I was called in last week. Here’s what happened.
I received an email from someone who had started to read my book ‘When Is A Women’s Group Not A Women’s Group’. The one that I now give away to everyone for free because I believe the information and perspectives within it are needed everywhere, especially now.
This person had got as far as the part where I define what non-binary identities are… and found that their own experience of non-binary existence was not there.
They were excluded from my narrative.
This person then sat with this for some time, unable to continue reading the book – a book that many people hold up as a definitive guide for some of this language. Eventually they chose to reach out to me to share their experience and tell me how hurt they were. They did it kindly, but they did not hold back in sharing their hurt and disappointment. It was not an easy read.
How did I respond?
Here’s where it gets juicy.
My first response was incredulity. How dare they? So what if they have a different experience and define their gender in a different way? Have they written a book? Spent days crafting something they now give away for free for the greater good? Surely the overall good work the book does counterbalances any small hurt caused to a tiny minority of people who might have a different experience.
And then I gave myself a slap and got my ego in check.
Because that was a defensive response. It happened before I could engage my brain and heart properly. It was fleeting. But it did happen.
And that’s why I’m sharing it.
Because, once my conscious brain had caught up, of course I didn’t actually feel that. I do not hold the definitive answers to any of this stuff. I am not more right than someone else just because I wrote a book about it. Actually, by writing a book about it I have a responsibility to make sure that it is as inclusive as it possibly can be. If the words I wrote caused pain to another person because I didn’t know their experience existed, that is on me. There is no defense for it.
I messed up.
And this person was gracefully giving me the opportunity to learn. They were calling me in.
So here’s what I did:
- I thanked them for reaching out and helping to teach me something I didn’t know.
- I acknowledged their hurt and I apologised for causing it.
- I asked them if they felt able to teach me the knowledge that I was missing. (They kindly did – they did not have a responsibility to do this.)
- I asked them what actions I could take to help make it better. They asked for just one: to be heard. They have assured me I did that.
But I’m also going further. I will be updating the book. It’s only going to take the addition of a couple of sentences and that is a small price to pay to ensure I don’t cause that same pain to anyone else in the future.
But also, here’s what I didn’t do:
- I did not share my initial defensive response. I stopped and took time to process and recalibrate so I could be intentional in my actual response.
- I did not explain or justify what I wrote, or my position.
- I did not tell them how upset I was that I had caused hurt nor did I apologise excessively – because it was not their job to hold my hurt emotions about having hurt them. Dealing with and processing that is my responsibility.
- I did not go out and seek validation from other people in other places to make me feel better.
- I did not tell people I had been attacked, or wronged, or even that there should be room here for both my opinion and theirs to exist in some agree-to-disagree state. My previous opinion was wrong because it didn’t take into account their experience. I owned that.
- I took time to recognise that even though I don’t personally understand the way they identify, I can still respect it, make space for it and honour it.
Because that’s allyship.
It’s responsible leadership.
I will always be grateful to that person for teaching me something I didn’t know before. Now I know better, I can do better.
Allyship and ego do not go well together. One of them will always compromise the other. So next time you find yourself getting called in, remember that. You get to choose which one you lead with.