Let’s Talk About Your Safe Word (and Why DEI Isn’t Just Corporate Fluff)

This afternoon, the retreat company I contract with hosted a guest speaker on DEI.

A little context: the team is mostly white—two men, seven women, one Black woman… and me.

Credit where it’s due: the company recognized that when working with a diverse client base, cultural differences can surface—and they might not always know how to navigate them. So they brought in a wonderful speaker to lead a two-hour conversation about DEI. We explored if we thought it mattered, why it mattered, and what it might look like inside our work.

I learned a lot about my coworkers. Two have gay siblings. Three have queer kids. One has a trans sister—a sister who is a trans woman, not a radio, as I clarified when she stumbled over her own words. That gave me hope. But it also became clear that most of them had never really sat down and asked their loved ones what it means to live in their shoes.