people were calling me Katie, some people were calling me
Katie Neeves: Matey, and I had a lot
Katie Neeves: of hello you.
Katie Neeves: They didn't know what to call me. It was a very confusing time for them,
Katie Neeves: bless them. I love matey. I think Matey's fantastic, isn't
Joanne Lockwood: it?
Katie Neeves: I never expected at all I had. A similar experience
Joanne Lockwood: because I called it transitioning in
Joanne Lockwood: chunks. So I basically picked things off that I was doing and sort
Joanne Lockwood: of transitioned in those roles. And it became the point where
Joanne Lockwood: I got to a tipping point where most of me was Joe and the rest
Joanne Lockwood: of me was sort of like just the dreg. Well, actually the dregs was my
Joanne Lockwood: major employment. Yeah. And I found
Joanne Lockwood: that personally quite tricky. And also for the
Joanne Lockwood: people who knew both sides of me, that was also tricky for them. And
Joanne Lockwood: I kind of had to explain to them, if you can't see me and you
Joanne Lockwood: can't tell, call me my old name. If you can see me and it looks
Joanne Lockwood: like if I look like Joe and dress like Joe, then call me
Joanne Lockwood: Joe. If you can't tell, call me the old name. And that's kind of the
Joanne Lockwood: way I worked it. But.
Joanne Lockwood: I think with hindsight, ripping the plaster off and jumping
Joanne Lockwood: all in as quick as you can for me, with
Joanne Lockwood: hindsight would have been a better way of doing it. I would have definitely delayed.
Katie Neeves: I wouldn't have come out if I did it again, I wouldn't come out as
Katie Neeves: early as April. I think going full time in
Katie Neeves: early September, I would have maybe come out in August.
Katie Neeves: I think that would have been the right time frame. What was the difference in
Joanne Lockwood: your life between April and September then? What was that
Joanne Lockwood: lag? What was the hold off? What that was, was that it was
Katie Neeves: the wedding side of my business that I was worried about. The weddings
Katie Neeves: was where I felt most vulnerable, to be honest.
Katie Neeves: Because at weddings you get all sorts of
Katie Neeves: people there, from very young to very old, and in my experience,
Katie Neeves: it tends to be the older people who have trouble getting their heads around
Katie Neeves: this and understanding it,
Katie Neeves: whereas I think younger people generally accept it a lot more readily
Katie Neeves: than older people. So I was really
Katie Neeves: worried about that, and I was worried also at weddings.
Katie Neeves: So as well as you could have bigoted old aunts
Katie Neeves: and uncles as well as that,
Katie Neeves: there's lots of booze, isn't there, at weddings? And not just that it's free booze,
Katie Neeves: so free booze and bigots is not a great
Katie Neeves: recipe. So I just thought, well, that's where I felt my most
Katie Neeves: vulnerable. So I thought, well, I had a load of weddings that were booked up
Katie Neeves: to then and I'd already made a decision, because
Katie Neeves: I don't just do weddings, I do a lot of commercial photography. It was mainly
Katie Neeves: corporate photography and videography and that sort of thing,
Katie Neeves: but the weddings were about a third of my income. I'd
Katie Neeves: already decided I used to do lots of wedding fairs, so nearly every
Katie Neeves: Sunday I was off doing a wedding fair. But wedding fairs
Katie Neeves: are very competitive, there are just so many photographers around and
Katie Neeves: they can book loads of photographers in at these wedding fairs. So
Katie Neeves: even the smallest wedding fair, you'd have four photographers there, and larger ones, you'd have
Katie Neeves: like ten or something, and they're so competitive. And where I am,
Katie Neeves: I'm sort of aimed more at the mid to top end of the market anyway,
Katie Neeves: so already a lot of my market isn't there because a lot of people that
Katie Neeves: go to wedding fairs, they're looking for a bargain, they just want something
Katie Neeves: cheap. They're not in my market
Katie Neeves: anyway, so already I'm limiting
Katie Neeves: myself. But then I just felt really
Katie Neeves: uneasy, particularly mainly because of my voice,
Katie Neeves: because what I didn't want often, you can grab hold of it or you can
Katie Neeves: call people over just to get their attention, because you have to be super confident
Katie Neeves: when you're doing these wedding fairs. And I wasn't confident particularly with my
Katie Neeves: voice. Now my voice hasn't it's lightened a bit from what it was, but it
Katie Neeves: hasn't lightened that much. I know I still sound like a bloke.
Katie Neeves: Now, when people see me in person, that's not too bad. On the phone, I
Katie Neeves: just get misgendered all the time. But I just find
Katie Neeves: that at a wedding fair, I wasn't
Katie Neeves: confident enough to be able to stand there. Because I think if I called someone
Katie Neeves: over, if I grabbed someone, they might hear my voice, but then not see me
Katie Neeves: straight away. And then they'd see me standing there in front of the banner saying,
Katie Neeves: martin needs photography and film. And I just thought, I'm just
Katie Neeves: loading the dice against me, because I thought, well, even though young couples
Katie Neeves: might be okay with me being trans, they
Katie Neeves: probably would be. Most, I think, would be
Katie Neeves: apart from some that may be very religious, they might
Katie Neeves: not, because a lot of those aren't. I just thought
Katie Neeves: they just might think, well, what about our guests? And what guests
Katie Neeves: are we inviting? And we've got a load of elderly ones. If they know that
Katie Neeves: some of them are a bit outspoken or a bit bigoted, they might just feel
Katie Neeves: a bit awkward about booking a trans photographer because they might think, well,
Katie Neeves: is it a problem that we just needn't have? And it
Katie Neeves: just might be easier to book a non transphotographer?
