Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood and I am your host for the
Joanne Lockwood: Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I have
Joanne Lockwood: interviewed a number of amazing people and simply had the conversation
Joanne Lockwood: around the subject of inclusion, belonging, and
Joanne Lockwood: generally making the world a better place for everyone to thrive.
Joanne Lockwood: If you'd like to join me in the future, then please do drop me a
Joanne Lockwood: line to jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk,
Joanne Lockwood: that's S-E-E Change Happen dot Co dot UK.
Joanne Lockwood: You can catch up with all of the previous shows
Joanne Lockwood: on iTunes, Spotify and the usual places.
Joanne Lockwood: So plug in the headphones, grab a decaf and
Joanne Lockwood: let's get going. Today
Joanne Lockwood: is episode 96 with the title
Joanne Lockwood: ""Authenticity Unveiled"and I have
Joanne Lockwood: the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Lee Gilbert.
Joanne Lockwood: Lee is a marketing leader and a volunteer, mentor and
Joanne Lockwood: counsellor for adults with gender dysphoria.
Joanne Lockwood: When I asked Lee to describe her superpower, she said,
Joanne Lockwood: being an authentic leader who is comfortable with being
Joanne Lockwood: vulnerable and using the happiness that comes from it.
Joanne Lockwood: Hello, Lee. Welcome to the show. Hi, Jo. It's a real pleasure
Lee Gilbert: to be here. Likewise. And where are
Joanne Lockwood: we now? We're in Twixmas, aren't we? The bit between Christmas and New Year 2023.
Joanne Lockwood: And we were just chatting just now about our family
Joanne Lockwood: occasions and all the things we've done. So, Lee,
Joanne Lockwood: authenticity unveiled, what's all that?
Lee Gilbert: I guess there's two parts to that. Authenticity is something
Lee Gilbert: that's become more important to me in the last few years, and
Lee Gilbert: the unveiling is the part that took 40 years, I
Lee Gilbert: guess is a way of looking at it.
Lee Gilbert: So, winding back the clock just to set the
Lee Gilbert: context here. I am
Lee Gilbert: transgender. I am someone that
Lee Gilbert: has been through and experienced a lot in my
Lee Gilbert: life, but I didn't become authentically
Lee Gilbert: myself until 2020.
Lee Gilbert: Prior to that, I was
Lee Gilbert: operating what I would call the role of a lifetime, as Ronald
Lee Gilbert: Reagan once described it, as an acting role. I was
Lee Gilbert: one of the world's best actors. I was acting
Lee Gilbert: a life that wasn't authentic, but a life
Lee Gilbert: that was very successful,
Lee Gilbert: productive, and from the outside to other people,
Lee Gilbert: looked amazing. But inside, to me,
Lee Gilbert: was very uncomfortable and
Lee Gilbert: challenging. Winding back the clock. I knew I was trans in
Lee Gilbert: 1985, which was when I was about seven,
Lee Gilbert: coming on eight that year. In
Lee Gilbert: 1995,
Lee Gilbert: when I finished education
Lee Gilbert: in March of that year, I
Lee Gilbert: attempted my own life, because that was a point in my life
Lee Gilbert: that was possibly the lowest. I've never thought about it
Lee Gilbert: or had ideation about that since. But
Lee Gilbert: it was a moment that was the deepest and
Lee Gilbert: darkest time as I began adulthood at that point. And it was
Lee Gilbert: a time when
Lee Gilbert: it happened, but it thankfully failed.
Lee Gilbert: I guess I decided to
Lee Gilbert: do what society expected me to do for
Lee Gilbert: the next 30 years almost.
Lee Gilbert: And I'll. And I'll tell you the difference between the 30 and the 35,
Lee Gilbert: the difference in the time there in a moment. But
Lee Gilbert: the intervening period,
Lee Gilbert: I was reasonably successful. I decided, for my own mental
Lee Gilbert: health reasons, not to go to university. I could have gone, but I chose not
Lee Gilbert: to because I thought the isolation of university, considering what had just
Lee Gilbert: happened, might have been one of the worst things I could do for
Lee Gilbert: myself. So I decided to go and get a job and go for the picket
Lee Gilbert: fence and the 2.4 kids and everything else that the world
Lee Gilbert: kind of dictates that you're supposed to do.
Lee Gilbert: Dictators, a bit of a strange word to use, but I guess that's how it
Lee Gilbert: feels. And that lack of belonging
Lee Gilbert: created that inauthentic
Lee Gilbert: feeling. But at the same time,
Lee Gilbert: I'm quite a driven, passionate,
Lee Gilbert: entrepreneurial individual. So I kind of wandered
Lee Gilbert: through five years of life in my first
Lee Gilbert: roles and then set up my own business
Lee Gilbert: in the turn of the millennium, and then
Lee Gilbert: basically made myself unemployable for 20
Lee Gilbert: years, during which time I founded a couple of startups and
Lee Gilbert: founded a marketing agency and
Lee Gilbert: did some speaking. Became very successful to the outside
Lee Gilbert: world with supercars and houses and
Lee Gilbert: multiple holidays and family and everything
Lee Gilbert: else. It looked like I was being authentic,
Lee Gilbert: but actually it was the biggest fraud in human
Lee Gilbert: history, certainly in my history.
Lee Gilbert: But in 2016, I kind of
Lee Gilbert: set myself free a bit. That
Lee Gilbert: freedom exercised itself fully in 2020. I can explain
Lee Gilbert: the gap between 2016 and 2020 a bit more later.
Lee Gilbert: And then since 2020, I've been living
Lee Gilbert: authentically, and now I've kind of found
Lee Gilbert: a sense of belonging, which means I found happiness.
Lee Gilbert: And not only am I living
Lee Gilbert: authentically, it's dramatically improved the
Lee Gilbert: way I act, who I am,
Lee Gilbert: and I enjoyed being a leader in an authentic way.
Lee Gilbert: So I guess that's the unveiling part, Jo, and
Lee Gilbert: that's the journey to authenticity. Wow. Well,
Joanne Lockwood: first of all, thank you for sharing and trusting
Joanne Lockwood: me with some of that information. It can't be easy to talk about that. I
Joanne Lockwood: appreciate that. So you're of
Joanne Lockwood: seven or 819 85. A little bit
Joanne Lockwood: younger than me, I won't say how. Well, quite a lot younger than me. Ten
Joanne Lockwood: or so years. 1015 years. 1985
Joanne Lockwood: was still the dark ages in human
Joanne Lockwood: evolution. When we talk about Internet, we talk about
Joanne Lockwood: probably right in the middle of section 28, I guess, close to
Joanne Lockwood: section 20. 819 88, wasn't it? I think. Yeah, I was at school when that
Lee Gilbert: happened. So, yeah, you were growing
Joanne Lockwood: up in a time where being queer
Joanne Lockwood: was AIDS, AIDS was around,
Joanne Lockwood: all that kind of stuff. It was being demonised. We look at
Joanne Lockwood: those, look back at that time in history, it wasn't a great
Joanne Lockwood: time to be a young, questioning person. There's no
Joanne Lockwood: information, no literature, no nothing else around. So when you say
Joanne Lockwood: you were trying to figure itself out in your head,
Joanne Lockwood: what reference point did you have to try and use to analyse
Joanne Lockwood: that? Nothing. And I guess that was
Lee Gilbert: the problem, Jo, from
Lee Gilbert: 1985 to 1995, when I attempted my
Lee Gilbert: own life, you're quite right, that was the vacuum of information
Lee Gilbert: that we lived in and that was the backdrop to it.
