WEBVTT 00:00:01.690 --> 00:00:05.454 Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood and I am your host for the 00:00:05.492 --> 00:00:09.326 Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I have interviewed a number of 00:00:09.348 --> 00:00:12.766 amazing people and simply had a conversation around the subject of 00:00:12.788 --> 00:00:16.462 inclusion, belonging and generally making the world a better 00:00:16.516 --> 00:00:20.078 place for everyone to thrive. Like to join me in the 00:00:20.084 --> 00:00:23.114 future? Then please do drop me a line to Joe 00:00:23.242 --> 00:00:26.914 Lockwood at m dot co UK that's 00:00:26.962 --> 00:00:29.750 seechangehappen co UK. 00:00:30.890 --> 00:00:34.658 You can catch up with all of the previous shows on itunes, Spotify 00:00:34.834 --> 00:00:38.678 and the usual places. So plug in your headphones, 00:00:38.854 --> 00:00:41.900 grab a decaf and let's get going. 00:00:42.830 --> 00:00:46.666 Today is Episode 84 with the 00:00:46.688 --> 00:00:50.010 title Unlocking Inclusive Communications. 00:00:50.850 --> 00:00:54.314 And I have the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Suzanne 00:00:54.362 --> 00:00:58.206 Worthheim. Suzanne describes herself as a 00:00:58.228 --> 00:01:01.918 linguistic anthropologist, and when I 00:01:01.924 --> 00:01:05.442 asked Suzanne to describe her superpower, she said that she 00:01:05.496 --> 00:01:08.340 sees patterns that other people don't see. 00:01:08.950 --> 00:01:11.780 Hello, Suzanne. Welcome to the show. 00:01:12.550 --> 00:01:16.338 Hello, Joanne. It is genuinely a pleasure to be here. I'm 00:01:16.354 --> 00:01:20.146 really looking forward to this conversation. Likewise. We've had a great chat 00:01:20.178 --> 00:01:23.640 and agreement already, so I'm really, really excited about this. 00:01:24.090 --> 00:01:27.490 So, Suzanne, tell me. 00:01:27.660 --> 00:01:30.700 Unlocking communications. Tell me about that. 00:01:31.310 --> 00:01:35.094 So I said my superpower 00:01:35.142 --> 00:01:38.810 was seeing patterns that other people can't see. 00:01:38.960 --> 00:01:42.734 And this is the superpower of almost everybody who 00:01:42.772 --> 00:01:46.014 is a linguist or a linguistic anthropologist. And 00:01:46.052 --> 00:01:49.866 so I am here to talk to people here, generally 00:01:49.898 --> 00:01:53.170 in the world, and here on this podcast, about how can we be more 00:01:53.240 --> 00:01:56.686 inclusive in our communications. And inclusive 00:01:56.718 --> 00:02:00.386 communication, in some respects, is as simple as just Bites 00:02:00.488 --> 00:02:03.886 modern etiquette. It is 21st century etiquette. 00:02:03.998 --> 00:02:07.682 But if you want to be more pattern based and more 00:02:07.736 --> 00:02:11.506 behaviour based, I like to talk about inclusive language and inclusive 00:02:11.538 --> 00:02:15.250 communication as a way of communicating in a set of behaviours. 00:02:15.330 --> 00:02:17.926 A lot of people will talk about it as a list of words. Here are 00:02:17.948 --> 00:02:21.034 bad words and here are good words. But I like to go beyond that and 00:02:21.072 --> 00:02:24.822 have a very behavioural focus. What are people doing with their language? 00:02:24.966 --> 00:02:27.930 So when we communicate inclusively, 00:02:28.590 --> 00:02:32.326 people feel seen and heard and valued. 00:02:32.438 --> 00:02:35.934 People feel like they are taken into consideration and like they 00:02:35.972 --> 00:02:39.502 matter. By contrast, when we use what I call 00:02:39.556 --> 00:02:43.234 problematic language, and there are lots of words that people will use that maybe 00:02:43.272 --> 00:02:46.574 end with IST or ism, but I like to just call it problematic 00:02:46.622 --> 00:02:50.306 language. Problematic language comes in many forms and has 00:02:50.328 --> 00:02:53.682 really negative outcomes. It can 00:02:53.736 --> 00:02:57.346 damage relationships, it lowers trust, it drives 00:02:57.378 --> 00:03:00.854 people away and it harms all kinds of relationships. And by 00:03:00.892 --> 00:03:03.080 relationships, I mean 00:03:04.410 --> 00:03:07.802 personal relationships. So between family 00:03:07.856 --> 00:03:11.578 members, friends, colleagues, romantic partners. But I also 00:03:11.664 --> 00:03:15.114 mean business relationships could 00:03:15.152 --> 00:03:18.982 be still interpersonal between a recruiter 00:03:19.046 --> 00:03:22.734 and a client, a recruiter and a candidate. But it could 00:03:22.772 --> 00:03:26.170 also be a marketing message and an audience 00:03:26.330 --> 00:03:29.690 or customer experience, software 00:03:29.770 --> 00:03:33.506 interfaces and clients who become so irritated that 00:03:33.528 --> 00:03:37.314 they stop using your product. So that's what I mean by patterns. The 00:03:37.352 --> 00:03:40.994 patterns that I talk about for inclusive communication can be 00:03:41.032 --> 00:03:44.814 both one on one and media 00:03:44.952 --> 00:03:48.502 and planned communications that go out and affect many people, 00:03:48.556 --> 00:03:50.440 sometimes millions of people. 