Joanne Lockwood: You say that I've experienced that
Joanne Lockwood: in my life, where the person you're talking to is kind of,
Joanne Lockwood: I'm okay with you, I haven't got a problem with you, whoever you are,
Joanne Lockwood: you're fine. But I'm worried about what other people will think. And what they're saying
Joanne Lockwood: is, I'm worried what other people will think of me if I introduce you. And
Joanne Lockwood: I'm worried that they're going to be dangerous, and so therefore, I'd rather not take
Joanne Lockwood: a risk, so I'll go somewhere else. And that's kind
Joanne Lockwood: of this bias by proxy. You're almost imprinting your biases
Joanne Lockwood: onto somebody else and assuming the worst. Absolutely,
Katie Neeves: yeah. And I think I've had that with my commercial work as well.
Katie Neeves: I've definitely lost some work because of that, definitely.
Katie Neeves: But with the weddings, I just decided to preempt it. And so I just thought,
Katie Neeves: well, I'm just going to take the hit. And so I stopped doing the
Katie Neeves: wedding fest, and consequently, the income from the wedding side
Katie Neeves: of my business has dropped massively. I don't do that many
Katie Neeves: now, so I just do the ones where people are recommended and
Katie Neeves: they know that I can do a good job and I get recommended and they're
Katie Neeves: fine and I just do it. But I did have an interesting one,
Katie Neeves: actually, over the time of my transition, where I
Katie Neeves: photographed the wedding ceremony as Martin and
Katie Neeves: the reception as Katie. I probably
Katie Neeves: ought to expand on that. They weren't on the
Katie Neeves: same day. They were months apart. It was a
Katie Neeves: couple that they actually got married in
Katie Neeves: secret and there were only four people there,
Katie Neeves: including the couple. Well, it was four people plus me and a
Katie Neeves: videographer. So they just got married at a registry office and then I
Katie Neeves: had the two witnesses and then went off just for photo shoot.
Katie Neeves: So that was in April 2018. So
Katie Neeves: that was just a few weeks just before I came out. But
Katie Neeves: then their reception was
Katie Neeves: in late August. It was the late August bank holiday in
Katie Neeves: 2018. So it was those few months
Katie Neeves: I photographed the wedding ceremony and then I came out and the couple were
Katie Neeves: brilliant, they were so supportive of me. They're brilliant, they were sort of following me
Katie Neeves: all the way through, it was great. And although their
Katie Neeves: wedding reception was just before
Katie Neeves: I was going to be living full time as female, because originally I was planning
Katie Neeves: to do that as Martin. Because a whole load that I had lined up that
Katie Neeves: was going to be as Martin. And I was just going to do that and
Katie Neeves: just do that and put it to bed. That's it. But they were so supportive,
Katie Neeves: they really encouraged me and they said, oh, we'd really like you to do it
Katie Neeves: as Katie. And I didn't know whether
Katie Neeves: I'd be able to, and I was I don't know, I was really nervous
Katie Neeves: and I said, I'm going to have to leave it to the last minute to
Katie Neeves: decide whether I can do it or not. But I did it and I'm so
Katie Neeves: glad I did, because they were brilliant and I didn't have any problems at all.
Katie Neeves: And the majority of the sort of style of photography that I do
Katie Neeves: weddings is repertoire, so it's very natural documentary photography, a lot of candid
Katie Neeves: photography, because I think it's so much nicer and it brings out the
Katie Neeves: characters of people. Also, it's less intrusive on the
Katie Neeves: wedding. So that was the majority of it. So the majority of the
Katie Neeves: time, most people didn't hear
Katie Neeves: me speaking loudly anyway, so that
Katie Neeves: wasn't a problem. But the only problem was that they did want a few group
Katie Neeves: shots, which most couples do. Of course, with those, I had to. Project
Joanne Lockwood: my voice, of course, put row them in. Yes. There's one
Katie Neeves: thing talking in a more feminine voice anyway. There's another thing
Katie Neeves: actually projecting your voice, doing it. It's really hard,
Katie Neeves: you know that? It's hard, isn't it? So I was
Katie Neeves: just so conscious of it, I was so worried. But I'll tell you what,
Katie Neeves: I didn't have a single problem. It was just brilliant and it was a lovely
Katie Neeves: wedding and I'm so glad I did it. And it was a real confidence booster.
Joanne Lockwood: So this was two years ago and all these
Joanne Lockwood: anxieties, all these apprehensions, so the voice was a big
Joanne Lockwood: deal, we were going to say. So looking back
Joanne Lockwood: to two year old self, what
Joanne Lockwood: advice would you give yourself? I mean, what have you learned over those two years?
Katie Neeves: I think I'd tell myself to not worry so
Katie Neeves: much because actually, I remember first
Katie Neeves: time apart from that wedding, but the first time I went out on a commercial
Katie Neeves: job and started living full time as Katie and just going
Katie Neeves: out on a job in a dress, I was what? What people going to
Katie Neeves: say?
Katie Neeves: Well, without exception, people have just treated me with the utmost
Katie Neeves: respect and as the professional that I am and that I'm
Katie Neeves: there as a photographer and I know I can do a good job. I'm confident
Katie Neeves: with what I do. I think the more I've done it, the more confident I've
Katie Neeves: got. And I just go in there and I don't even think about it now,
Katie Neeves: this is me. This is the real me. I just go in and do
Katie Neeves: my stuff. And I think a lot of it is what you
Katie Neeves: portray, what you project comes back at you. If you go in there all
Katie Neeves: nervous with your head down or looking over your shoulder, I've got any funny looks
Katie Neeves: and what people saying, then you make yourself a
Katie Neeves: victim and you attract that sort of thing.
Katie Neeves: But because now I'm just really confident
Katie Neeves: and don't even think about it, that comes back to me. It's
Katie Neeves: great. Yeah, I completely agree. And that's
Joanne Lockwood: kind of what I learned over the last few years as well, that if you
Joanne Lockwood: go into the world with a smile, the world smiles back. If you go into
Joanne Lockwood: frown, the world frowns back. So, yeah, treat people
Joanne Lockwood: as you want to be treated, sort of thing. And in a way where
Joanne Lockwood: open your heart, open your arms to people and they embrace you. And I
Joanne Lockwood: think that's not just trans people, but all people.
