Raquel Willis: The Trailblazing Activist for Gender and Human Liberation

Speaker 1 - 00:00:10:

Welcome to Season 10 of Diversity: Beyond the Checkbox, proudly presented by The Diversity Movement and part of the Living Corporate Network. I'm your host, Jackie Ferguson, author, business leader, and human rights advocate. In this podcast, we're diving deep into the stories of trailblazers, game changers, and glass ceiling breakers who share insights and professional success and personal development. Thank you for being part of this amazing community. Enjoy the show. You are in for a treat, Diversity: Beyond the Checkbox listeners. I have Raquel Willis on the podcast today. Raquel is an award-winning author, activist, and media strategist at the forefront of the gender liberation movement. She recently released her debut memoir, The Risk It Takes to Bloom, and her podcast, Afterlives, on the iHeartMedia Outspoken Network is amazing. Raquel, thank you so much for being on the show today.

Jackie - 00:01:14:

Of course. Thank you for having me, Jackie.

Speaker 1 - 00:01:17:

Y'all, if I shared all the accolades of today's guest, there would be no time to actually talk to her. But we're going to hit a couple of highlights and then talk about some of the topics around human rights and transgender safety. Raquel, let's talk about your journey from Augusta, Georgia, to award-winning activist. What were some of the pivotal moments on that journey for you?

Jackie - 00:01:42:

Yes. So as you said, Jackie, I am a Southern girl through and through. I'm from Augusta, Georgia. I grew up in the 90s and early 2000s in a very traditional Southern Black and Catholic family. So I always like to let people know there were expectations on top of expectations. But of course, in just the journey of my childhood, I experienced bullying. I started to realize I was a bit different from a lot of my peers, virtually all of my peers. And I realized that I was queer or gay at the time was the language I would have heard. And so that really kind of threw a wrench in, I think, all of these ideals that my parents had for me of who I could be in the world, what the dreams for me were going to be. I came out to them at 14 to varying degrees of success. And then at that point, I mean, I thought that that was it. Like, I felt still a bit of an outsider to the environment around me. But I was like, okay, this is it. Now, once I got to the University of Georgia, that was when I met LGBTQ plus community that was open for the first time. Met trans people, mostly trans masculine people, trans men at the time. And I realized, huh, oh. Some of y'all were assigned a different gender at birth. And it is not weird to me that you don't feel in alignment with that original assignment. You know, alarms didn't go off for me immediately. But over the course of my college experience, I also lost my father, which was a bit of a loss of so many of those expectations I was talking about a second ago. And I really had to realize my life was mine and it was brief and it was precious. And I owned my trans womanhood. And so that laid the foundation for me to try and figure out what kind of career I could have in journalism, which I was studying at the time. And this was 2013. So there was very little exposure, visibility of trans folks. But those laid the foundations. And then it was... A time before I was eventually out in my transness in my career. And that came about when we lost a young trans girl named Leelah Alcorn in 2014 to suicide. So those are kind of some of the big moments. There are so many more, but that was as succinct as I could get it for you, Jackie.

Speaker 1 - 00:04:35:

I love it, Raquel. Thank you for sharing that. Now let's talk about that moment where you came out in your transness. Can you tell us about that? Because, you know, the thing that we all take away is sometimes we hide and sometimes we shrink ourselves, especially those of us who have diverse identities. Tell me about that moment where you just stood in that for yourself and you were empowered to be your authentic self.

Jackie - 00:05:08:

The thing about coming out or inviting in, as some of my people say these days, is that it happens over and over again. It's really a lifelong process. And that first moment of coming out to my mom at 14, because I needed to try and incur some favor and try and get somebody on my side before I told my father, honey.

Speaker 1 - 00:05:33:

Right. I believe that.