Lee Gilbert: And I had no role models around me, which is
Lee Gilbert: why today I'm very driven to be open about
Lee Gilbert: my journey so I can offer myself as a role model to
Lee Gilbert: others. And as you said in the beginning, I do
Lee Gilbert: volunteer to mentor young
Lee Gilbert: adults that are going through that journey myself.
Lee Gilbert: And I'm very open on LinkedIn about my journey and some of the challenges
Lee Gilbert: amongst everything else professionally. But
Lee Gilbert: during that period, there was no
Lee Gilbert: information, there was no Internet. And I think the only things
Lee Gilbert: that happened, and this sounds silly, but the only things that would
Lee Gilbert: happen is occasionally you would get in the news of the world or the
Lee Gilbert: Sunday people or something, there would be a story
Lee Gilbert: every now and again, a few times a year,
Lee Gilbert: you would get sex swap cop
Lee Gilbert: or some army major
Lee Gilbert: that has been
Lee Gilbert: brave enough to change their gender and sold their story to the News of the
Lee Gilbert: World. You'd get like Julia
Lee Gilbert: Grant, who did the BBC tv series in the 80s, which was.
Lee Gilbert: They were little diamonds in the rough. That happened. But the sex swap
Lee Gilbert: stop. Sex swap cop stories were
Lee Gilbert: so derogatory. But actually, I was compelled to read
Lee Gilbert: them because it was a point
Lee Gilbert: of identity. It was like, actually, I get
Lee Gilbert: that. But you're looking back at now, the way that the
Lee Gilbert: newspapers dealt with that and the headlines they put on it were, quite
Lee Gilbert: frankly, shocking, but that was the only information we had,
Lee Gilbert: and we didn't have any Internet, and
Lee Gilbert: there was very little in libraries because of government legislation,
Lee Gilbert: as you've alluded to, and there was no schooling.
Lee Gilbert: And I think the lack of information
Lee Gilbert: created the darkness and some of the mental health challenges I had at that
Lee Gilbert: time and put me in that difficult place in
Lee Gilbert: 95, which music actually got me out of. It was music
Lee Gilbert: that got me out of the darkness.
Lee Gilbert: But that vacuum of
Lee Gilbert: information is so kick. Of course, today you flip that coin
Lee Gilbert: and there's arguably so much information, and
Lee Gilbert: so much of that information is still riddled with that media
Lee Gilbert: kind of poisoned language in places, but some of it
Lee Gilbert: is genuinely powerful and really
Lee Gilbert: great information. But you've
Lee Gilbert: gone from nothing to too much, arguably, and
Lee Gilbert: there's a lot of confusion. So young people today, the ones that I work with
Lee Gilbert: at least, have the opposite problem to the one I did,
Lee Gilbert: which is that they're bombarded with so much
Lee Gilbert: that they're not quite sure which way to turn.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, so many more options these days. In the old
Joanne Lockwood: days, it was transvestite or transsexual
Joanne Lockwood: or transvestite is pre
Joanne Lockwood: cross dressing, because cross dressing is kind of the contemporary terms of. Transvestite was the
Joanne Lockwood: term used in those days. And you were a tv or a ts, that was
Joanne Lockwood: kind of a language. Now we've got a whole load of different
Joanne Lockwood: ways to describe gender in terms of fluidity, demi
Joanne Lockwood: transmasculine, transfeminine, nonbinary fluid. All these kind of
Joanne Lockwood: different terms exist. And the one I think is most important,
Joanne Lockwood: that's now evolved, is questioning. You're allowed to
Joanne Lockwood: question. You're allowed to say, I don't know,
Joanne Lockwood: but society wants you to know. I think sometimes you get
Joanne Lockwood: pushed into making a decision and not allowed to just figure yourself out for
Joanne Lockwood: a bit. I think that's right. I think we kind of grow up
Lee Gilbert: in a binary world in so many senses. There's left, there's right, there's up,
Lee Gilbert: there's down, there's male, there's female, there's black, there's white.
Lee Gilbert: And I think that binary makes people feel
Lee Gilbert: safe in their own thoughts.
Lee Gilbert: And being in that, dare I say the term, 50 shades
Lee Gilbert: of grey spectrum in the middle makes some people feel
Lee Gilbert: uncomfortable and they find that
Lee Gilbert: questions themselves, let alone those
Lee Gilbert: that are questioning. And that's where some of the
Lee Gilbert: discomfort and some of the challenges that others have with
Lee Gilbert: things I think happen. But we do live in a binary world,
Lee Gilbert: and there are good things that come from
Lee Gilbert: binary factors. It kind of makes things easy to
Lee Gilbert: understand. But when things are less
Lee Gilbert: binary, that's when complexity
Lee Gilbert: occurs. I
Joanne Lockwood: did my evolution alone.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm not saying it was easier or harder being alone or
Joanne Lockwood: being with people, but I had no pressure from people around
Joanne Lockwood: me to be. To operate at a different
Joanne Lockwood: pace. I sometimes wonder if we have created a society
Joanne Lockwood: where because of the
Joanne Lockwood: queues for the gender identity clinics are now six to eight years.
Joanne Lockwood: I think depending on where you go, if you're a young person trying to get
Joanne Lockwood: on the pathway, I think the time scales are even longer.
Joanne Lockwood: You're more like to become an adult before you get seen at the youth services
Joanne Lockwood: now because they've all been disrupted, there's this kind
Joanne Lockwood: of need to get on the conveyor belt. Whereas when I was
Joanne Lockwood: trying to figure myself out because I was in isolation, yes, I didn't understand.
Joanne Lockwood: I couldn't figure myself out. But I didn't have a whole peer group of
Joanne Lockwood: pressure or comparison drawing me into
Joanne Lockwood: something that I wasn't sure about. People
Joanne Lockwood: were surprised when I transitioned because I went from sort of naught to
Joanne Lockwood: 60 in a millisecond. It was like,
Joanne Lockwood: how did that happen? Because I kind of dotted all my I's and crossed my
Joanne Lockwood: t's and then went, right now I know. I think today people are
Joanne Lockwood: using their quite rightly questioning in public,
Joanne Lockwood: and out they come out and question, rather than keep it as a
Joanne Lockwood: secret in question. I think that's quite right,
Lee Gilbert: and it's positive that that happens.