Joanne Lockwood: If you go in with a person,
Joanne Lockwood: not less of a dick because they're trans, if you like being trans doesn't
Joanne Lockwood: make you less of a dick. If you're a dick, you're a dick. And I
Joanne Lockwood: think if you approach the world with anger and aggression, then you
Joanne Lockwood: get it back. So I'm with you on that. So you've kind
Joanne Lockwood: of not bothered so much about your voice. I mean, you could
Joanne Lockwood: tell I decided not to bother because it's kind of my voice. I kind of
Joanne Lockwood: like it, so why worry about it? Yeah, I have
Katie Neeves: done some work with it, but I haven't done as much as perhaps I
Katie Neeves: should do. And I think it's the same sort of thing. Like you
Katie Neeves: you've got a business, public speaking. When you're
Katie Neeves: doing a lot of speaking, you're thinking about what you're saying rather
Katie Neeves: than and that is more important. And I
Katie Neeves: think I've got to the point where thinking, well, actually, this
Katie Neeves: whole journey is about authenticity and this is my authentic
Katie Neeves: voice. I'm not putting on an act for anybody. But having said
Katie Neeves: that, I know that if I do put more of an effort in, then it'll
Katie Neeves: just make my life easier in certain circumstances. So I
Katie Neeves: do want to still do a bit more work with.
Katie Neeves: And if I just take my voice back to how it used to be,
Katie Neeves: I'll try and do it. Hang on. Okay, it's down there.
Katie Neeves: That was how I used to speak. So that was my normal voice as
Katie Neeves: Martin. So I was talking very much from my chest just down there,
Katie Neeves: whereas I'm talking much more now from my head. So it's subtle, but. It's
Katie Neeves: gone up a bit. Still got some more work to do with it. I know,
Katie Neeves: but that's where I am at the moment. But I think it's better to do
Katie Neeves: it as a gradual thing. I think I tried. I had a bit of voice
Katie Neeves: coaching to begin with and then didn't do
Katie Neeves: as much work with it as perhaps I should do. And I sort of
Katie Neeves: settled at this for the time being, but I think if I can gradually just
Katie Neeves: eke it up a little bit, then I think that'll help.
Katie Neeves: And I think the gradual thing is. I struggle with is coughing
Joanne Lockwood: or sneezing. It's hard to disguise a cough or a sneeze, isn't
Joanne Lockwood: it? Laughing as well because laughing is just a natural
Katie Neeves: thing it's really hard, isn't it? Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: I've stopped worrying about the phone. If someone misgenders me on the phone,
Joanne Lockwood: I pick my moment. Sometimes I'll say I'll correct them. Sometimes I think
Joanne Lockwood: if I'm friending a garage to have my MOT booked in, they call me geese
Joanne Lockwood: or mate or something. I think I can't be bothered with this. It doesn't
Joanne Lockwood: matter, it's not important, just whatever. I'll see you tomorrow. You can pick the car
Joanne Lockwood: up, then I arrive, give them the keys and pick it up.
Joanne Lockwood: So certain battles that are just not worth playing with.
Joanne Lockwood: Whatever. And it's funny, the
Katie Neeves: times that I try more when I'm just picking the phone
Katie Neeves: up and I don't know who's calling. So
Katie Neeves: that's when I'll try, I'll start off with a Hi, Katie. Knees. Hello. And
Katie Neeves: I'm up there a bit more. And then when I hear
Katie Neeves: who it is, if it's somebody who knows me, then I relax a bit more,
Katie Neeves: a couple of octaves. Hello. Right down
Joanne Lockwood: there resonance going in the chest.
Katie Neeves: So I try more that if I'm in a shop or somewhere
Katie Neeves: where I'm not going to be coming out to them and telling them that I'm
Katie Neeves: trans and I've got no intention of doing that, it's a short
Katie Neeves: conversation, then I'll try more then, actually. Whereas
Katie Neeves: most of the time, say like if I'm out networking or
Katie Neeves: whatever, or if I'm doing presentation, most of the
Katie Neeves: time people know that I'm trans because I'm there talking about it. I'm doing
Katie Neeves: a trans awareness training workshop or whatever, so I know that I'm doing that. Or
Katie Neeves: if I'm promoting cool to be trans,
Katie Neeves: I have to come out in the process of telling them about the business.
Joanne Lockwood: Kind of secret about it doesn't work, does it? It's part of the
Joanne Lockwood: authenticity of what you're doing, isn't it? It is and I find that
Katie Neeves: once I've told them that takes the pressure off me with my voice
Katie Neeves: and it's a bit of a cop out it's a bit of a cop out
Katie Neeves: really, isn't it? But it works. Yeah, similar.
Joanne Lockwood: I do a lot of big stage speaking around trans inclusion and
Joanne Lockwood: diversity. So I remember being in I was in
Joanne Lockwood: Berlin on a stage there. There's six or 700 people in the audience and I
Joanne Lockwood: deliberately hold back for a few seconds before I start talking,
Joanne Lockwood: just so that the audience look at me. They get a visual identity of who
Joanne Lockwood: I am and then I speak. And I actually had people come in, anyone's come
Joanne Lockwood: up to me afterwards going, wow, that completely blew my mind.
Joanne Lockwood: Where did that voice come from? Sort of thing. But it's a
Joanne Lockwood: great attention grabber. It's a great way of bringing people into the
Joanne Lockwood: room, get their focus, so I suppose I tend to use
Joanne Lockwood: it to my advantage and not be ashamed of it.
Katie Neeves: Yeah. Oh, I'm certainly not ashamed of it at all.