00:03:52.890 --> 00:03:56.646 You're speaking my language. You're speaking my language. One 00:03:56.668 --> 00:04:00.234 thing that people always come to me and say is they're so afraid of getting 00:04:00.272 --> 00:04:03.574 it wrong. And that creates this kind of lean 00:04:03.622 --> 00:04:07.386 back approach to people, because I've never had 00:04:07.408 --> 00:04:11.146 a conversation with someone who is black, I've never had some conversation with 00:04:11.168 --> 00:04:14.926 someone who's transgender or has a disability or what if I say 00:04:14.948 --> 00:04:18.446 the wrong thing? That's the biggest fear people say, is the fear of getting it 00:04:18.468 --> 00:04:21.886 wrong. It is a thing that I hear as 00:04:21.908 --> 00:04:25.490 well. And it is one of the reasons that I wrote my 00:04:25.560 --> 00:04:29.362 book, because people would feel 00:04:29.416 --> 00:04:32.980 better after a workshop with me, and a workshop would be very 00:04:33.430 --> 00:04:37.166 dedicated to the precise thing. So if you bring me in for recruiters, 00:04:37.198 --> 00:04:40.178 I'll do inclusive language for recruiters. If you bring me in for sales team, I'll 00:04:40.184 --> 00:04:43.714 do inclusive language for sales. So we're covering some things, but we have a limited 00:04:43.762 --> 00:04:47.286 amount of time together. And people would say to me, oh, my people are still 00:04:47.308 --> 00:04:51.158 nervous, or I'm still nervous, or executives would say to me, there are 00:04:51.164 --> 00:04:54.870 so many things I'm supposed to cover in an all hands meeting, or when I'm 00:04:54.950 --> 00:04:58.666 interviewing with somebody and I'm really afraid of getting cancelled. So some people 00:04:58.688 --> 00:05:02.326 are worried about the wrath of the Internet or getting cancelled. It's more self focused 00:05:02.438 --> 00:05:05.902 and some people are more worried about hurting somebody else. 00:05:06.036 --> 00:05:09.838 And so this lack of resources out there has been bothering me for a 00:05:09.844 --> 00:05:13.646 long time. And so this is why I realised it wasn't a question of 00:05:13.668 --> 00:05:16.962 ego, where I thought, I simply must write a book, right? It was really 00:05:17.016 --> 00:05:20.834 more people kept on being so stressed out and 00:05:20.872 --> 00:05:24.114 so nervous. And when you're paralysed by fear and you don't say 00:05:24.152 --> 00:05:27.494 anything, sometimes it really lands just the 00:05:27.532 --> 00:05:31.174 silence is communication in and of itself and it will land very 00:05:31.212 --> 00:05:34.694 badly on people who expect you to reach out. So this is 00:05:34.732 --> 00:05:38.486 exactly why I decided to do the work that 00:05:38.508 --> 00:05:40.680 I do. And I will say that 00:05:42.330 --> 00:05:44.586 you might have wanted to ask me this later, and I'm just going to say 00:05:44.608 --> 00:05:48.406 it right now. One of the reasons that my discussion of inclusive language 00:05:48.438 --> 00:05:52.106 and inclusion communication is different from other people's is I'm the only 00:05:52.128 --> 00:05:55.194 person I know that starts with behaviour rather than 00:05:55.232 --> 00:05:58.926 identity. So a lot of people will come and say, there are so 00:05:58.948 --> 00:06:01.838 many people in the world, I can't keep track of them. I grew up in 00:06:01.844 --> 00:06:05.502 a very homogeneous way. My workplace is very homogeneous. I don't know. And 00:06:05.556 --> 00:06:09.074 so it can feel so overwhelming and so exhausting to think 00:06:09.112 --> 00:06:12.946 about all the people in the world and all the words related to 00:06:12.968 --> 00:06:16.286 all the people in the world can feel like too much. So that's why I've 00:06:16.318 --> 00:06:19.906 come up with six principles that allow you to 00:06:20.088 --> 00:06:23.878 learn more and also make mistakes and correct them in 00:06:23.884 --> 00:06:26.406 a way that you feel like you always have a North Star. So I'm just 00:06:26.428 --> 00:06:28.586 going to say them. I'm not going to wait for you to team me up 00:06:28.608 --> 00:06:31.942 and I'll just say them. They are reflect 00:06:32.006 --> 00:06:35.770 reality, show respect, draw 00:06:35.840 --> 00:06:39.530 people in, incorporate other perspectives, 00:06:40.110 --> 00:06:43.840 prevent erasure and recognise pain points. 