Lee Gilbert: I talk about vulnerability being almost a superpower or something that
Lee Gilbert: I'm. I see as part of an
Lee Gilbert: authenticity. I. You
Lee Gilbert: know, from my period up until
Lee Gilbert: what was November
Lee Gilbert: 2015,
Lee Gilbert: when I first came out to my wife, we then had a period
Lee Gilbert: of five years where no one
Lee Gilbert: else knew. But during that
Lee Gilbert: five years, myself, most
Lee Gilbert: particularly, but also my wife, and building those foundations of a strong relationship
Lee Gilbert: and everything else that goes with kind of having
Lee Gilbert: that cornerstone there, at least in my experience,
Lee Gilbert: for me, and it was important,
Lee Gilbert: it allowed me to do those things somewhat in private for five
Lee Gilbert: years, but with someone I could talk to. But up until that point, it was
Lee Gilbert: without it. But prior to that time, doing
Lee Gilbert: it in isolation created
Lee Gilbert: shame. And shame is a very, very negative
Lee Gilbert: emotion, but one I've learned to turn into a
Lee Gilbert: powerful emotion now because
Lee Gilbert: shame is the backbone of vulnerability. So, yes, I
Lee Gilbert: feel shame about some of my past, and I do.
Lee Gilbert: I've learned to be okay with that and to turn
Lee Gilbert: that around and to say, actually, by being
Lee Gilbert: vulnerable, that allows me to
Lee Gilbert: engage people at a deeper level.
Lee Gilbert: And I'm quite glad that I had that time. I'm quite glad that I had
Lee Gilbert: that adjustment. There was this period of deep shame, then a period of five years
Lee Gilbert: of kind of figuring stuff out and a little bit of that with my wife
Lee Gilbert: at the time. But then, literally during lockdown, let's
Lee Gilbert: not forget, 2020 was during lockdown, when the world
Lee Gilbert: slowed down a bit and I was allowed some mental
Lee Gilbert: capacity to think about things. It was like, okay, now is right,
Lee Gilbert: now is right.
Lee Gilbert: Lockdown was pants. But actually, one of the
Lee Gilbert: positive things for lockdown for me was it gave me that
Lee Gilbert: bandwidth to make
Lee Gilbert: the decision that I was going to come out to the world
Lee Gilbert: in summer of 2020.
Lee Gilbert: Professionally, I didn't do it till the new year, but the family was first, obviously,
Lee Gilbert: and had we not have had lockdown and that kind of pause of
Lee Gilbert: life, I'm not sure it would have happened at that moment
Lee Gilbert: in time. So it's quite an interesting perspective of
Lee Gilbert: deep shame transition, of kind of getting my
Lee Gilbert: mind together and dealing with some of that and then having the pause of
Lee Gilbert: lockdown and that to be the unveiling,
Lee Gilbert: as you described at the start. And
Lee Gilbert: it happened at nocta 60 for me too, from that point onwards. I mean, to
Lee Gilbert: the outside world at least, but actually it was a 40 plus year journey
Lee Gilbert: prior to that, but to the outside world, everyone was like, what the
Lee Gilbert: heck? But that's how it happens. I guess
Joanne Lockwood: your story is not too dissimilar to my story. I
Joanne Lockwood: first talked to my wife 2012
Joanne Lockwood: and then didn't really announce
Joanne Lockwood: it to the world until mid 20, 20 16. So it's
Joanne Lockwood: a four year private secret to try and figure that stuff out and try
Joanne Lockwood: and keep our relationship together
Joanne Lockwood: and prepare for telling the family. Although even at that journey,
Joanne Lockwood: I wasn't sure where I was going with it. There was no destination. It was
Joanne Lockwood: just kind of, let's just figure this stuff out. You talked
Joanne Lockwood: about shame. In order to have shame, I think
Joanne Lockwood: you need to be almost, given the situation,
Joanne Lockwood: where do you think your shame came from? You don't self generate it
Joanne Lockwood: out of nothing, do you? No. I
Lee Gilbert: think shame is quite a complex
Lee Gilbert: thing. On one level, it
Lee Gilbert: comes from a societal norm perspective
Lee Gilbert: that I was doing, or I
Lee Gilbert: was. I am not what
Lee Gilbert: society expects. So that creates
Lee Gilbert: shame on a sort of surface level.
Lee Gilbert: But on a deeper level, there's the shame of
Lee Gilbert: having a relationship and a
Lee Gilbert: marriage at that time. When I told my
Lee Gilbert: wife coming on for about 1314 years, it's, it's
Lee Gilbert: now over 20. But it's the
Lee Gilbert: shame of the sense of, did
Lee Gilbert: I do the right thing during that time?
Lee Gilbert: I'm quite a morally ethically driven person, so I
Lee Gilbert: think some of the shame comes from that. And then the other part
Lee Gilbert: of shame, I think, comes from
Lee Gilbert: what I gave up,
Lee Gilbert: which is a strange thing to say. But
Lee Gilbert: I got to a situation where I built successful couple
Lee Gilbert: of successful startups, successful agency, a successful speaking career.
Lee Gilbert: I had a driveway full of supercars,
Lee Gilbert: two dressage horses.
Lee Gilbert: I was, to the outside world, very
Lee Gilbert: successful. So shame comes a little bit in kind
Lee Gilbert: of the public exposure at that time,
Lee Gilbert: and it's quite a journey to do
Lee Gilbert: that in public. I kind of created
Lee Gilbert: this Persona, which was my protection. But then the Persona
Lee Gilbert: became a big driver for change, because
Lee Gilbert: losing or leaving that,
Lee Gilbert: which was absolutely the right thing to do, because it was all a
Lee Gilbert: complete and utter front. But
Lee Gilbert: I built it up. And then in order
Lee Gilbert: to be me and to be authentic, I had to close the
Lee Gilbert: door on all of that and almost start
Lee Gilbert: again, which is what I did, really. There must have been a huge.
Joanne Lockwood: I'm used the word fear, fear of that
Joanne Lockwood: unknown, how the world was going to react, how people around
Joanne Lockwood: you would react. And that fear,
Joanne Lockwood: I'm just using my own experience, held me back for many
Joanne Lockwood: years. How did you overcome that fear? And
Joanne Lockwood: how big was that fear for you? It was
Lee Gilbert: huge. There's two parts to it.
Lee Gilbert: You spoke about coming out to your wife first and then having a
Lee Gilbert: period where there's the adjustment, and then there was where
Lee Gilbert: you come out to the remainder of the world. I mean, let's face it, you
Lee Gilbert: kind of come out every day in some expenses, but that's a
Lee Gilbert: separate conversation. The fear of. I call it jumping
Lee Gilbert: off a cliff moment. That's how I've described it in the past. So I had
Lee Gilbert: a huge jump off a cliff moment. I was at a
Lee Gilbert: hotel in Belgium on the
Lee Gilbert: corner of the Formula one racing circuit spa. Frank Orchamp.