Katie Neeves: I get where you're coming from. The funniest time I remember was
Joanne Lockwood: I was on a train coming back from Waterloo to Portsmouth and
Joanne Lockwood: the old buffet trolley. They push the trolleys down the corridor, don't they? And normally
Joanne Lockwood: they go 100 miles. Now you have to almost, like, shout at the buffet guy,
Joanne Lockwood: Come back here. I wanted one, but this guy was kind of
Joanne Lockwood: looking either side and I said, yeah, black coffee, please,
Joanne Lockwood: in a very resonating voice. And the
Joanne Lockwood: whole carriage sort of like, went, Wolf, where did you come from? It's like
Joanne Lockwood: this big reveal, because I just sat there minding my own business,
Joanne Lockwood: everyone's mind their own business with their phones and then
Joanne Lockwood: kind of this big sort of like and what.
Katie Neeves: And then you start singing I Am What I Am, and there's
Katie Neeves: this chap. Sat next to me. If you sat there for like, 20 minutes, half
Joanne Lockwood: an hour, he sat next to me and as soon as I spoke, he looked
Joanne Lockwood: at me with horror. And then as soon as the trolley went past, he literally
Joanne Lockwood: grabbed on his bag and ran down the corridor. Looking over his
Joanne Lockwood: shoulder, I could see him at the end of the seat, looking
Joanne Lockwood: over, staring at me. It's like, oh, I obviously had a bigger effect on
Joanne Lockwood: him. You've been known to clear
Katie Neeves: railway carriages. Fantastic.
Joanne Lockwood: I don't play with it, I don't do it. But, yeah, I've lost my
Joanne Lockwood: anxiety about saying, Excuse me, can I have a coffee, please?
Katie Neeves: I still do have a bit of anxiety over that, because I find that
Katie Neeves: especially when you want to project yourself like that, I do find you
Katie Neeves: want to grab people's attention. By doing that, you're outing
Katie Neeves: people. So, for instance, I did a wedding a little while ago
Katie Neeves: and just before doing the group shots,
Katie Neeves: I was finding once, organising people, but actually getting
Katie Neeves: the attention of the room. At Martin, I always used to sort of say, Ladies
Katie Neeves: and gentlemen and in a big, deep voice, and it
Katie Neeves: would cut through. But I just didn't want to do it this time because I
Katie Neeves: thought, if I do that, that's just going to out me to everyone
Katie Neeves: there and then.
Katie Neeves: What I didn't want was to hear a great intake
Katie Neeves: of breath from all the guests
Katie Neeves: I'd be mortified by that. So I really didn't want that. So
Katie Neeves: I just got the best man just to get their attention and then just to
Katie Neeves: direct people to where I was.
Katie Neeves: But once then once I was there, then I was talking to them and directing
Katie Neeves: them. But then that didn't seem too bad
Katie Neeves: then, because I was just telling people and then
Katie Neeves: they just realised in their own time that I was trans.
Katie Neeves: But that wasn't so bad. But what I didn't want was for me just to
Katie Neeves: make that big announcement. So I do still have a bit of that worry
Katie Neeves: there. Is it getting less? Is it an
Joanne Lockwood: anxiety you can manage? Or we talk about bring our whole
Joanne Lockwood: self to work, so you're still not quite being able to bring your
Joanne Lockwood: whole self? Or are you bringing the bit of yourself you want to
Joanne Lockwood: bring and leaving the bit you don't want to bring. At home is that I
Katie Neeves: am bringing my whole stuff there. I think it's purely over, that bit,
Katie Neeves: just getting people's attention initially that I
Katie Neeves: didn't in that situation, it's okay.
Katie Neeves: It wouldn't be a problem if people were there and they knew they were there
Katie Neeves: to be photographed, but just in that situation, I just didn't want
Katie Neeves: to be making that big announcement. That was
Katie Neeves: the only thing that I didn't want to do. Because it's
Katie Neeves: different if it's a trans awareness training thing, because they all know that I'm trans
Katie Neeves: anyway. But it was just in that particular situation, I didn't
Katie Neeves: want to get their attention, but once their
Katie Neeves: attention had begot, then I talked to them. No problem at
Katie Neeves: all. A takeaway for some of the people listening to this podcast
Joanne Lockwood: is that if they have trans people in their workplace or they have no people
Joanne Lockwood: who are going to transition, they need to be kind of conscious of the
Joanne Lockwood: anxieties that may be gone in that person's head and some of the barriers they
Joanne Lockwood: face on a daily basis and how you as an organisation can
Joanne Lockwood: maybe make that life easier
Joanne Lockwood: through those. Absolutely. Absolutely. And there
Katie Neeves: are so many, aren't there?
Katie Neeves: Just going to work in a dress for
Katie Neeves: the first time. It's hard.
Joanne Lockwood: I was consulting with a big global multinational based in
Joanne Lockwood: Paris and they called me in to help
Joanne Lockwood: advise them on a person at work who wanted to
Joanne Lockwood: transition. And this person had some major anxieties and they
Joanne Lockwood: built it up into a point where they believed the world was going to discriminate
Joanne Lockwood: against them regardless of any evidence. But the company
Joanne Lockwood: was absolutely super supportive. But this person was convinced the
Joanne Lockwood: security guards were laughing at them behind their back. The people in the canteen were
Joanne Lockwood: laughing at them. And I wouldn't quite say it's paranoia, but there was a level
Joanne Lockwood: of projecting what they were expecting onto people.
Joanne Lockwood: But one of their big anxieties was the toilets.
Joanne Lockwood: I don't think any trans person exists that hasn't had a
Joanne Lockwood: toilet conversation with somebody, or at least been part of the debate. But one of
Joanne Lockwood: the big challenges they had was they'd never been into this.
Katie Neeves: Particular lady's toilet, right? So their major anxiety
Joanne Lockwood: was walking through that door for the first time,
Joanne Lockwood: and you don't know what's on the other side of the door. You don't know
Joanne Lockwood: what maybe the protocols are, what it looks like, where the hand soap is, where
Joanne Lockwood: the towels are, how the cubicles lock. So if you're trying to just get
Joanne Lockwood: in, get out, get with your business, that initial bit of
Joanne Lockwood: anxiety about the protocol and just what's in there can be a bit of a
Joanne Lockwood: shock. I just said to the HR manager there,
Joanne Lockwood: well, why don't you allow or invite this person to maybe after
Joanne Lockwood: hours, use the toilets, feel comfortable, and then you wait outside
Joanne Lockwood: and just say, just experience that environment in your own time. And
Joanne Lockwood: then when they come to use them the next day, the anxiety is gone, and
Joanne Lockwood: maybe again, out of hours, allow them to walk into the building, allow them
Joanne Lockwood: to walk into the lift. Allow them to feel that relaxation. So when they do,
Joanne Lockwood: it live with people around, it's not brand new experience.