Jackie - 00:05:34:

It was. Oh. Earth shattering. It was scary. I had no idea what her response would be. I knew my parents loved me, but... We didn't talk openly about LGBTQ experiences. The only times that I even knew. There was a discourse or a dialogue around these experiences was through media. And there was a lot of media, particularly in the 90s, that was... Showing queerness as a joke or as a mockery. You know, I think about shows like In Living Color and Martin with the Shanaynay character and so many others. You know, queerness and transness were... Definitely seen as detrimental qualities. So there was that. And then of course, in terms of religion, I knew the Catholic church was not here for gay people or much less trans people. And there was a political discourse at the time. And sometimes I would hear from a traveling priest about the sanctity of marriage and how gay people were coming to destroy the institution of the American family. So those were the only things I had to glean from any kind of understanding of what my parents' reaction could be. But I just, you know, I breadcrumbed a bit with my mom.

Speaker 1 - 00:07:12:

Sure.

Jackie - 00:07:13:

And I told her, I don't want you to think differently of me. I don't want you to hate me. Then I just told her and I'm, you know, telling her through all of these tears and she's so magnanimous and graceful. And, you know, she just says, you know, I love you. This will just be something we have to get through. Right. And even in that response, right, like that was a very positive response for the time. But this idea that queerness was something to get through. Even comes through in that language, right? That it, yes, very much is an obstacle, my child, but we'll figure it out.

Speaker 1 - 00:07:59:

Thank you for sharing that, Raquel. Let's talk a little bit about your memoir, The Risk It Takes to Bloom. Tell us what we're going to learn from reading that. Tell us about some of the things that inspired the stories there.

Jackie - 00:08:13:

Yes. So. I'm saying this for the first time now, but I think the risk it takes to bloom. It's almost like I am Sasha Fierce by Beyonce, right? It's almost like a double album.

Speaker 1 - 00:08:25:

Yeah.

Jackie - 00:08:26:

Because in the first major part of the book, I'm talking more about my coming into my identity. And then you're getting, of course, all of these things we just talked about of childhood, but also my college experience. And then the second part is really as I start to build kind of a personal philosophy on liberation. And so that's kind of the On Life and Liberation subtitle of the book. And in that second part. I really talk about emerging into this world that is slowly starting to become more aware of trans experiences. So I graduated in May 2013, two months later, our dear friend and sister Laverne Cox starred in Orange is the New Black, which really kind of touched off this transgender visibility tipping point. And then a few months later. Janet Mock, who is a big sis in the literary world, released her debut memoir, Redefining Realness. So these moments are starting to happen all around me. But when I went into my first job as a newspaper journalist in small town Georgia, even smaller than my hometown, Augusta. I was in the closet because I thought that I would get fired if they knew that I was trans. I thought that we would experience hate from the community. I already was getting hate mail for my opinion editorials telling me that I was too progressive. I was a naive liberal college girl. So I was experiencing baseline misogyny. You know, I didn't even want to imagine what trans misogyny would look like. So. Like I was saying about Leelah Alcorn. When she published her suicide letter on Tumblr, and this was set to publish after the act was committed. In her letter, she had a charge, a call to action, and she said... Fix society, please, because she did not see a future for her as an adult, as a trans person. And her family had put her through a bit of a conversion therapy process where they tried to essentially pray the trans away. Obviously, that is very damaging and destructive to a young queer or trans person's psyche. But I took her call to fix society personally, and I felt complicit with my silence in my career with the bit of privilege that I had to even have a career as a Black trans woman in her demise. And I didn't want to be a part of that anymore. And so I published this YouTube vlog, as we were still calling them then. And basically, I'm ugly crying because I'm just, it's very candid, not scripted at all. I'm just talking about how heart-wrenching the fact that this young trans person saw no way other than out of life. And then the BBC saw it. A producer over there reached out to me and said, hey, would you... Join this. Interview that we're doing. It's going to be a panel. And, I agreed. And then I had to tell my boss and my immediate supervisor. Luckily, they were all on board and supportive. And so that was my entry into being out of my career. So that's the kind of start of the second part of the book. And then you'll see my journey as I traverse corporate media, but also nonprofit culture and the organizing landscape of the movement for Black Lives and LGBTQ plus organizing and feminist organizing. There's so many different environments that are overlapping in that part of the book.