Lee Gilbert: I'd been doing a two day track day thing with some cars,
Lee Gilbert: which I was ridiculously into at that
Lee Gilbert: time. And
Lee Gilbert: in the middle night, it was the night of the batter
Lee Gilbert: clan. Paris Brussels. Terrorist attack,
Lee Gilbert: actually, to anchor it in history. And at that
Lee Gilbert: particular time, although I didn't know it until the following morning. But
Lee Gilbert: about the terrorist attack, that is
Lee Gilbert: overnight from about 11:00 p.m. Until 04:00
Lee Gilbert: a.m. I was coming out to my wife from a hotel room
Lee Gilbert: in Belgium while she was back home.
Lee Gilbert: So I jumped off a metaphorical cliff,
Lee Gilbert: remotely, if you like, and then came
Lee Gilbert: back home to my wife and family.
Lee Gilbert: So that was the first jump off a cliff moment. The next jump off a
Lee Gilbert: cliff moment is when you come out to your family.
Lee Gilbert: And then the bigger jump off a cliff moment was, I'm now going to throw
Lee Gilbert: my professional career away in the following year
Lee Gilbert: and kind of stand on another grenade and see what
Lee Gilbert: that brings about. But, yeah, there's the
Lee Gilbert: three metaphorical cliffs, I guess, wife,
Lee Gilbert: family, professional, and they're all big
Lee Gilbert: leaps. Which is the hardest? That's
Lee Gilbert: a great question, Jo. The hardest was my
Lee Gilbert: wife, because I knew I had to do that. I'd been trying to do it
Lee Gilbert: for nine months. Prior to that, the family one
Lee Gilbert: lockdown really helped me get in a great
Lee Gilbert: place. To do that was actually the easiest
Lee Gilbert: at that point. The professional one
Lee Gilbert: almost felt like a rite of passage. It just felt something
Lee Gilbert: that, okay, we're now here. We
Lee Gilbert: now need to do this. And I
Lee Gilbert: connected at that time with a need to find a
Lee Gilbert: belonging. I kind of had 20 years of making myself completely
Lee Gilbert: unemployable and doing lots of things,
Lee Gilbert: but I realised that actually I wanted a home then.
Lee Gilbert: And in order to find. It wasn't about
Lee Gilbert: being a solopreneur, an entrepreneur, an agency owner, a speaker.
Lee Gilbert: It wasn't about being a startup founder. I didn't want that
Lee Gilbert: anymore. I was probably too old to a point.
Lee Gilbert: But what I wanted was a sense of
Lee Gilbert: belonging. I wanted to feel
Lee Gilbert: that I belonged in so many ways,
Lee Gilbert: authentically, from a gender perspective,
Lee Gilbert: authentically, from a human
Lee Gilbert: perspective. And part of that
Lee Gilbert: belonging was the need to find something that
Lee Gilbert: aligned with my purpose. So I
Lee Gilbert: came out and then thought, I'll go and get a
Lee Gilbert: job. So there's a
Lee Gilbert: huge shift, really. I did the opposite, actually. I
Joanne Lockwood: came out and started my own business, because
Joanne Lockwood: at the time, in 2016, 2017,
Joanne Lockwood: I couldn't find a job that I wanted. Again, you talk about
Joanne Lockwood: being unemployable. I'd run a business for the last 30 or 35
Joanne Lockwood: years. Where do you apply for a
Joanne Lockwood: role where your former title was business owner or
Joanne Lockwood: running a business or. There was no easy,
Joanne Lockwood: employable route at the time, but
Joanne Lockwood: when I told the world, it was a kind of drunken
Joanne Lockwood: moment, a bit of facebook, bit of prosecco, bit of truth serum, sort of
Joanne Lockwood: thing. What I didn't realise at the time was
Joanne Lockwood: that the biggest impact of that wasn't on me, but it
Joanne Lockwood: was on my family. Because what had been a private secret, a
Joanne Lockwood: private thing we had between us,
Joanne Lockwood: suddenly I realised what my wife
Joanne Lockwood: and my children were now publicly
Joanne Lockwood: associated to a trans person. Before, it was kind
Joanne Lockwood: of a private thing. So suddenly my wife had her own
Joanne Lockwood: shame, her own stigma, her own feeling. My daughter, my
Joanne Lockwood: dad's trans, had to tell her friend sort of thing. So that was the
Joanne Lockwood: thing I was really surprised at. It hadn't occurred to me in
Joanne Lockwood: one slightest. I had this real wake up moment that actually it
Joanne Lockwood: wasn't about me at this point. Now it was all about everybody else around
Joanne Lockwood: me and the trauma they were going through. I think that's
Lee Gilbert: right. I think
Lee Gilbert: during the five years that I was having
Lee Gilbert: private coming out, if you like, with my wife, it was easy there.
Lee Gilbert: My kids were very aware of what was going on without
Lee Gilbert: being told it was in front of their eyes. So
Lee Gilbert: there was an unsaid thing for a number of years. Eventually, we had conversations,
Lee Gilbert: but in the beginning, it was an unsaid thing, and then it became
Lee Gilbert: quite an easy piece. But at the point of professionally
Lee Gilbert: coming out, putting a post out on LinkedIn and
Lee Gilbert: telling the world in subsequent conversations and to clients
Lee Gilbert: and ex clients and everything else, I mean, that's a story in itself, where the
Lee Gilbert: ex clients then started to come to me and say, oh, I've got trans daughter
Lee Gilbert: and I've got a trans son. Can you help? And that's where my
Lee Gilbert: volunteering actually started from. My clients, when I ran my own business, they
Lee Gilbert: were bringing their own children to me,
Lee Gilbert: which was an interesting switch. But you're quite right.
Lee Gilbert: My wife in particular, had to go
Lee Gilbert: through her own journey at that point, and
Lee Gilbert: it took her probably a couple of years to feel
Lee Gilbert: completely okay and completely comfortable in a public situation
Lee Gilbert: in so much a way that now she's quite
Lee Gilbert: proud of that and very
Lee Gilbert: openly identifies in that way. But we
Lee Gilbert: are three, four, three and a half years down the track from that point.