Joanne Lockwood: And these are a couple of things I often say to companies, is by going
Joanne Lockwood: that extra little bit of mile, which you don't even think about as an
Joanne Lockwood: issue, can really change someone's lives, but just by giving them that space to be
Joanne Lockwood: themselves. So I remember, I don't know if you've had
Joanne Lockwood: this experience, but motorway service stations, the first time I think
Joanne Lockwood: I went to a motorway service station, you walk in there, everyone's just kind
Joanne Lockwood: of milling around, aren't they? You're either doing something or you're sat
Joanne Lockwood: there waiting for someone who's doing something, and there's a whole load of people just
Joanne Lockwood: milling around in the sort of area between Costa and
Joanne Lockwood: KFC and all that bit. And then the toilets are right dead opposite you, aren't
Joanne Lockwood: they? And you walk into the toilets. It's like a chicane. You
Joanne Lockwood: go in and you turn right, and then you're into this unknown space,
Joanne Lockwood: and you've got absolutely no idea what's going to be around the corner.
Joanne Lockwood: It's like so voyager discovery. You get in there, and there's this
Joanne Lockwood: queue of women, and you think, blow. What's the protocol? Do I get on the
Joanne Lockwood: end of the queue? Do I nip around the corner so I could find an
Joanne Lockwood: empty cubicle? How do I play
Joanne Lockwood: this game? It's like you're standing there trying to think, really
Joanne Lockwood: nervous, and it's your turn. Okay. Where do I go? Do I run a quick
Joanne Lockwood: cubicle lock? Made it safe? Right, now I got to come
Joanne Lockwood: out again, right? Okay. Someone says something as I'm coming out. Wash your hands.
Katie Neeves: Don't look in the mirror. Destroy your hand.
Joanne Lockwood: Survived. I always described the motorway service
Joanne Lockwood: session toilets as my worst anxiety nightmare, really,
Joanne Lockwood: because it was just such an unknown, unpredictable,
Joanne Lockwood: you've no idea what's behind that door. Experience.
Joanne Lockwood: And I just had it in my head that this was going to be a
Joanne Lockwood: flashpoint, because you're standing around waiting for the toilet with a whole
Joanne Lockwood: load of people, women who end up chatting to each other or looking at each
Joanne Lockwood: other. We say, Hurry up. The kind of conversation you have
Joanne Lockwood: in the toilets. Yeah. And then my voice, I think, I don't have a conversation
Joanne Lockwood: in here with my voice.
Joanne Lockwood: My other nightmare is walking to the toilets with a female
Joanne Lockwood: colleague and she just wants to keep on talking.
Joanne Lockwood: Since men walk into a toilet, no one says a word. Are they actually silent?
Joanne Lockwood: So we just get in there, do our biz, we didn't wash our
Joanne Lockwood: hands, we just walk straight out. Done. Absolutely. You're
Joanne Lockwood: chatting in and out, you have adjacent cubicles, you're talking through the door.
Joanne Lockwood: I just find it really uncomfortable with my voice having a
Joanne Lockwood: conversation in a women's toilet behind a locked door. I
Katie Neeves: do. I find it exactly the same. And it's a real eye opener, that. Yeah,
Katie Neeves: because they say men don't talk to each other in the loose, but women
Katie Neeves: do all the time.
Katie Neeves: Because it's one thing when they can see you, it's not a problem, but when
Katie Neeves: they can't see you, it's just like being on the phone, isn't it?
Katie Neeves: My daughter still calls me Daddy because I'm proud to
Katie Neeves: be her dad and I always will be her dad. But
Katie Neeves: the only time I ban her from calling me dad or Daddy is in the
Katie Neeves: ladies lose. And we had an incident one time
Katie Neeves: when I was in a cubicle and she was just standing outside the
Katie Neeves: door and she said,
Katie Neeves: I was doing business and I heard this. There's a couple of women in
Katie Neeves: cubicles either side of me. And I heard this little voice from outside the
Katie Neeves: door saying, Daddy. Then there was a pause. Oh,
Katie Neeves: Katie. I thought, oh, God, it's too late now, isn't it? But
Katie Neeves: then it got worse. Then she, um
Katie Neeves: so I said, yes, darling. She said, So, Daddy,
Katie Neeves: so are you going to start having your periods now,
Katie Neeves: then?
Katie Neeves: Don't do this to me. So I just
Katie Neeves: said in my highest voice I could, no, darling. And then there
Katie Neeves: was a pause and then it's so why is that, then?
Katie Neeves: I'll talk to you about it later, darling. Just don't do
Katie Neeves: this to me. Oh, God. The ground to
Katie Neeves: open up and just swallow me up. But I couldn't get out of those loose
Katie Neeves: quick enough. I can imagine that's.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: One of the problems I faced recently is my
Joanne Lockwood: wife's office Christmas party. Okay. I've
Joanne Lockwood: been out and about transition for three and a bit years
Joanne Lockwood: now. The world's known for nearly three and a half years.
Joanne Lockwood: And I've never made my wife's Christmas party before, because in the early
Joanne Lockwood: stages, she didn't know how to approach the subject. She didn't know how to tell
Joanne Lockwood: her colleagues that oh, by the way, my husband's trans. And
Joanne Lockwood: in case it reflected badly on her, she's got her own anxieties about how she's
Joanne Lockwood: going to be. So the first year she took my daughter, the second year
Joanne Lockwood: she took a friend, and this past Christmas she took me.