Speaker 1 - 00:12:43:

That's so great, Raquel. You know, it's amazing your journey and those moments that you've had to become someone that. We all look up to from your authentic perspective and to be able to speak out for all of us. And I just want to congratulate you on that for the life that you're living for all of us to be able to stand out like that and stand up for us.

Jackie - 00:13:15:

Thank you, Jackie. I mean, to hear you say that is so touching and it's so heartwarming because I don't think that most people feel that way when we talk about. Any kind of diversity, equity, and inclusion, but of course also transness specifically. When I'm talking about gender liberation and I have some amazing friends who... Are invested in this work too. We're building out a platform for these kind of thoughts around gender liberation as... A belief that centers self-determination for all. Bodily autonomy for all because the fights around reproductive justice, access to abortion, IVF, and on and on is connected to the need for trans people to access gender affirming care.

Speaker 1 - 00:14:12:

Yes.

Jackie - 00:14:13:

We're also talking about collectivism, how we all have to understand. Our part under this patriarchy, and then also fulfillment, that we all deserve to be the drivers of our own destinies. And with gender, it's often comical to me that people think that trans people are the only ones having some kind of complicated gender experience. I push this idea that actually cis people. Need a bit of a gender revolution and liberation for themselves as well, right? How many boys and men do we know who can't cry or experience certain emotions without being seen as betraying their gender experience, can't have certain interests without betraying their gender experience, can't be soft, can't express affection, or even some of these deeper experiences of pride in other folks without being seen as betraying their gender. And same thing for cis women and girls who are told they can't be strong, brilliant, capable leaders without being attached to the hip to whatever random man they first pass on the street. You know, these are all gender issues. And the experiences of trans and non-binary people and queer people writ large, give us an opportunity to shatter expectations for all of us that don't fit us.

Speaker 1 - 00:15:43:

Absolutely. Raquel, that's so true. And I was very deliberate in saying the word us because it's all of us. So many. People think that, well, it's this group or it's this group or it's this group. It's us. It's all of us. The work that you're doing, the work that so many are doing are for all of us. So I just want to make that clear to our listeners. And again, you're just such an inspiration in speaking up for all of us. So thank you. Raquel, your writing has been featured in Essence and Bitch Magazine, VICE, BuzzFeed, Autostraddle, for HuffPost, Vogue, The Cut. It's incredible. Tell us a little more about why we need to keep amplifying voices of diverse women.

Jackie - 00:16:39:

Absolutely. Well, we... Definitely have to write. Wrongs that have existed historically in our society, but also continue today. You know, when I think about these fights against DEI and, you know, all of these conversations around critical race theory that aren't really about critical race theory. It's really about people on the margins having access to nuanced understandings of our histories and understanding that there has been a... White supremacist, patriarchal paradigm. And how we even talk about the story of our society. And how we even think about ourselves as individuals. So- There's also this kind of fallacy that I think a lot of people have. And some of this was heightened kind of during the Obama era, that kind of idea of post-racial America or world, this kind of myth that all the struggles that needed to be fought. Are over. And we cross that because certain people have certain individuals of certain experiences have been able to achieve leadership. And I think there's a parallel in how we think about the United States kind of being beyond white supremacy because there was a black man in the Oval Office. But we see that even in the other institutions that we're a part of. You know, once there is a black leader of an institution or a leader of color, there's this kind of assumption that, oh, well, this place has figured out white supremacy, y'all. They done. And that is not true. That one person in that leadership position, first of all, it's not fair to them. To hinge this idea of progress solely on their experience. But I was at a conference, the Harvard Black Policy Conference just the other day, and someone was saying, you know, the real marker of success is when there's more than one person of a marginalized experience in that leadership position, not just one. And not to mention, it's also when those leaders have an infrastructure and resources. That can support their leadership too, because there's oftentimes this space where, we'll get a leader of a marginalized experience in this position. And then people will wipe their hands clean and they're like, okay, go forth and prosper. Right. Without kind of a culture that actually was ready for them. And actually, because of that, might end up being antagonistic and violent to them. When things don't progress at a speed that other people deem necessary. All of that to say that I think stories can be an entry point for us to observe the world as it is in both victories and struggles. But also for us to ask the question of, well, what is the world that we want to see? What is the landscape, the industry, the institution that we want to see? And then maybe there is a bit of visioning and. Prophesying of what can come too.