Lee Gilbert: But in the beginning, it was very difficult. Yeah, we did it quite
Joanne Lockwood: publicly. We did a channel four documentary, so it was hard for us to hide
Joanne Lockwood: a lot of this. It was being broadcast on Channel Four on a Monday
Joanne Lockwood: night in 2019. So that kind of created
Joanne Lockwood: this crunch point where we had to start telling people,
Joanne Lockwood: because in a few weeks time, it was all going to be everywhere. Because
Joanne Lockwood: Marie was very nervous about telling her parents. I told my
Joanne Lockwood: mum several years before, and that was quite emotional, but
Joanne Lockwood: very supportive. But, yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: I was quite surprised by my friends. And
Joanne Lockwood: a saying I say, which sounds quite crazy, is that your friends are your friends
Joanne Lockwood: because they're your friends. The people who aren't your friends
Joanne Lockwood: are no longer your friends, basically. So I was surprised by the friends
Joanne Lockwood: and their reaction. It was almost like a little jolt in the
Joanne Lockwood: spacetime continuum, and everyone sort of shook themselves out of it. Okay,
Joanne Lockwood: fine. Okay, whatever. Because
Joanne Lockwood: if anyone who doesn't know the history, I was national president of a man's club
Joanne Lockwood: called the Roundtable. So a lot of my friends were through
Joanne Lockwood: the roundtable movement, and there was obviously
Joanne Lockwood: being a male only club and being national president of it kind
Joanne Lockwood: of did disrupt a lot of people's thinking,
Joanne Lockwood: so much so that, and we talked about belonging. I've lost the
Joanne Lockwood: sense of belonging I had with that club because it's not
Joanne Lockwood: for me. And I go to some meetings because I'm
Joanne Lockwood: invited as a past national president, past club chair, and all these kind of things.
Joanne Lockwood: And I go there and I think, this isn't where I want to be. This
Joanne Lockwood: feels uncomfortable. So I've lost the belonging I had. And it's not them,
Joanne Lockwood: it's not at all them. It's all about me and what I want and what
Joanne Lockwood: I need. So I've lost a sense of belonging. And I've drifted
Joanne Lockwood: away considerably from old friends. And it's
Joanne Lockwood: not them, it is purely me, my needs
Joanne Lockwood: and what fulfils me now. Did you have something similar because you're
Joanne Lockwood: supercar racing, you were track days
Joanne Lockwood: successful, probably spending far too
Joanne Lockwood: much in bars that you shouldn't be in, having a.
Lee Gilbert: Good time, spending far too much in bars that I
Lee Gilbert: shouldn't have been in was true
Lee Gilbert: to all intense purposes. I was an alcoholic during that period. A high
Lee Gilbert: functioning alcoholic, I have to say. But that
Lee Gilbert: was just a ridiculous thing. And I used the word ridiculous
Lee Gilbert: about some of the car stuff earlier on. I mean, it was all denial and
Lee Gilbert: masking and everything else. You look
Lee Gilbert: back at it now and it brings me shame thinking about it, actually,
Lee Gilbert: because I was denying myself
Lee Gilbert: through that denial. I was denying myself true authenticity.
Lee Gilbert: But there are things I go back to now. It's like being in environments
Lee Gilbert: that's quite laddish now, or
Lee Gilbert: in situations that are quite
Lee Gilbert: atypical. Going back to a binary situation for
Lee Gilbert: a moment. Male environments, whether it's
Lee Gilbert: around cars or around football, or around heavy drinking
Lee Gilbert: or ladish behaviour. Literally, it's a fish out
Lee Gilbert: of water. And because I found my
Lee Gilbert: inner self and that sense of belonging, I
Lee Gilbert: just don't want to be there. So
Lee Gilbert: that shift of
Lee Gilbert: journey to authenticity, if you like, it was a long
Lee Gilbert: one, but when I found it,
Lee Gilbert: it definitely has put me in places. It
Lee Gilbert: makes me realise now that
Lee Gilbert: there are lots of things that I did that I
Lee Gilbert: clearly didn't really want to be in or be around or be part of, or
Lee Gilbert: be involved with. But I was
Lee Gilbert: doing it again, going back to doing what I was supposed to do. And the
Lee Gilbert: 2.4 kids and societal norms and everything else. You mentioned
Joanne Lockwood: that lockdown gave you the mental
Joanne Lockwood: capacity to sort of explore the space in your
Joanne Lockwood: head to explore things. And one of the things I found throughout my life, I
Joanne Lockwood: look at it from similar sort of age. Six, seven, eight years old.
Joanne Lockwood: There was always this societal, you call it societal
Joanne Lockwood: expectation. You're in school, you've got to get your exams, you
Joanne Lockwood: got to get your exams, you got to go to college, you got to go
Joanne Lockwood: to university, whatever. I ended up joining the ref from school.
Joanne Lockwood: But there was always this kind of trajectory that you get on,
Joanne Lockwood: this life expectation. And if you didn't,
Joanne Lockwood: then you were one of those weird people that didn't succeed or you
Joanne Lockwood: were rogue. So I think I did that and
Joanne Lockwood: I followed the must get married, must have kids, must have the picket
Joanne Lockwood: fence, must have the four bedroom detached and have the biggest car I could
Joanne Lockwood: afford and spend far too much and being very ladish.
Joanne Lockwood: And I think what happened to me was I got to my mid forty s
Joanne Lockwood: and I hit the stop button. It was kind of like, hang on a minute.
Joanne Lockwood: My it career is not something I really wanted to do. I don't know how
Joanne Lockwood: I got into it. I'm good at it, but I don't enjoy it. It's not
Joanne Lockwood: something that buzzes me. And of course that time there, around my mid
Joanne Lockwood: 40s, you start to question your life anyway, don't you? And
Joanne Lockwood: I think it would have been cheaper to get Harley Davidson and cruise across
Joanne Lockwood: America in leathers than it would be to transition and give up everything. I gave
Joanne Lockwood: up, but I think I did a reboot. I literally rebooted
Joanne Lockwood: everything. My career, my identity. The only thing that is actually the
Joanne Lockwood: same now are my wife and family.
Joanne Lockwood: 99% of everything else is different. Don't
Joanne Lockwood: live in the same house, we don't have the same cars, we don't have the
Joanne Lockwood: same circle of friends. Everything is rebooted. And
Joanne Lockwood: I think you talk about unfailing authenticity. It's allowed me to
Joanne Lockwood: rebuild a life that
Joanne Lockwood: resonates rather than the life that was making me resonate,
Joanne Lockwood: if you like. My life is now humming to my inner beat
Joanne Lockwood: rather than me resonating to. The outer beat, if you like. I think that's probably
Joanne Lockwood: the difference. It's now my life I've got control over.
Lee Gilbert: And I completely relate. I love the analogy of the reboot.
Lee Gilbert: Fundamentally, that's what's happened. We still do live in the same
Lee Gilbert: house, ironically, but
Lee Gilbert: everything else is rebooted. And I went
Lee Gilbert: through that whole thing of pressing the stop button
Lee Gilbert: as you described it, and everything happened at that moment,
Lee Gilbert: and it happened quick, within a really
Lee Gilbert: short period of time. So it's
Lee Gilbert: almost like I spent the time prior to that
Lee Gilbert: preparing to
Lee Gilbert: somehow bring it together or creating some sort of
Lee Gilbert: mental space to allow that to happen. And I think I said it
Lee Gilbert: earlier on, lockdown gave me the pause.