Joanne Lockwood: And only a few of her colleagues knew the full
Joanne Lockwood: story that she didn't know that well from different offices, there were
Joanne Lockwood: field service companies, there are people coming from all over the country there. And
Joanne Lockwood: she started introducing me as her other half.
Joanne Lockwood: And I sort of like, nudged her and joked with her and said, well,
Joanne Lockwood: going back 20 years, if I'd have introduced you as my other half, how would
Joanne Lockwood: you have felt? And she went, So you're
Katie Neeves: not proud. That I'm your husband? She said, Well,
Joanne Lockwood: I don't really think it's easy to introduce you as my husband when you're wearing
Joanne Lockwood: a dress. I said, that's a fair point. Just such a gendered
Katie Neeves: term, isn't it? We kind of agreed that other
Joanne Lockwood: half was better than partner, because partner implied
Joanne Lockwood: some other relationship, so we decided to stick with other
Joanne Lockwood: half. But it's very interesting just to watch her
Joanne Lockwood: coming out, if you like, to people
Joanne Lockwood: and me having conversations with their work colleagues. And I remember chatting with one
Joanne Lockwood: lady around the table. You sit around the table eating your turkey
Joanne Lockwood: and stuff, and three quarters of the way through the
Joanne Lockwood: conversation, I said something about what I
Joanne Lockwood: do, trans awareness workshops and all this sort of thing. She went, Are
Katie Neeves: you trans? I went, oh, yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: thank you for not noticing. Yeah, it's great when that happens, isn't
Katie Neeves: it?
Joanne Lockwood: I suppose I have quite a limiting belief about
Joanne Lockwood: my voice, so I kind of just assume that people suss it with my
Joanne Lockwood: voice. I assume
Katie Neeves: exactly the same, Joe. Yeah, I had that the other day. I was at a
Katie Neeves: networking thing and I was talking to this woman, talking for about ten minutes to
Katie Neeves: begin with, and mainly talking about the stuff that she was doing to begin
Katie Neeves: with. And then she said, Also, what do you do?
Katie Neeves: So then I just said two things I'm a photographer and
Katie Neeves: filmmaker, and I'm also a trans ambassador because I'm transgender.
Katie Neeves: And then she had to look on her face, she looked so shocked. And then
Katie Neeves: she just said, oh, I've got to give you a hug. And she gave me
Katie Neeves: this big hug and then spilt all her coffee everywhere.
Katie Neeves: It's nice when that happens, isn't it? Let's
Joanne Lockwood: give our listeners something to more stuff to take away here.
Joanne Lockwood: So earlier you mentioned about you're meeting members of the public
Joanne Lockwood: weddings you've got there may be less educated or the less
Joanne Lockwood: open minded people in a party. You've got people maybe from different
Joanne Lockwood: generations who have different lived experience that maybe don't understand.
Joanne Lockwood: Most often, people aren't being deliberately nasty,
Joanne Lockwood: they just lack awareness. What are your
Joanne Lockwood: superpowers is to approach the world and give people your
Joanne Lockwood: passion and smile and educate? How do you
Joanne Lockwood: tackle those situations where you perceive that there's a
Joanne Lockwood: confusion? So what advice would you give people? How to approach you or how would
Joanne Lockwood: you approach people? I think smiling
Katie Neeves: is a huge thing. I think it goes such a long way
Katie Neeves: because it just breaks down barriers and it shows people
Katie Neeves: that you're confident and you're happy in yourself. And I think it's such a big
Katie Neeves: thing. There's a lot of trans activists about that,
Katie Neeves: a lot of them very angry and
Katie Neeves: they're fighting a good cause, but I think a lot of the time they end
Katie Neeves: up damaging the cause because they turn people off it. Whereas I think
Katie Neeves: if you can actually just bring them along and acknowledge
Katie Neeves: that they're struggling to get their heads around it, but then help them with
Katie Neeves: it and actually just show, well, I'm not
Katie Neeves: somebody to be afraid of, I'm not somebody to be pitted.
Katie Neeves: Be happy for me, because I'm happy. I'm happy in my own skin.
Katie Neeves: I'm happier now than I've ever been. There's
Katie Neeves: lots of struggles going on and, yeah, we know that it's not an
Katie Neeves: easy journey, being trans by any means, but in myself,
Katie Neeves: because I'm living my truth, it feels amazing, absolutely
Katie Neeves: amazing. I've lost count of the number of people who've told
Katie Neeves: me, I look so much happier now than I did before.
Katie Neeves: And I'm not surprised because I feel happy. I think that's
Katie Neeves: the main thing, because if you can just smile and be happy,
Katie Neeves: that just breaks down those barriers and I think you can
Katie Neeves: bring people with you. Definitely, yeah. But I recognise that
Joanne Lockwood: it's quite a privilege. I am privileged. The fact that I can
Joanne Lockwood: smile, I can be happy. My lived experience is very positive.
Joanne Lockwood: But we all know that not everybody has the same
Joanne Lockwood: reason to be happy for no better way. Maybe
Joanne Lockwood: they're really struggling with their income, really struggling with their work. Maybe they're getting
Joanne Lockwood: bullied, maybe they've been put into a point where they no
Joanne Lockwood: longer have faith in society. So we've had a very positive
Joanne Lockwood: experience and we shouldn't undermine or minimalize the
Joanne Lockwood: experience had by others, which is sometimes where absolutely
Joanne Lockwood: their frustration overflows because of the microaggressions,
Joanne Lockwood: the drip, drip, drip every time they go out and
Joanne Lockwood: the environment they're in. And I think that is a struggle that a lot of
Joanne Lockwood: people have and we're lucky not to have that, I guess. Yeah, absolutely.