00:06:44.210 --> 00:06:47.966 So these are always that people want themselves to be treated in some 00:06:47.988 --> 00:06:51.614 respects. They're kind of a golden rule of interactions. And so 00:06:51.652 --> 00:06:55.374 if you can be precise about when somebody is different from 00:06:55.412 --> 00:06:58.866 you, how do you show respect or how do you make sure you're not 00:06:58.888 --> 00:07:02.450 marginalising them or how do you recognise the pain points? 00:07:02.600 --> 00:07:06.418 These are things that can be small research projects that people can get a 00:07:06.424 --> 00:07:09.734 grip on rather than this long list of words that 00:07:09.772 --> 00:07:13.574 feels nebulous. And PS is changing all the time. So you 00:07:13.612 --> 00:07:17.190 can't just go by memorising lists of words because by the time you memorised it, 00:07:17.260 --> 00:07:20.442 there's a good chance that some of the things that were okay aren't okay 00:07:20.496 --> 00:07:23.740 anymore. Yeah, I think you hit 00:07:24.110 --> 00:07:27.306 the nail on the head there, to use a British term, into the person that 00:07:27.328 --> 00:07:30.702 translates into American perfectly well. 00:07:30.756 --> 00:07:34.560 Excellent. I think the key thing for me is 00:07:35.170 --> 00:07:38.986 you actually care about how the other person's 00:07:39.018 --> 00:07:42.686 going to feel when you talk to them. I think you 00:07:42.708 --> 00:07:46.114 mentioned it in respect and the other elements of your six points, but if I 00:07:46.152 --> 00:07:49.906 have enough care about your feelings, your 00:07:50.008 --> 00:07:53.838 needs, your use the word identity, if you like, your lived 00:07:53.854 --> 00:07:57.554 experience, what matters to you, what makes you happy, what makes you sad. If I 00:07:57.592 --> 00:08:01.202 care deeply about that, I want a positive communication, 00:08:01.266 --> 00:08:04.946 I want a positive outcome from our conversation, then I think that's 00:08:04.978 --> 00:08:08.454 the basis then everything builds on the fact that I want this to go well. 00:08:08.572 --> 00:08:11.938 And if I don't know all the, as you say, every single word 00:08:12.124 --> 00:08:14.986 in the dictionary, I don't have to know every single word, I just have to 00:08:15.008 --> 00:08:18.646 know that I will not always get it right. And I appreciate 00:08:18.678 --> 00:08:22.394 that intent isn't everything. The impact kicks in there 00:08:22.432 --> 00:08:26.190 and bit of accountability as well, making sure I own my words. But 00:08:26.260 --> 00:08:30.094 the important thing there is I have to really care that I want 00:08:30.132 --> 00:08:33.406 you to have a positive experience and for me that's always been the root of 00:08:33.428 --> 00:08:37.060 it. If I care enough, I will do my best to get it right. 00:08:37.910 --> 00:08:41.700 I think that a combination of caring enough, 00:08:42.230 --> 00:08:45.634 be open to critical feedback to fix mistakes in the moment 00:08:45.752 --> 00:08:49.542 and doing some prep work. If you can do those three, then 00:08:49.596 --> 00:08:53.446 you can have a successful conversation with anybody. I 00:08:53.468 --> 00:08:57.094 think that there are some people who are on the receiving end of people being 00:08:57.132 --> 00:09:00.466 ignorant about what their lived experience is to the point where it's 00:09:00.498 --> 00:09:04.266 exhausting, right? So I don't want to just say that if 00:09:04.288 --> 00:09:07.882 you say to somebody, well, just educate me, or if I say a wrong 00:09:07.936 --> 00:09:11.650 word, please tell me. Because a lot of times people who are on the receiving 00:09:11.670 --> 00:09:15.470 end of these things are just done, just done. But 00:09:15.540 --> 00:09:19.246 if you show that you've already done some homework and 00:09:19.268 --> 00:09:22.894 you come in and you say, well, I know this, so is this 00:09:22.932 --> 00:09:25.360 okay? I know I shouldn't say hey guys. 00:09:26.130 --> 00:09:29.874 So I'm