Joanne Lockwood: To. First of all, find the
Lee Gilbert: brain space to act. But it
Lee Gilbert: also allowed me then, because of course, lockdown didn't just
Lee Gilbert: happen for a couple of months. It happened after I came out to my
Lee Gilbert: family and continued for some time after that,
Lee Gilbert: it allowed brain space
Lee Gilbert: for others to adjust so they weren't running their
Lee Gilbert: lives at 90 miles an hour. So those that came along and are still on
Lee Gilbert: the journey with us kind of had the opportunity to
Lee Gilbert: explore and join in and
Lee Gilbert: see the world for what it was for us and experience
Lee Gilbert: that and go, actually, this is kind of the same, but
Lee Gilbert: different. And those friends and family are,
Lee Gilbert: as you say, still with us. But the reboot around us
Lee Gilbert: happened on so many levels and so fast.
Joanne Lockwood: Quite empowering, though, isn't it? Hugely empowering.
Lee Gilbert: I can't tell you now how
Lee Gilbert: I find it difficult to describe at the moment. I've
Lee Gilbert: been through this period over the last month or two, trying to
Lee Gilbert: find words to describe it simply. And I'm
Lee Gilbert: struggling, if I'm honest, but the
Lee Gilbert: empowerment from it
Lee Gilbert: connected with some of my
Lee Gilbert: drive and passion and enthusiasm, entrepreneurial spirit that's always been
Lee Gilbert: there in my life, but connecting the empowerment with that stuff,
Lee Gilbert: I'm now the best me I can
Lee Gilbert: be. Whereas
Lee Gilbert: before, it wasn't all of me.
Lee Gilbert: I struggle to put that in as few words as possible, but that's kind of
Lee Gilbert: how it is. That's beautiful. That's really beautiful.
Joanne Lockwood: It so resonates. It's a connection of all the dots, isn't
Joanne Lockwood: it? Everything clicks into place. And
Joanne Lockwood: I always talk about this, the Japanese saying icky guy, which
Joanne Lockwood: is when you have all those four elements click into place and the last one
Joanne Lockwood: is what resonates, that you find that passion and
Joanne Lockwood: then everything clicks into place. I felt I was always
Joanne Lockwood: lacking that bit. I was good at something, I earned money at it, the world
Joanne Lockwood: needed it, but I never found me in there. I think once you line it
Joanne Lockwood: all up, suddenly that's where the magic happens.
Lee Gilbert: My favourite poem is
Lee Gilbert: Marianne Williamson one. It talks
Lee Gilbert: about that it's our darkness.
Lee Gilbert: That's our darkness and our fears, which is our greatest.
Lee Gilbert: It's our light that we're most afraid of. It's not our darkness.
Lee Gilbert: And that's true, actually. I focus for so long on
Lee Gilbert: kind of all the things that I kind of captured in that darkness.
Lee Gilbert: But actually, once you
Lee Gilbert: connect those dots, everything becomes
Lee Gilbert: so much more
Lee Gilbert: enthralling. Happy. Yes. And
Lee Gilbert: that in itself is quite a powerful emotion. And you mix that
Lee Gilbert: in with other things. I literally now
Lee Gilbert: feel capable of moving
Lee Gilbert: things that I never felt I could move
Lee Gilbert: or do or achieve, or
Lee Gilbert: conversations, even on a human level, that I never thought I could do
Lee Gilbert: before. So the bandwidth
Lee Gilbert: that I have from an emotional intelligence is far
Lee Gilbert: greater than ever was. But the bandwidth I
Lee Gilbert: have
Lee Gilbert: on an IQ perspective has somehow
Lee Gilbert: become more powerful as a result, because
Lee Gilbert: the emotion in there is allowing me to explore
Lee Gilbert: things that I didn't see before.
Lee Gilbert: It's really hard to
Lee Gilbert: capture, but it's
Lee Gilbert: amazing indeed. Yes. Beautiful. Again.
Joanne Lockwood: So here we are, the end of 2023, at the end
Joanne Lockwood: of a pretty tough year for
Joanne Lockwood: trans, nonbinary, gender diverse individuals. From a media
Joanne Lockwood: perspective, from the government perspective, from a global perspective.
Joanne Lockwood: It's getting worse, isn't it? And I think
Lee Gilbert: it will in 2024, if I'm honest, because
Lee Gilbert: there's inevitably going to be an
Lee Gilbert: election in the UK. Obviously,
Lee Gilbert: the US election engine is warming
Lee Gilbert: up, so I think it will
Lee Gilbert: increase. It's an interesting one, Jo,
Lee Gilbert: because to some
Lee Gilbert: degree, I've stayed away from being
Lee Gilbert: actively involved in
Lee Gilbert: conversations about the
Lee Gilbert: media
Lee Gilbert: spin and hatred,
Lee Gilbert: but also the media
Lee Gilbert: lens broadly on trans
Lee Gilbert: issues. Predominantly because I just didn't want to get
Lee Gilbert: associated with being part of the conversation. I've
Lee Gilbert: always had the view that I can make a difference
Lee Gilbert: in individual ways, which is why I do my volunteering and
Lee Gilbert: my mentoring work with young adults,
Lee Gilbert: because I can make a difference there. And next year,
Lee Gilbert: I think it's going to be more challenging. It's never been
Lee Gilbert: something I wanted to stray into. I've never really wanted to be the kind of
Lee Gilbert: noisy, vocal person. Although I've got the opinions, I must say, I
Lee Gilbert: do have the opinions, but I've always wanted to
Lee Gilbert: be. I guess it's my marketing head,
Lee Gilbert: I put it on and think from a personal brand perspective, do I
Lee Gilbert: want to be part of that conversation? And
Lee Gilbert: privately, I am very much part of that conversation. But publicly,
Lee Gilbert: I very rarely am. And there are some things that annoy me. I
Lee Gilbert: mean, the things that do annoy me, and I will talk about here is the
Lee Gilbert: lack of common sense. I
Lee Gilbert: read something the other day, maybe even been
Lee Gilbert: yesterday, about how
Lee Gilbert: trans chess players are now
Lee Gilbert: being treated in the same way as
Lee Gilbert: trans athletes.
Lee Gilbert: And I look at that and I think, okay, so we can have a conversation
Lee Gilbert: about the trans athlete thing, and that can go
Lee Gilbert: whichever way you want that to go. But then you start thinking
Lee Gilbert: about trans chess players and the
Lee Gilbert: world's gone mad. Because
Lee Gilbert: there are sports, and I don't know why
Lee Gilbert: chess is not one of them. But there are definitely sports,
Lee Gilbert: and equestrian sports is one of them, where
Lee Gilbert: gender doesn't create a different class of
Lee Gilbert: competition, that you compete together, and there is
Lee Gilbert: no advantage or disadvantage from that
Lee Gilbert: in whatever way you choose to look at it. But
Lee Gilbert: how can someone that is trans have an
Lee Gilbert: advantage over another chess player?
