Why am I doing this?

So why does anyone do anything? Besides that philosophical quandary of that question I wanted to give a small explanation on the nature of this bushiness, why I am doing it, why now, and a bit of a back story. When I came out as transgender at a larger auto manufacturer there were no other people I knew who were trans. When I told the human resources department I was wanting to transition, they were like great…what does that mean exactly? The told me to reach out to the LGBTQ employee resource group to see if they had any helpful advice, when I did they again were very accommodating but they were said “We have never done this before.” Mind you this is not just a mom and pop shop this is on the largest automobile manufacturers in the world and a company that scored a 100% on the Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index. I knew right then and there that something was not right. How could this company of nearly 100,000 employees not have any guidelines or help for their team members. It was baffling. Needless to say I knew I needed to change something.

My time at this company would be short lived even though everyone was supportive their were numerous missteps that eventually led me to be outed to the head of the Associate VP of the IT department before I was able to tell my immediate manager. Coupled with the fact that I was going through a divorce due to my choice to transition my tenure was to be short. However, what this experience has taught me is a couple of things. 1) People genuinely want to help they just don’t know how 2.) People need clear guidance and education on how to embrace transgender, gender non-conforming (GNC), and non-binary (NB) people. My goal with Ingels Consulting is to provide those much needed resources.

At my current position I came in asking similar questions? Was there a policy document for transitioning employees? Was there proper insurance coverage? Was the insurance coverage for medical transition documented and easily located? Was there a resource group for trans/GNC/NB people? As you can probably guess there was none of this. There was again a lot of support to get this done but very little motivation to actually get it started. So insert me, a loud queer who is passionate about seeing LGBTIQA+ equity in the workplace. I won’t like it has been a crazy year or so. We (there were two other amazing partners in crime) created a policy document that outlined from start to finish what it means to transition on the job, we started discussion on getting better insurance benefits with the benefits teams, we organized a event with over 500 people in attendance highlighting the challenges and joys of being transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming. In the event we got the head of human resources to be one of our interviewers. We also started working on getting menstrual products placed in all bathrooms. Finally, we created a safe place for all transgender/gnc/nb team members come and be themselves, by creating a special Microsoft Teams room where only they are allowed. This room is managed by myself and one of the other team members. Also because of all this I was elected as Vice President of the LGBTIQA2+ employee affinity group. I say all of this because it just goes to show you what 3 people who are dedicated and passionate about equity can do in a large organization. I want to give what I have learned to others so we can make other workplaces more equitable.

As you can see there is a lot more that I could say but it ultimately ends with my passion to show companies the absolute necessity of creating equity for LGBTIQA2+ community! We are here, we are proud, and we are not going away despite how many want to legislate us out of existence. It is time that company’s be held accountable to their diversity and inclusion talk. Ingels Consulting is here to provide the tools, expertise, and passion to make sure we all can come to work as our true selves.