going to say hey folks, or hey people, is that okay 00:09:29.912 --> 00:09:32.946 with you? Is a story we can talk about a little bit later about a 00:09:32.968 --> 00:09:36.818 sales call gone wrong and then gone right again. But I think that if you 00:09:36.824 --> 00:09:40.582 have that combo and show that you've cared enough to put in some work 00:09:40.636 --> 00:09:44.306 in advance, then people are going to feel they're 00:09:44.338 --> 00:09:47.954 not educating you from scratch. The burden of education isn't on them. The burden 00:09:48.002 --> 00:09:51.526 of explaining to you in a way that won't make you upset or angry isn't 00:09:51.558 --> 00:09:55.354 on them because you've put in that work. And so that's why I 00:09:55.392 --> 00:09:59.206 like to recommend people certain kinds of homework, like diversifying 00:09:59.238 --> 00:10:02.778 your social media. So you start even if you have a 00:10:02.784 --> 00:10:06.254 homogeneous group, because of the ways that 00:10:06.372 --> 00:10:09.262 things are set up, like even if you grew up in a homogeneous way and 00:10:09.316 --> 00:10:13.146 your workplace is homogeneous, social media is a gift, is a gift, 00:10:13.178 --> 00:10:16.930 gift, gift. And you can eavesdrop on conversations without bothering anybody 00:10:17.000 --> 00:10:20.130 and learn all kinds of things almost by osmosis. 00:10:20.710 --> 00:10:24.466 That's good. What you just said there, again, it resonates because I talk 00:10:24.488 --> 00:10:28.070 a lot about emotional intelligence and cultural intelligence. And 00:10:28.140 --> 00:10:31.826 both of those first steps in both of those emotional 00:10:31.858 --> 00:10:35.618 intelligence is about self awareness, how you come across. And cultural 00:10:35.634 --> 00:10:39.478 intelligence is all around the drive to develop knowledge. So what 00:10:39.484 --> 00:10:43.206 you're saying here is you have to put the legwork in first, don't turn 00:10:43.228 --> 00:10:47.002 up, expect me to be your educator, which I completely resonate with. So 00:10:47.056 --> 00:10:49.706 you've got to have that drive. You've got to care enough about how you come 00:10:49.728 --> 00:10:53.278 across to build the knowledge. And then for the knowledge you build a strategy. So 00:10:53.364 --> 00:10:56.910 yeah, having that groundwork is really important. I concur. 00:10:59.090 --> 00:11:02.766 We have Google in our pockets, don't we? We have millions and billions of 00:11:02.788 --> 00:11:05.874 hours of YouTubes and podcasts and books and 00:11:05.912 --> 00:11:09.534 Amazon. There's not a lot of excuse really for people not to do the basics, 00:11:09.582 --> 00:11:12.980 is there? Well, although I would say that 00:11:13.670 --> 00:11:16.982 publishing and Hollywood have been real 00:11:17.036 --> 00:11:20.274 gatekeepers. So you have to have a little bit of critical 00:11:20.322 --> 00:11:24.134 intelligence and thinking about your sources. Because 00:11:24.332 --> 00:11:28.086 if you just watch movies about a group, they might not 00:11:28.108 --> 00:11:31.442 have been made by that group. And if you just read books about a group 00:11:31.516 --> 00:11:35.226 that might have been written by somebody who's out group. So that's one of the 00:11:35.248 --> 00:11:39.098 gifts from social media is this decentralisation and the removal of the kind of 00:11:39.104 --> 00:11:42.894 the gatekeeping. You might not get the knowledge from a book 00:11:42.932 --> 00:11:46.526 that you need, right? So, for example, I 00:11:46.548 --> 00:11:50.170 recommend to people, let's just use disability 00:11:50.250 --> 00:11:53.914 as an example. So people who are perceptibly disabled 00:11:53.962 --> 00:11:57.794 are low frequency for encounters for many people who 00:11:57.832 --> 00:12:01.490 are abled out in the world. So it's not frequently that they'll meet somebody 00:12:01.560 --> 00:12:05.294 who's deaf or hard of hearing or who's in a wheelchair or who's 00:12:05.342 --> 00:12:08.914 blind, just for example. And so here's a thing where people 00:12:08.952 --> 00:12:11.746 suddenly are like, oh, my God, I don't know what to say. And they're paralysed 00:12:11.778 --> 00:12:14.390 or often when we're so self conscious, 00:12:15.370 --> 00:12:18.118 the last thing that you wanted to come out of your mouth this happens to 00:12:18.124 --> 00:12:21.398 me, too, when you're nervous, the last thing that you want to come out of 00:12:21.404 --> 00:12:23.858 your mouth is coming right