Lee Gilbert: Of any other gender identity in a
Lee Gilbert: sport that's got no
Lee Gilbert: physical attributes to it, yet it
Lee Gilbert: becomes a story in the media just because it continues. This
Lee Gilbert: whole thing about trans in sport,
Lee Gilbert: it's kind of like, okay, let's make it make sense, please, let's just
Lee Gilbert: find something, find a place that
Lee Gilbert: delivers some common sense into the
Lee Gilbert: conversation. And the chess one was just
Lee Gilbert: like. Oh, please, there's been a couple like that, hasn't it?
Joanne Lockwood: And it was chess and something else recently where it just
Joanne Lockwood: doesn't make sense at all. But then you look at ice hockey, and ice Hockey
Joanne Lockwood: has come up with some very pragmatic, very simple
Joanne Lockwood: rules where your
Joanne Lockwood: transiness or your trans history isn't deciding fact.
Joanne Lockwood: It's all based on risk, and I'm all in favour
Joanne Lockwood: of analysing risk for
Joanne Lockwood: participants and also risk of fairness.
Joanne Lockwood: Sport at elite level has to have a perception of fairness
Joanne Lockwood: because there's money involved, there's betting, there's competitions.
Joanne Lockwood: So you have to believe there's fairness. But there's lots of
Joanne Lockwood: inequity in sport anyway, around sponsorship, around
Joanne Lockwood: money, around privilege. And one's gender identity is
Joanne Lockwood: just part of that mix of fairness which we latch
Joanne Lockwood: onto without latching onto the other inequities
Joanne Lockwood: in society.
Joanne Lockwood: You'd think that the 1%, 2% of
Joanne Lockwood: the population that are trans nonbinary would be the
Joanne Lockwood: majority, the way we're subverting the entire society
Joanne Lockwood: and destroying family values and the fabric
Joanne Lockwood: ahead of all the other things. We've had
Joanne Lockwood: politicians lying, we've got.
Lee Gilbert: Countless. Wars going on around the world, but yet trans people seem to be the
Joanne Lockwood: ones that are the diverse from me tactic at the moment, aren't we?
Lee Gilbert: Yes. And it's a potato,
Lee Gilbert: a hot potato, that seems to get passed around a lot.
Lee Gilbert: And it's something that I guess is part of the journey of
Lee Gilbert: acceptance in ten years time, probably look
Lee Gilbert: back and it'll just be part of history. And I'm sure that will be
Lee Gilbert: the case because you look at historical kind of
Lee Gilbert: periods of acceptance, and that's kind of how it's always played out. There's always been
Lee Gilbert: this time where it's been tumultuous and difficult and challenging and kind
Lee Gilbert: of buoyant, and then it calms down, then there's a piece of
Lee Gilbert: revisionism that happens, and then people look back and it's
Lee Gilbert: all norm kind of proceeds. And I do think in ten
Lee Gilbert: years time, that is where we will be at, but we're in the middle
Lee Gilbert: of it right now. And
Lee Gilbert: the bit that makes me sad
Lee Gilbert: actually, is
Lee Gilbert: that it becomes the most
Lee Gilbert: important topic of the day for some
Lee Gilbert: people, some media outlets, some newspapers, some
Lee Gilbert: tv stations and such like. Yet
Lee Gilbert: actually, there are far more important things going on
Lee Gilbert: in the world. There are far more important challenges
Lee Gilbert: in the economy and in health care
Lee Gilbert: and in education and in
Lee Gilbert: everything else. Yet this is a story that everyone
Lee Gilbert: keeps talking about.
Lee Gilbert: It's almost like you use the word distraction, and I think that's
Lee Gilbert: it. If we keep it bubbling,
Lee Gilbert: then it means we don't have to have the tough conversations about the
Lee Gilbert: things that really matter. And the things that really matter
Lee Gilbert: are the economy, education, health care.
Lee Gilbert: But actually, if we kick the stuff around about migrants and trans people, then we
Lee Gilbert: can keep the headlines there and we don't have to have those tough
Lee Gilbert: conversations. Just
Joanne Lockwood: bury the real news under the fake news, isn't it, and create these
Joanne Lockwood: political footballs. But as you say, I think 2024, we got the
Joanne Lockwood: US elections where it would seem that
Joanne Lockwood: Trump is now the favourite, apparently. Allegedly. That's hoping
Joanne Lockwood: you listen back to this episode in a year's time that that wasn't the case.
Joanne Lockwood: But that seems to be the trajectory at the moment. And the
Joanne Lockwood: political football this year for the UK is likely to be.
Joanne Lockwood: Trans people are likely to be dead centre. I'm going to
Joanne Lockwood: say we, as we were in the Tory legit competition
Joanne Lockwood: last summer, the summer before, where it was a race to be the most
Joanne Lockwood: transphobic, got the vote or something.
Joanne Lockwood: I think we're going to end up in that same hot potato
Joanne Lockwood: political football sphere again. And everyone's going to be
Joanne Lockwood: posturing on how to be the most transphobic or the most anti trans. They can
Joanne Lockwood: be throw us under the bus as much as they can in order to create
Joanne Lockwood: some sort of wedge issue in society.
Lee Gilbert: That's why I'm determined to be visible, because
Lee Gilbert: by being visible, you creates.
Lee Gilbert: You challenge the myth
Lee Gilbert: that trans people are all of a
Lee Gilbert: certain type, or they're all. I mean, obviously, at the
Lee Gilbert: moment, every mention of trans is that they're somebody that's been
Lee Gilbert: held up in court for a physical assault on another female, and that person
Lee Gilbert: is identified as being trans as a way of getting out
Lee Gilbert: of whether that's true or not. In their case,
Lee Gilbert: the media spin that and
Lee Gilbert: it's like they've got this avatar of a trans
Lee Gilbert: person and every time that they mention it,
Lee Gilbert: they've got to be a rapist, they've got to be a
Lee Gilbert: person that's been held up on
Lee Gilbert: some sort of charge in court, or they've done something particularly wrong.
Lee Gilbert: But of course, that's kind of a smear thing.
Lee Gilbert: So my determination is to become visible
Lee Gilbert: and to create a positive role model for others,
Lee Gilbert: but to do it in a way that's not
Lee Gilbert: shouty and not always focused on trans issues, but
Lee Gilbert: to do it in a way that's about here is someone
Lee Gilbert: leading a normal life, wanting to make a
Lee Gilbert: difference and to be a role
Lee Gilbert: model. Role model is a strange word, but be a visible
Lee Gilbert: person, let's call it that. That challenges
Lee Gilbert: that avatar that seems
Lee Gilbert: to drop itself into the media all the time.