Speaker 1 - 00:20:26:

Absolutely. Absolutely. Raquel, from a media perspective, let's talk a little about your 3C approach. So we talked about media being, you know, a way that we do tell stories. And very often we're telling the wrong stories, right? Let's talk about your 3C approach if we can.

Jackie - 00:20:49:

Absolutely. So the 3Cs really came out of a lot of the work that I was doing in 2020. We all had this moment, if you are on the margins, where in 2020, everybody and their mama was calling you up for opportunities that you may have not even thought were possible. And I experienced that, too, as someone very vocal about the intersections of white supremacy and the cis-hetero-patriarchy. And so in that, I had different companies ask me, well, what can we do to be better around trans issues specifically? And a lot of times these were asked around content. You know, what kind of content can we produce? What kind of story can we tell? What can we craft to signal? That we are for the trans community. And I would always have to push back and say, well, actually the content piece comes last. So we have a great case study in the infamous Black Square debacle of 2020, right? In the aftermath of the unfortunate murder of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery and Tony McDade and so many others. A lot of corporations and- folks were posting their Black square on Instagram as a signal of solidarity. But... That black square signal. Did not actually, in most instances, have anything else attached to it in terms of changing the tangible experiences of folks on the margins, people of color, Black folks, whether within the organization or institution or outside of it. And so that content piece comes last because really there has to be some kind of commitment. What is the commitment of this institution to? Ending white supremacy within its contours? You know, what are the ways it's going to champion building in some of those structures that can support the leadership of Black people or other folks of color? And then also, what are the ways that culture is going to be shifted within an institution? Right? Are people fully on board? And that's more of a collective commitment within to end how white supremacy has existed historically within an institution. And then comes the content piece, because the content piece should be an amplification of the commitment that was made and the actions that were made within the culture of the institution you're a part of. If you have not done that, boo-boo, don't try and signal that you're somewhere that you're not actually, because that's going to be causing even more harm to folks. And within that, I think a lot of... Organizations and institutions have to figure out and audit. The ways that they are extracted. Communities on the margins, from the communities just around them spatially, you know, if you're headquartered in a particular location, what is that give back experience for the communities around you that are impacted literally by your physical presence, you know, which is especially important in this virtual and digital workplace world that we're in that I know a lot of people have a lot of issues with. So yeah, that 3C approach, the commitment, culture, and content piece. Is really, it is ordered. It is a bit hierarchical, which I'm not a big hierarchy person, but just roll with me on that. Because I think getting through these different steps can lead you to where your institution wants to be.

Speaker 1 - 00:24:58:

Absolutely, Raquel. You talk about companies responding to moments and movements. What do organizations need to know about supporting employees, and in particular, employees with underrepresented identities in the workplace?

Jackie - 00:25:15:

I think this idea and a lot of it is wrapped up in professionalism, which we know is also wrapped up in some of these dominant systems of oppression again. You know, I don't know how many times I'm going to say white supremacy, cisnormative patriarchy, and on and on. There's so many. But this idea that we don't bring in what is happening in the outside world into our institution. Which means you don't talk about. Oh, the fact that there is an ongoing genocide of Palestinians because that's going to cause discord. But you might be in a workplace where there are workers who have family. That has been killed. You might even have family that was kidnapped on October 7th. So it's important for us to have a container to be able to receive the fullness of people's experiences. In our workplaces because people are human, right? They're not just, as we like to say, cogs in the system. They are human and as much as you can tap into people's humanity, maybe someone does need you to offer them a mental health care day. Because of the fact that there are literally people experiencing violence that... They might be connected to. And I really started to think more about that in my personal career. Of course, when... Leelah Alcorn died by suicide and I went to work and none of my co-workers knew anything about it. And I felt so isolated as I was grieving. There were many moments throughout. My time at a particular workplace where I would come in and it was 2015 and really this kind of second height of the movement for Black Lives Matter and... There were the murders of people like Freddie Gray. And, I would go into work and I'd be sobbing in between meetings. And my mostly white co-workers, there was no kind of understanding to them about what was going on. And if there was, there was no container to speak on those things or to process those things. And I definitely didn't know, oh, well, maybe you should ask for some time away or longer lunch break. So I think it's important for us to understand that. These moments and our social justice movements are not divorced from the workplace. We have to figure out some real tangible ways to have containers to process these things. It might be creating a new ERG that is responsive to these kind of emerging moments so that at least people have a container to talk about these things and process these things.