out of your mouth. And you're like, oh, I can't 00:12:23.874 --> 00:12:27.318 believe that I said that. So I talk about this sometimes where somebody gets a 00:12:27.324 --> 00:12:30.494 bad haircut and in your head you're like, don't mention the haircut. Like, don't mention 00:12:30.532 --> 00:12:34.078 the haircut. And then you're out of your lips comes, oh, you got a 00:12:34.084 --> 00:12:36.926 haircut. And then you have to make a comment on it when really you just 00:12:36.948 --> 00:12:40.606 wanted to say nothing. So what I like for the 00:12:40.628 --> 00:12:43.614 prep is, for example, I don't think in the book you're going to find stuff, 00:12:43.652 --> 00:12:47.202 but you can just go to Google or any search engine and type 00:12:47.256 --> 00:12:50.894 in problematic things said to wheelchair users, problematic 00:12:50.942 --> 00:12:54.366 things said to blind people, problematic things said to deaf 00:12:54.398 --> 00:12:58.102 people. And they'll just tell you, like, it's just out there. It takes very little 00:12:58.156 --> 00:13:01.234 time. So I would say even having these kinds of directed 00:13:01.282 --> 00:13:04.200 searches, if you're prepped and you're like, 00:13:04.650 --> 00:13:08.226 then you're ready to go, right? So it might seem 00:13:08.258 --> 00:13:12.054 like you're trying to care about somebody. So let's say there's somebody in a wheelchair, 00:13:12.182 --> 00:13:15.978 and it might feel caring to you to say, oh, how is 00:13:15.984 --> 00:13:19.446 it that you're in a wheelchair? But I'm going to tell you that every wheelchair 00:13:19.478 --> 00:13:23.206 person, every wheelchair person is absolutely not the thing to say. Your wheelchair user 00:13:23.238 --> 00:13:26.826 is what I was trying to say. Every person in a wheelchair, every wheelchair user 00:13:26.858 --> 00:13:30.478 that I've talked with or read things by or heard things by, 00:13:30.564 --> 00:13:34.174 they absolutely have no interest in explaining to you why they 00:13:34.212 --> 00:13:37.906 are in a wheelchair. And intrusive questions are incredibly common. And 00:13:37.928 --> 00:13:41.474 so something that might feel like caring or curiosity to 00:13:41.512 --> 00:13:45.282 you might land as very intrusive and inappropriate to somebody else 00:13:45.336 --> 00:13:48.450 who's just like, can we just talk about my presentation? 00:13:49.130 --> 00:13:52.806 Why are we talking about how do I put on pants? Why is 00:13:52.828 --> 00:13:56.626 this now part of the conversation? We kind of make a bigger 00:13:56.658 --> 00:14:00.234 deal of it than it really is because that's our insecurity, our 00:14:00.272 --> 00:14:03.930 nervousness, whatever it may be. I've got a great friend of mine, 00:14:04.830 --> 00:14:08.266 she's a black woman. She is a wheelchair user. She has 00:14:08.288 --> 00:14:12.106 cerebral palsy at birth. And I 00:14:12.128 --> 00:14:15.934 remember we were going, I think we're going something to eat. And I said, should 00:14:15.972 --> 00:14:19.534 we just walk to the pub or something? And I was going, oh my God. 00:14:19.572 --> 00:14:23.306 I said, Walk to the pub? You're a wheelchair user. And I got all heats 00:14:23.338 --> 00:14:26.850 in my brain. She said, yeah, let's go for a walk, that's fine. And so 00:14:27.000 --> 00:14:30.802 she doesn't use necessarily different 00:14:30.856 --> 00:14:34.674 language. She uses contemporary language around the activity. And 00:14:34.712 --> 00:14:37.780 I was making a bigger deal of it than it was because 00:14:38.310 --> 00:14:41.686 I picked up the word walk and is that ableist? And it turned out that 00:14:41.708 --> 00:14:45.394 I was probably overcooking it. I think sometimes we just got to relax 00:14:45.442 --> 00:14:49.274 and learn about not necessarily taking every 00:14:49.312 --> 00:14:53.146 single word we say too literally and apologise for it, but 00:14:53.168 --> 00:14:56.540 just feel the mood. If they said, oh yeah, 00:14:58.750 --> 00:15:02.106 I've got my powered chair, I'll follow you, whatever, just pick up on their 00:15:02.128 --> 00:15:05.854 language. And I would say that that's the kind of 00:15:05.892 --> 00:15:09.502 thing over apologising is also a thing that I hear from people 00:15:09.556 --> 00:15:13.290 from marginalised and underrepresented groups who don't want to feel othered, 00:15:13.370 --> 00:15:16.894 right? So my third principle is draw people in is the reverse of marginalising, 00:15:16.942 --> 00:15:20.402 