Katie Neeves: And I think because of the sort of work that we're both doing and
Katie Neeves: that we're both very much out, I mean, neither of us could be more out
Katie Neeves: if we tried, let's face it, could. We really
Katie Neeves: putting it on a massive great big billboard. So
Katie Neeves: I think we're very lucky in the fact, because we've approached it like that,
Katie Neeves: I think it's come back at us. So it sort of
Katie Neeves: solved any problem. I think a lot of people are
Katie Neeves: much more shy and they do have a
Katie Neeves: tough time with it. And I think a lot of it is that they put
Katie Neeves: so much pressure on themselves with it, whereas
Katie Neeves: they needn't do. But I think it's just getting across to them
Katie Neeves: that it really is okay to be trans and
Katie Neeves: that the world will accept them as being trans. Not everybody.
Katie Neeves: Some people won't. I've lost friends,
Katie Neeves: some friends through it, and I've lost some family through it as well. Quite a
Katie Neeves: lot of family through it, but
Katie Neeves: still, the majority of people are absolutely fine with it. And I
Katie Neeves: think that's one of the things that was the one big worry, is I just
Katie Neeves: didn't know whether people would be okay with it. But certainly in the
Katie Neeves: main, I found most people are, and it's just a case of just trying to
Katie Neeves: sort of get that into your head, that, yeah, most people
Katie Neeves: are going to be okay with it, or the ones that
Katie Neeves: aren't. They just disappear from your life. Often you don't see them. Yeah, well,
Katie Neeves: I think that's it situations like this, when you
Katie Neeves: learn who your true friends are, it's a very effective
Katie Neeves: way of finding it's quite an extreme way of finding out who your friends are,
Katie Neeves: but it's very effective. Certainly some
Katie Neeves: people who I previously thought were friends turned out not to
Katie Neeves: be, but then others who I didn't realise
Katie Neeves: they were such good friends and actually been really supportive, they've been fantastic
Katie Neeves: and think, wow. And they've actually become better friends. So as
Katie Neeves: well as those, I've also gained a whole load of new friends who I
Katie Neeves: wouldn't have met had I not been transitioned. My
Katie Neeves: world has just opened up so much,
Katie Neeves: it's been incredible, actually. You're
Katie Neeves: one of them. I've got thousands of new friends
Joanne Lockwood: I never had three years ago, and I travel around the world,
Joanne Lockwood: I meet new people every time. Every time I go and speak at a conference,
Joanne Lockwood: I'm generally meeting 200, 300 new people for the first time. Every time.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm constantly outing myself, if you like, or being open about who I am.
Joanne Lockwood: One thing you said there
Joanne Lockwood: about my mind's gone blank. What
Joanne Lockwood: was I thinking about? What we're talking about? We're talking about constantly
Katie Neeves: outing yourself.
Joanne Lockwood: My mind's frazzled. The other thing I was going to talk to you about is
Joanne Lockwood: people often say to me, is it the older generation
Joanne Lockwood: or is it the younger generation? In my experience,
Joanne Lockwood: it doesn't matter whether you're old, young, middle aged or
Joanne Lockwood: whatever age you are. It's not about your age often, it's about your
Joanne Lockwood: socialisation your social groups, the people you hang around with.
Joanne Lockwood: And I couldn't say there's more older people struggle or
Joanne Lockwood: more younger people struggle. It's kind of like this cross section
Joanne Lockwood: of who you are rather than your age.
Katie Neeves: Yeah, I think there are some
Katie Neeves: sections of society who do struggle with it more, though. I
Katie Neeves: think certainly generally I found that
Katie Neeves: the younger generation tend to be much more
Katie Neeves: accepting. I think generally they tend to be because I
Katie Neeves: think the older generation, if you look about it,
Katie Neeves: I'm 50 now, and so when I was growing up as a
Katie Neeves: child in the 70s, if someone was gay,
Katie Neeves: that was a scandal, that was a huge scandal. No one ever spoke about trans
Katie Neeves: issues then. So if you think you take it back a
Katie Neeves: generation, so people even old on that, you can see why they would
Katie Neeves: struggle with it. It's just been in their culture and their education, the way they've
Katie Neeves: been brought up, and older people generally find change more
Katie Neeves: difficult than younger people anyway, so you can understand
Katie Neeves: why older people would find but then I know quite a
Katie Neeves: lot of older people who are absolutely fine with it. So you can't generalise. No,
Joanne Lockwood: you can't. I have found
Katie Neeves: that. And also, I think religion, I think, is a big one. I think people
Katie Neeves: who are very strongly religious I mean, I
Katie Neeves: lost my sister through it. My sister's a very evangelical born again
Katie Neeves: Christian and she just doesn't want to know me,
Katie Neeves: and my mom's still struggling with it as well, and I think a lot of
Katie Neeves: that is religious reasons as well.
Joanne Lockwood: See, I wouldn't even go as far as to say it's about religion.
Joanne Lockwood: Some of my great friends are they would class themselves
Joanne Lockwood: as devout Christians. I've got some great friends who would class themselves
Joanne Lockwood: as devout Muslim and people of the Jewish
Joanne Lockwood: faith, devout
Joanne Lockwood: agnostic, Satanists and spaghetti.
Joanne Lockwood: Monstrous. I've got people in my network of my
Joanne Lockwood: friends who I would class as being of all religions,
Joanne Lockwood: and they're almost ashamed of the dogma sometimes from their
Joanne Lockwood: religion, that they're embarrassed to be part of that religion even
Joanne Lockwood: though they're loyal and faithful to it.
Joanne Lockwood: I don't think we can ever say it's all people or religions
Joanne Lockwood: to blame. Oh, no, it's not. I think it's
Katie Neeves: people using their religion.
Katie Neeves: They're blaming their bigotry on their religion. I think that's what it is,
Katie Neeves: that they're using the religion as a tool.
Joanne Lockwood: Hiding behind it, weaponizing it. They're
Katie Neeves: bigots, they're bigger and they're prejudiced and that's it.
Katie Neeves: But the reason they're giving for
Katie Neeves: being how they are and having the beliefs they are is the religion.
