ALEXANDRIA — Education and respect are two of the keys to helping LGBTQIA+ people feel welcome in the workplace.
These were some of the takeaways from a webinar sponsored by The Village Family Service Center, which featured comments from two people in the LGBTIA+ community, one of whom is a counselor.
The webinar was moderated by Susan Williams, Village Business Institute trainer in Fargo.
“When people feel cared about, when people feel seen, when people feel recognized, they do good work,” Williams said. “They bring their whole selves to work, regardless of what that recognition is. It’s easier for us to be supportive and recognize anyone and anything if we know a little more about it.”
Chris Bietz, a trans man who is also a counselor at The Village in Fargo, spoke of the importance of education, and the purpose behind making it an issue.
“You want to be respectful, but if I was a supervisor I would want people to understand the need for that respect and equity,” Bietz said. “Do some kind of staff meeting and just talk, let people talk and let people understand.”
If this happens, the people involved will be more likely to see their similarities, rather than their differences, Bietz said.
However, even if such talks do take place, that is no guarantee that people will act on what they learned.
Williams’ wife, Melissa, who identifies as lesbian and also took part in the webinar, said the company for which she works has a council that does education in this way.
“We still have leaders that are not accepting. … They don’t try to hinder us, they just let us kind of do our thing and get the education out there. The only thing we can’t get them to agree on is to use our pronouns,” Melissa said.
Melissa did say that everybody she works with is respectful, which is also important.
“Let’s just be respectful,” Susan Williams added. “I think that’s the bottom line. No matter why someone is being marginalized or isolated, it all can be addressed by just being respectful.”
If they are willing to do so, people in the LGBTQIA+ community can also help by answering questions people might have.
That said, people have to be willing to ask those questions, too.
“Being afraid to ask is kind of where it lies,” Bietz said. “You have to be willing to ask.”
When Bietz first applied to work at The Village, he was told the environment there was not accepting.
“The whole environment has changed so significantly since starting here,” Bietz said. “I just talked about my life, I talked about my partner, I talked about family vacations, because that’s what everybody else was talking about. And I don’t feel like I’m any different than anybody else when it comes to being in a relationship, enjoying your time and wanting to share that with other people.”
Bietz said that he always knew he was different in some way, even when he was a child. He also felt it was wrong, initially.
“Back when I was growing up, you just did not talk about whether or not you were part of the LGBTQ community,” Bietz said. “You did not share that with anybody, so you kept it in, and there’s a lot of mental health issues that happen because of that.”
Another challenge is the way people in the community are perceived by older versus younger people.
“I was born in the late ’60s,” Bietz said. “My generation went through all the turmoil of trying to be accepted publicly or socially. My parents, obviously born in the ’30s and ’40s, they had different views. Thankfully, they were willing to listen and change their minds, but … parents teach their kids what they know, and as kids grow up and generations pass on, they’re able to make their own decisions about stuff.”
“I think we conflate gender identity, orientation, with sex, and it’s not fair,” Williams added. “It’s not the whole picture. … It’s such a small part of our identity.”
Susan said people’s life experiences are more important, and that LGBTQIA+ can help by talking about those experiences.
For example, while Williams and Bietz are from the same small community, their experiences there were extremely different, to the extent that Williams didn’t even realize they grew up in the same town at first.
“We had very, very different experiences,” Williams said. “It’s easy for me to say that wouldn’t happen here, because it didn’t happen to me. But it did happen to my friend.”
To view the whole webinar, visit thevillagefamily.org/services/village-business-institute/webinars.