right? So there's a lot of ways that we interact with people that 00:15:20.456 --> 00:15:24.194 highlight difference. People who feel like they just want 00:15:24.232 --> 00:15:27.540 to be there in belonging and just treated like everybody else 00:15:28.710 --> 00:15:32.438 end up feeling very othered. And so over apologising is one of 00:15:32.444 --> 00:15:35.698 the things that happens. So I was talking to somebody who is non binary 00:15:35.874 --> 00:15:39.686 and they have a manager who can't figure out 00:15:39.708 --> 00:15:43.498 pronouns at this point, like figure it out, right? But so 00:15:43.584 --> 00:15:47.098 in early stages we understand and as a 00:15:47.104 --> 00:15:50.746 linguist, I'll tell you that pronouns are different from other words and 00:15:50.768 --> 00:15:54.426 language and we store them in our brain differently and they're grammar 00:15:54.458 --> 00:15:57.982 words. And it's much harder to shift your use of words in this 00:15:58.036 --> 00:16:01.566 closed set of grammar words than other words. You 00:16:01.588 --> 00:16:05.266 wouldn't change numbers very easily or prepositions, right? So there are 00:16:05.288 --> 00:16:08.674 ways that it is very reasonable to have a 00:16:08.712 --> 00:16:12.546 struggle with pronouns as people say, oh, actually my pronouns are 00:16:12.568 --> 00:16:16.274 this. And you haven't had unlike young people today, natively use 00:16:16.312 --> 00:16:20.066 they them for a single person, right? But for a lot of us who grew 00:16:20.098 --> 00:16:23.926 up earlier, they them wasn't used for a 00:16:23.948 --> 00:16:27.634 single unknown person or for plural people, but not for a single known 00:16:27.682 --> 00:16:30.954 person. So it can be a real struggle against the weight. Of all the times 00:16:30.992 --> 00:16:34.426 that we've used only she or he to talk about people. 00:16:34.528 --> 00:16:38.102 So the thing that you do is you just do a minor correction. 00:16:38.246 --> 00:16:42.074 Oh, yes, so and so she, oh, I'm sorry, they and then you move 00:16:42.112 --> 00:16:45.742 on. But this manager was, oh my goodness, I'm so sorry, 00:16:45.796 --> 00:16:49.146 I've done it again. Look at this. I really need to respect that you're 00:16:49.178 --> 00:16:52.554 nonbinary and on and on and on. So the apology 00:16:52.682 --> 00:16:56.034 itself was a problem, was 00:16:56.072 --> 00:16:59.906 problematic language because it was highlighting the otherness. So I think 00:16:59.928 --> 00:17:03.486 that you can take the cues in the moment here's that emotional 00:17:03.518 --> 00:17:07.298 intelligence and cultural intelligence. You're talking about having the ability to live in the 00:17:07.304 --> 00:17:11.150 moment and see, oh, I said walk. Should I apologise? And you could say, oh 00:17:11.160 --> 00:17:14.678 my God, I said walk. They'll be like, oh, no problem. And then aside, you 00:17:14.684 --> 00:17:17.398 don't have to worry about walk with them anymore. So these are the kinds of 00:17:17.404 --> 00:17:21.082 things that you file away in your mental database for 00:17:21.136 --> 00:17:24.410 interacting with that person. But PS, just because one 00:17:24.560 --> 00:17:28.346 wheelchair user says it's okay to say walk does not mean you can 00:17:28.368 --> 00:17:31.742 apply it to everybody. So you got to suss that out person by 00:17:31.796 --> 00:17:35.246 person. Of course, yeah, my experience is my 00:17:35.268 --> 00:17:38.030 experience and yours differs. 00:17:39.010 --> 00:17:42.814 Talking about misgendering, I misgender myself. I spent 52 years 00:17:42.852 --> 00:17:46.434 of my life using one set of pronouns and referring to myself in a certain 00:17:46.472 --> 00:17:50.260 way. For the last seven so years I've used 00:17:50.790 --> 00:17:54.370 she her and I can't get it right every time. 00:17:54.440 --> 00:17:58.086 And my wife is probably better at than I do. She never gets it 00:17:58.108 --> 00:18:01.746 wrong. But it was our daughter's 00:18:01.778 --> 00:18:05.334 wedding a couple of years ago and I remember and I'm still 00:18:05.372 --> 00:18:09.190 dad and still father to our daughter. So I'm extremely proud of 00:18:09.340 --> 00:18:13.098 that in my life, so I'm not going to lose that. But I remember I 00:18:13.104 --> 00:18:16.806 did the father of the bride speech and it's almost impossible 00:18:16.998 --> 00:18:19.980 to not use male pronouns in this because I said 00:18:20.830 --> 00:18:24.574 there's no prouder