Speaker 1 - 00:28:36:

Absolutely, Raquel. That's such good advice. And you often say the personal is professional. And I think that it really applies because don't know necessarily from your identity, right? You view the world and you navigate the world from your own identity. And as a leader, you have to make space for people to feel their feelings around what's happening in the world, what's happening in their personal lives. And it's important as leaders that we're making space for that and giving time for that and allowing people to share what their thoughts and feelings are so that they don't feel separated in the workplace in that emotion, but that they feel a sense of community within their workplace. And so it's incumbent upon leaders to create those environments.

Jackie - 00:29:32:

And I think that is absolutely right. And I think a lot of people started to reckon with that feeling, of course, in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd. That was the first time for a lot of people. Especially white people, right, to think about how grizzly and brutal the experience of being Black in America can be? And also in the face of, of course, police brutality. But, that was just the first for a lot of people. But think about... You know, so many of the people in the movement for Black Lives over the years, right? The kind of scar tissue, the trauma tissue that was built after all of these different tentpole moments of death. At the hands of police or just in community. And I mean, we're not even talking about, for me as a Black trans woman, I'm carrying those deaths of Black cis-men and women at the hands of police, but also the murders of Black trans women and other trans folks in community. Right? So there's an even larger well of mourning there. And then, of course, because we don't tie these moments together enough, what's happening right now in Gaza. You know, tens of thousands of Palestinian folks. Killed every day. Those deaths. Are weighing on, of course, our Palestinian fam, Palestinian American fam, our Arab American fam, our Muslim fam. But also on just folks who have big social justice hearts, right? This moment is as big, if not bigger, than what happened to George Floyd to a lot of folks. But it's being suppressed, right? That's a bit of the difference is that. We're seeing in real time how... I know we're on a professional podcast, but this is real. You know, we're seeing in real time how industries like our media landscape. Suppressing the voices, particularly of Palestinian folks. We're seeing, of course, our government's failures. As an institution to get. True information out, even information that makes. These institutions look bad, right? And it's actually only making them look worse. And then, of course, our workplaces and our industries often are used to responding in accordance with maybe the media landscape or the government. And so when those things fell, right now we're in a moment where a lot of institutions, nonprofit organizations, companies are realizing, oh, we're on our own. To figure out how to respond to what our workers are feeling or what our audience or whatever our base is feeling. And that is a difficult place to be in. But if you have some of these structures within your workplace to hear from those folks that you work with who maybe are more on the ground or more knowledgeable about what folks are feeling, then you're going to be in a better position.

Speaker 1 - 00:33:25:

Absolutely. Raquel, there's so much anti-LGBTQ plus legislation and trans issues are often marginalized by media sensationalism to divide. But fundamentally, we as a society don't understand how trans lives are continually at risk. And all of us need to be advocating for the trans community, especially Black trans women. Can you talk to us a little about what we as an entire society need to know and understand about that so that we can begin to advocate as an us, right?