Joanne Lockwood: Yes, we can all close your eyes, think of a trans
Joanne Lockwood: person. We all have this media infused, rocky horror type
Joanne Lockwood: image in our heads that media keep playing on. And I think that's what keeps,
Joanne Lockwood: as you say, keeps getting dropped in, if not literally,
Joanne Lockwood: figuratively or descriptively, is the language that's being
Joanne Lockwood: reinforced. And you're a marketing specialist and
Joanne Lockwood: you have these common themes of threads you pull to get
Joanne Lockwood: your message across. And that's the negative brand that trans people
Joanne Lockwood: have. It is, I
Lee Gilbert: think they've definitely got this playbook
Lee Gilbert: around it and who's driving that playbook is tough
Lee Gilbert: to find. But yeah, I still will
Lee Gilbert: continue throughout 2024 to have my own playbook, which is
Lee Gilbert: that I will not be drawn
Lee Gilbert: into debate or anything about that
Lee Gilbert: subject. It annoys me massively. But
Lee Gilbert: the way that I'm choosing to make a difference
Lee Gilbert: is to deal, is to work with individuals
Lee Gilbert: and to be visible as a
Lee Gilbert: normal human being. I concur. I
Joanne Lockwood: definitely concur with that. I have a
Joanne Lockwood: similar approach where.
Joanne Lockwood: I want to do it through education, through engagement, through conversations,
Joanne Lockwood: through being the best me I can be.
Joanne Lockwood: And that's my motivation. I'm not looking to. I'd
Joanne Lockwood: like nothing more than to be Jo
Joanne Lockwood: the EDI specialist, Jo the speaker who just
Joanne Lockwood: happens to be trans rather than trans being by raise on Detroit, if you
Joanne Lockwood: like. I think I've probably got another couple
Joanne Lockwood: of years before I want to just hide in the background and just
Joanne Lockwood: get on with life. There's hope
Joanne Lockwood: that you say in a couple of years time, the pressure changes,
Joanne Lockwood: the direction changes, there'll be something else and society will move
Joanne Lockwood: on. And much like being queer in
Joanne Lockwood: the was, it's becoming normalised. We start
Joanne Lockwood: to not see being gay or being black, because it wasn't
Joanne Lockwood: so long ago that being black was the same language as being
Joanne Lockwood: used. And that's my point about in ten years time going
Lee Gilbert: that we'll have that period of revisionism, and then it will be that period of
Lee Gilbert: acceptance and the examples you gave then or given
Lee Gilbert: then are ones where that's happened and we've kind of come through
Lee Gilbert: that and that's where we are. And I believe in ten years we'll be there
Lee Gilbert: with this. But it's close
Lee Gilbert: to home, obviously, and it was close to home
Lee Gilbert: for millions of others while those events were happening
Lee Gilbert: in the. Was going to leave it
Joanne Lockwood: there. I think that's been a fantastic conversation and
Joanne Lockwood: it's been really fascinating talking to you and hearing your
Joanne Lockwood: story. And we talked about authenticity, we talked about vulnerability,
Joanne Lockwood: and you've been both authentic and vulnerable. And I really appreciate
Joanne Lockwood: your openness and candle around yourself, your life,
Joanne Lockwood: your family, which I know isn't easy because you're always taking a piece
Joanne Lockwood: of yourself and giving it to somebody else, and you've only got so many
Joanne Lockwood: spoons and so many pieces of you you can give. And I feel quite
Joanne Lockwood: honoured that you've come here today and shared that if people want to get in
Joanne Lockwood: contact with you as a human being, where's the best place to
Joanne Lockwood: track you down? The best place. And the place I hang out
Lee Gilbert: is on LinkedIn, so you'll always find me on LinkedIn.
Lee Gilbert: And on LinkedIn I am very open
Lee Gilbert: about authenticity, leadership,
Lee Gilbert: marketing, but also gender issues when they're relevant and my
Lee Gilbert: own story, so give a quite
Lee Gilbert: rounded view of life on LinkedIn. I'm not
Lee Gilbert: someone that kind of has high bias towards just talking about things
Lee Gilbert: that are professional, talking about things on one particular topic.
Lee Gilbert: So it is my hangout space for social media.
Lee Gilbert: I've kind of not deleted, but
Lee Gilbert: I've stopped using the other platform. So LinkedIn is my
Lee Gilbert: preferred hangout space for sure. And it's definitely the best place
Lee Gilbert: that people can get in contact with me or follow
Lee Gilbert: me or create connection.
Joanne Lockwood: Fabulous. Fabulous. I know I follow you, and I'm sure
Joanne Lockwood: you follow me, and I see a lot of what you're posting, and
Joanne Lockwood: I probably remember those early posts when you first were open
Joanne Lockwood: about yourself, first started talking about it. So, yeah, it's been an honour
Joanne Lockwood: to not only speak to you today, but also follow.
Joanne Lockwood: And I hate this word journey. Journey is such a crass word for me sometimes,
Joanne Lockwood: but follow your life and how you've
Joanne Lockwood: evolved yourself and it's been an amazing privilege. Yeah, I think it's
Lee Gilbert: just picking up at the point of journey. I mean, people overuse the word journey
Lee Gilbert: of a journey for everything. But I love the phrase journey because I think
Lee Gilbert: we're all on a journey, no matter what it is, we're all on a journey
Lee Gilbert: of some form, right? Yeah, I just
Joanne Lockwood: find it with unprecedented, unprecedented.
Joanne Lockwood: And journey is kind of like, when are things going to become precedented
Joanne Lockwood: again? That's what I want to know.
Lee Gilbert: There's definitely an overused term, but
Lee Gilbert: it's the meanderings of life either way.
Joanne Lockwood: I agree. I agree. Well, thank you, Lee. And thank you
Joanne Lockwood: to you, the listener who's tuned in,
Joanne Lockwood: who's stayed with us to the end, and I really appreciate your time. Hopefully,
Joanne Lockwood: I'm sure you have got something out today. There's so much there to
Joanne Lockwood: take inspiration from. If you're not already subscribed,
Joanne Lockwood: please do subscribe and follow this podcast on iTunes or
Joanne Lockwood: Spotify wherever you consume your podcasts. Search
Joanne Lockwood: for inclusion bytes as B-I-T-E-S share the love. Tell your
Joanne Lockwood: colleagues, tell your friends. Reshare this when it's on LinkedIn or other
Joanne Lockwood: platforms. I've got a number of other exciting guests lined
Joanne Lockwood: up. I'm sure you'd be equally inspired off, and I've had a whole 95
Joanne Lockwood: others. If you haven't listened to this podcast before, then please do listen
Joanne Lockwood: to the back issues. And of course, I'd love you to be a guest as
Joanne Lockwood: well if you have something to say. So email me at
Joanne Lockwood: jo.lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk. Let me know.
Joanne Lockwood: Talk to me. How can we improve? And finally,
Joanne Lockwood: my name is Joanne Lockwood. It has been an absolute pleasure to host
Joanne Lockwood: this podcast for you today. Catch you next time. Bye.