moment in a father's life than when he gives 00:18:24.612 --> 00:18:28.382 his daughter away. You try and say that sentence with the word 00:18:28.436 --> 00:18:32.186 she in there instead of he. Linguistically, my head couldn't handle 00:18:32.218 --> 00:18:35.118 it. So I did the entire father of white speech and I said at the 00:18:35.124 --> 00:18:38.786 end of it, I've just systematically misgendered myself four times in this speech, but it 00:18:38.808 --> 00:18:42.546 didn't make sense to me to say it any other way, but that's my 00:18:42.568 --> 00:18:46.130 experience. There are other people who want to identify 00:18:46.790 --> 00:18:50.402 as mum or wife or wherever they do and they use different pronouns. 00:18:50.466 --> 00:18:54.134 As I say, that's my experience. That's the way I 00:18:54.172 --> 00:18:57.586 treat myself and everyone else is different. So, yeah, you 00:18:57.628 --> 00:19:00.220 can't know everybody by knowing one person. 00:19:01.550 --> 00:19:04.140 And I would add to that that 00:19:05.150 --> 00:19:08.762 not everybody uses they them pronouns. Some people who 00:19:08.816 --> 00:19:12.378 are genderqueer or in other way non 00:19:12.394 --> 00:19:15.502 binary will have pronouns that are very, very low 00:19:15.556 --> 00:19:18.734 frequency. So this is again why I have these 00:19:18.772 --> 00:19:22.350 principles. Oh, to show respect and draw in 00:19:22.420 --> 00:19:26.226 this person right. To show respect for them and draw them in. I 00:19:26.248 --> 00:19:29.890 have to remember that they're using fay fair, right. 00:19:30.040 --> 00:19:33.330 So that's also a thing that happens. I think misgendering yourself 00:19:33.400 --> 00:19:37.094 is okay because of the complexities. I mean, that story 00:19:37.132 --> 00:19:40.982 is fantastic because it shows the complexities of being 00:19:41.036 --> 00:19:44.614 very prescriptive about how a person is supposed to be. 00:19:44.812 --> 00:19:48.582 And let me tell you this, that let's just go to Gatekeeping right? 00:19:48.636 --> 00:19:51.994 So this happens with disability. I don't know if it happens as much with 00:19:52.032 --> 00:19:55.402 transgender people, but people who are really trying 00:19:55.456 --> 00:19:59.146 to walk the walk and be good and learning can get very 00:19:59.328 --> 00:20:03.054 judgmental and gatekeeping and will lecture people about 00:20:03.092 --> 00:20:06.942 the language they use for themselves. So I 00:20:06.996 --> 00:20:10.714 read a few books by disabled 00:20:10.762 --> 00:20:14.570 activists and in one of them one of the authors 00:20:14.650 --> 00:20:18.178 talks about how she's a wheelchair user. And so 00:20:18.344 --> 00:20:22.034 the question of and in the UK and the US, people have landed on different 00:20:22.072 --> 00:20:25.746 sides of things. Do you say a person with a disability or do you say 00:20:25.768 --> 00:20:29.046 a disabled person and which one is the right one? So I was listening to 00:20:29.068 --> 00:20:32.806 somebody recently who does research, disability research, and 00:20:32.828 --> 00:20:36.546 they publish in English for both a UK and a US audience. And so they're 00:20:36.578 --> 00:20:40.006 really stymied as to what do I do for the most inclusive choice. And 00:20:40.028 --> 00:20:43.354 so I think for those, sometimes you have to do a little preface and say, 00:20:43.392 --> 00:20:46.950 I'm going to be using this language. But in any case, this wheelchair 00:20:47.030 --> 00:20:50.826 user named Emily Lido said that she 00:20:50.848 --> 00:20:54.654 had switched over to saying disabled person. And people would say to her, 00:20:54.692 --> 00:20:58.330 oh no, you should really say person with a disability. 00:20:58.490 --> 00:21:02.142 And she would say, but I'm disabled. Well, don't talk about yourself like that. 00:21:02.196 --> 00:21:05.938 I don't think of you as a disabled person, right? So I talk a 00:21:05.944 --> 00:21:09.458 lot about stigma. Stigma is a thing that happens a lot in 00:21:09.464 --> 00:21:13.186 society where a group is socially devalued, is marginalised. It's part 00:21:13.208 --> 00:21:16.946 of what comes with the marginalisation and the lack of access to power is 00:21:16.968 --> 00:21:20.294 you get a lot of stigma where a group is just seen as less than, 00:21:20.332 --> 00:21:24.134 and sometimes not just less than, but stigmatised in some 00:21:24.172 --> 00:21:27.798 way, right? So for example, people with mental health issues, that's very highly 00:21:27.814 --> 00:21:31.434 stigmatised, people with 00:21:31.472 --> 00:21:35.126 disabilities, disabled people, depending on what people prefer. 