Katie Neeves: It's funny because I know people who are born again
Katie Neeves: Christians the same as my sister, and yet they're absolutely fine,
Katie Neeves: they're absolutely fine with me and they got no problem at all.
Katie Neeves: But there you go. I remember what I was going to say to you just
Joanne Lockwood: now, it's coming. Back in my head. So it's interesting when you said about some
Joanne Lockwood: people don't accept. And what I found is I've had
Joanne Lockwood: a very large group of friends around the
Joanne Lockwood: country, but mainly in a clique in a group. And a couple
Joanne Lockwood: of the people in that group made it very they were very
Joanne Lockwood: vocal about what they thought. Mainly
Joanne Lockwood: they thought it's funny, humorous, disrespectful, all of those sort of
Joanne Lockwood: things. What surprised me was the people who were
Joanne Lockwood: my closest friends in that group, I thought they understood
Joanne Lockwood: what being an ally meant. But to me, it's very difficult
Joanne Lockwood: to be friends with someone who's friends with someone who
Joanne Lockwood: treats you in that way. And I almost wanted my friends to advocate for me
Joanne Lockwood: and say, actually, you shouldn't say that
Joanne Lockwood: about Joe. We've got to sort this out. Where
Joanne Lockwood: does the circle of trust lie? And what I found out is easier to be
Joanne Lockwood: outside of the circle of trust in my own circle of trust than
Joanne Lockwood: knowing that I'm talking to people who are able to harbour
Joanne Lockwood: somebody with those views. And so I cut myself
Joanne Lockwood: off for a lot of people in that circle. I cut them off and I
Joanne Lockwood: didn't keep in contact with them because I know that they were
Joanne Lockwood: supporting the person who had those nasty views.
Joanne Lockwood: And I found that very difficult to deal with. Yeah. And I think that
Katie Neeves: is what an ally and what a true ally does is stick up for it
Katie Neeves: when they hear that. I went to a black
Katie Neeves: tie reception just before Christmas
Katie Neeves: and I was
Katie Neeves: fairly well known in the group there, but there's
Katie Neeves: a chap that was there who was
Katie Neeves: talking to another man and this first one pointed me
Katie Neeves: out and said, oh, you know who that is? See that woman over there?
Katie Neeves: She used to be Martin Neves.
Katie Neeves: I don't get it at all. And there's been quite disparaging about me,
Katie Neeves: but she was actually talking to somebody who
Katie Neeves: is a real trans ally and he watched quite
Katie Neeves: a lot of my Vlogs and everything and the stuff that I've been putting out
Katie Neeves: on social media. And so that has educated him. And he said, well, actually, there's
Katie Neeves: a lot more to it than you're just thinking now. And he just then explained
Katie Neeves: to him to this other guy, and I thought it was brilliant. And I didn't
Katie Neeves: know this conversation was going on at all. It was only after the event that
Katie Neeves: he actually told me that what had happened and I thought, wow,
Katie Neeves: good on him. That is what a true ally does. It really is. It's
Katie Neeves: not just about being friends with that person, it is about sticking up for them
Katie Neeves: when they can't stick up for themselves completely. So
Joanne Lockwood: I think we're yakking on for an hour now. We've had a great conversation.
Joanne Lockwood: Is there anything you'd like to sort of kind of summarise up? Any top
Joanne Lockwood: tips for engaging small businesses?
Joanne Lockwood: Or not necessarily in trans specifically, but
Joanne Lockwood: top tip as a small business owner, what you've learned in terms of
Joanne Lockwood: D&I? Yeah,
Katie Neeves: I think in terms of top tips for other businesses,
Katie Neeves: I think be very aware of
Katie Neeves: people who are different to everybody else, whether it's trans
Katie Neeves: or race or whatever or disability. I think just
Katie Neeves: be very aware of their sensibilities. And
Katie Neeves: also with something like someone coming out as
Katie Neeves: being trans, you may
Katie Neeves: already have someone who's trans in. Your workforce, but
Katie Neeves: you just don't know it. And they just haven't come out yet. And the reason
Katie Neeves: they haven't come out may be because you haven't got a very
Katie Neeves: inclusive atmosphere within the workforce, and
Katie Neeves: so you're making it that much harder for them.
Katie Neeves: And so if you think of yourself
Katie Neeves: as a good employer, then it's much better to actually
Katie Neeves: get some training, some D&I training in,
Katie Neeves: just to create a better atmosphere, just to make it easier, so that if
Katie Neeves: someone does feel the urge to come out. It just makes
Katie Neeves: it so much easier for them. And then it allows them to bring their whole
Katie Neeves: self to work. And you all get a much better worker out of them because
Katie Neeves: they'll be so much more effective, and they'll be happier, and they're more likely to
Katie Neeves: stay with you. And you won't have to spend money on recruiting new people.
Katie Neeves: So that's my top tips for employers.
Joanne Lockwood: Fantastic. There's a really great bit of advice and I'm sure
Joanne Lockwood: there's things that everyone could do to be more open and be
Joanne Lockwood: more accepting of people and not wanting to pass judgement.
Katie Neeves: Yeah. Thank you, Katie. Thank you for giving up some
Joanne Lockwood: of your afternoon. Thank you for this really great little chat we've had. I've
Joanne Lockwood: really enjoyed the conversation. I've learned things about you today that, even though I know
Joanne Lockwood: you quite well, we've talked about things that I didn't know about you before.
Joanne Lockwood: And to our listeners, well, thank you for listening. Please do
Joanne Lockwood: subscribe and click on the link below. You can keep updated
Joanne Lockwood: with future episodes of the Inclusion Bites podcast. That's Bites
Joanne Lockwood: B-I-T-E-S-I have a number of exciting
Joanne Lockwood: guests lined up that I'm sure you will be inspired by over the next few
Joanne Lockwood: weeks and months. And remember, if you'd like to be a guest, then please do
Joanne Lockwood: let me know. So my name is Joanne Lockwood.
Joanne Lockwood: So jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk. I welcome
Joanne Lockwood: your feedback and suggestions and.