Jackie - 00:34:05:

Humility. I think people have to tap into humility and Grace. We have to be humble around the fact that Oftentimes, there are preconceived notions that we have. That inaccurate or ill-informed. Like anything else, receive new information or are confronted with information, let's be humble enough to actually assess that new information, assess how that information makes us feel. And course correct. So, what is the preconceived notion? The preconceived notion is that gender and sex are one in the same. This is something we learn from religion. Something we often learn in an educational system, which Let me point out... We know our educational system fails us in a lot of ways. Just as we know it's problematic that oftentimes there are swaths of young people who absorb a version of U.S. History and world history that is laden with white supremacy. And ignore some of the most destructive parts of that history. We should also understand that. When we don't get a nuanced discussion around gender. And sags. We're also ill-informed in a similar way. Those things that you think are just Biology 101, well, there's some 102 out there. There's a lot of variation in our bodies and in our experiences. It's important for us to unlearn. These preconceived notions. Because Whatever you carry in terms of ignorance will come into the workplace because you'll be interviewing someone that maybe you're unsure about their gender experience. And if you're triggered by that, you're going to be more likely to not bring them along, even if they check off all of these other boxes for a position.

Speaker 1 - 00:36:36:

And you lose amazing talent because of the biases that you have that sometimes you don't even realize. Because you're not taking the time to unlearn your biases, right? And so it's so important as leaders, you're right, as individuals, as parts of, you know, communities, as neighbors, as family members, that we are. Unlearning our biases and being open to understanding other experiences.

Jackie - 00:37:08:

Absolutely right. And I think the other point and another point in humility, right, is if because there are people who can't get past those biases. For whatever reason. Everyone won't get there, unfortunately. And so then that means. This might not be the right institution for you if you're not invested in. Elevating trans and non-binary experiences with respect, dignity, and honor. And so be humble enough to be like, okay, well, I got to go and go find whatever space that is. That wants to be on that tip, right? And we have to be willing to say, no, no, that's not going to happen here. Even to people that we otherwise. Admire. Because that is a... That's a failure in your position in your role. If you are any kind of racist or homophobic or transphobic or misogynistic. That trumps any other skill that you think you have, because now you're actively a part of harming. Co-workers in this space.

Speaker 1 - 00:38:25:

Absolutely. Raquel, what is the message that you want to leave our listeners with today?

Jackie - 00:38:32:

We all deserve to, shatter those restrictions that make us feel too small. Or make us feel unheard or unvaluable or unworthy. And we all have at least one of those voices inside of us. That is a universal experience. Insecurity is a universal experience. And we have to figure out how not to weaponize our insecurity against each other. And actually turn it on its head. Into something that can be fertilizer for our blooming and the blooming of the folks around us.

Speaker 1 - 00:39:18:

I love that. Raquel, how can listeners learn more about you and connect with you?

Jackie - 00:39:24:

Yes. Well, you can learn more about me at raquelwillis.com, R-A-Q-U-E-L-W-I-L-L-I-S. You can check out my memoir that came out in November, 2023 called The Risk It Takes to Bloom on Life and Liberation. I talk quite a bit about the workplace in there. And then also I am an executive producer over iHeartMedia's Outspoken Podcast Network. And so it focuses on LGBTQ+ Voices. And I host two podcasts over there, one called Afterlives, which focuses on the experiences of trans folks we've lost too soon and does investigative deep dives there. And then Queer Chronicles is the second podcast. And this first season focuses on young queer and trans teenagers in political battleground states across the United States.

Speaker 1 - 00:40:20:

Amazing, Raquel. Thank you so much for taking time to be with us here today. I've enjoyed getting to know you and thank you for the amazing work that you're doing.

Jackie - 00:40:30:

Thank you, Jackie. And thank you for elevating so much truth on this pod.

Speaker 1 - 00:40:38:

Thanks for listening to this episode of Diversity: Beyond the Checkbox. If you love this show, please take a moment to share it with a friend, leave a rating and review. And subscribe so you'll be reminded when new episodes are released. Become part of our community on Instagram, LinkedIn. X, YouTube, and TikTok, or subscribe to our newsletter at beyondthecheckbox.com. This show is part of the Living Corporate Network, sponsored by The Diversity Movement, and edited and produced by EafFluence. I'm Jackie Ferguson. Take care of yourself and each other.