00:21:35.238 --> 00:21:38.874 And so you can hear that stigma in don't talk about 00:21:38.912 --> 00:21:42.714 yourself like that or I don't even think of you as disabled. I have black 00:21:42.752 --> 00:21:46.158 friends who also people have said to them, oh, I don't even think of you 00:21:46.164 --> 00:21:49.726 as black. And it's like, is that supposed to be a 00:21:49.748 --> 00:21:53.406 compliment? So there's that kind of gatekeeping. I can imagine a scenario where 00:21:53.428 --> 00:21:57.154 somebody who's being very assiduous and is just learning how to do 00:21:57.192 --> 00:22:00.914 pronouns, right, would come up and say, whoo, you really need to get better 00:22:00.952 --> 00:22:04.690 with your pronouns. I hear people who are in group getting 00:22:04.760 --> 00:22:08.534 lectured by out group people. And so part of my this 00:22:08.572 --> 00:22:12.022 can be like a lot of navel gazing, inclusive language. Well, what exact 00:22:12.076 --> 00:22:15.234 term, what exact term? And my feeling is by showing 00:22:15.282 --> 00:22:19.058 respect, you use the term that a person prefers. And if you're 00:22:19.074 --> 00:22:22.774 with a group of people who aren't monolithic, then you start to get complicated 00:22:22.822 --> 00:22:26.154 and you have to explain yourself a little bit more and say, well, for this 00:22:26.192 --> 00:22:30.010 group of people, I'm going to use the terminology indigenous, but I understand 00:22:30.080 --> 00:22:33.614 other people prefer native. Or you like a hyperlink or an 00:22:33.652 --> 00:22:37.374 Asterisk and a footnote to say, I understand that not 00:22:37.412 --> 00:22:41.166 everybody likes this term, I'm choosing it for these reasons. So people know that 00:22:41.188 --> 00:22:45.034 you've put in the work rather than thinking that you're blithely just 00:22:45.092 --> 00:22:48.754 doing a thing because you don't know any better. Yeah, I completely 00:22:48.792 --> 00:22:52.210 agree with that. And often when I'm doing talks or running 00:22:52.280 --> 00:22:55.678 training, I would tend to use multiple 00:22:55.854 --> 00:22:59.266 ways of describing an identity, a 00:22:59.288 --> 00:23:03.046 characteristic, whatever it may be, in very short successions. So I might say 00:23:03.068 --> 00:23:06.406 a person with a disability or a disabled person, as a matter of fact, in 00:23:06.428 --> 00:23:10.198 a sentence. So acknowledging both terminology and 00:23:10.364 --> 00:23:13.446 sometimes I might even say, I know that people have a different way of describing 00:23:13.478 --> 00:23:16.746 themselves and I don't want to judge. I know that people are very proud of 00:23:16.768 --> 00:23:20.618 being disabled first, and some people prefer to be described as 00:23:20.704 --> 00:23:24.302 person with a disability. Then you meet someone who has 00:23:24.436 --> 00:23:27.630 neurodiversity and they prefer to or they use 00:23:27.700 --> 00:23:31.278 autistic person rather than the person with autism. They're very proud of the 00:23:31.284 --> 00:23:35.106 autism first. So it's a real minefield, as you say, you 00:23:35.128 --> 00:23:38.946 have to be very adaptable, very in tune, do your research or 00:23:38.968 --> 00:23:42.210 at least your basics, as we talked about having that base level of research 00:23:42.280 --> 00:23:43.860 first. And 00:23:45.830 --> 00:23:49.510 where I know there's ambiguity, I try and use 00:23:49.580 --> 00:23:52.600 all the different language I know to sort of say 00:23:53.290 --> 00:23:57.078 I'm aware of the discussion points around this, which is why I 00:23:57.084 --> 00:24:00.006 use both. And if people ask me to clarify, I say, well, I've got some 00:24:00.028 --> 00:24:03.466 great friends who really are proud to be a disabled person. I've got some great 00:24:03.488 --> 00:24:07.302 friends who prefer to be a person with a disability or a wheelchair user 00:24:07.366 --> 00:24:10.678 and those kind of words. So yeah, I think if you coach it in, it's 00:24:10.694 --> 00:24:14.254 not my language, it's words that I'm using that people have explained to me or 00:24:14.292 --> 00:24:18.046 their language. I'm just using the language I've been educated with by 00:24:18.068 --> 00:24:21.806 my friends and my contemporaries. Which language do you 00:24:21.828 --> 00:24:25.620