“I’m not a ma’am, and I’d like two cups of water, please,” I replied to the flight attendant on my recent Delta flight from Denver to Cincinnati. I was flying in for a funeral - my husband Theo’s grandmother passed away on the last day of her 103rd year on earth. She went peacefully, and the service was a beautiful tribute to her life.
Thirty-six hours after arriving in Cinci, we went back through TSA for our return flight home. I heard a loud voice say, “Ma’am, ma’am.”
My husband touched my elbow while turning to correct them, “He’s not a ma’am” Theo said.
It's 4 am ET (2 am MT - the time zone my body thinks I’m in), so I'm exhausted. Thankfully I didn’t have to correct them again.
A few months ago, Virgin Atlantic expanded its dress code requirements to allow employees to choose the uniform that best fits who they are; this led to a 100% increase in applications! From dress code requirements to the training of employees, it takes a comprehensive strategy to create long-term change when it comes to inclusion. And although I’m talking specifically about airlines while sitting on my flight home, this should be a focus for all of us and across all sectors. There are many ways to be polite without gendering someone, and that’s only one part of creating an inclusive environment. This isn’t a new conversation or the first time I’ve written about this - people have been misgendering me for years.
So why haven't gender-neutral greetings been more readily adopted? As ✨Theo Edmonds✨ said during CU Denver's Imaginator Academy's Imaginator Summit, "It’s the readiness of the culture into which the idea is being introduced that matters most." From cognitive bias to people wanting to stick with the status quo and being resistant to change, it can take consistency and priming the pump to make change happen over time and at a broad, systems-wide level.
So, what helped fuel Virgin Atlantic's decision to make these changes? They engaged 3Gem to conduct research with their employees, and the findings showed that:
Enabling employees to express their true selves at work boosts happiness (65%), increases mental well-being (49%), creates a more positive workplace culture (36%), and provides a better experience for customers (24%).
Employees reported feeling more accepted and comfortable when able to be their true selves at work (26%) and an increased sense of loyalty to their employer (21%).
25% of Brits have felt pressure to hide their true selves at work, and (38%) covered up parts of their personality, all in an attempt to fit in.
Virgin Atlantic also created “mandatory inclusivity training [that] was also rolled out for its people at all levels across Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Atlantic Holidays as well as a series of inclusivity learning initiatives for tourism partners and hotels within destinations such as the Caribbean to ensure all our customers feel welcome despite barriers to LGBT+ equality.”
These are great steps toward shaping an inclusive travel environment. One where employees don’t have to cover who they are, and one where customers don’t feel disrespected or uncomfortable. Their approach also addressed a broader change with partners in the travel industry.
I hope their newly developed training goes beyond a PowerPoint and includes activities, discussions, and time for introspection as participants work on revising outdated mental models and developing new mindsets and approaches to do their work.
If we’re being honest, the way our language was structured and the focus on pronouns was designed to reinforce a belief by some that there are only two genders, which is false. Historically, indigenous communities celebrated two-spirited people, and there is evidence showing the ever-present nature of trans, queer and gender-nonconforming people throughout the centuries - and the structure of our language sought to erase that. The expansion of singular pronouns to include they/them (and others) serve a role for now, but I believe that they are a placeholder. They are the step between what our language was - and what it will be. In the long term, they’ll go the way of dial-up internet and pagers. If we think long and hard about it, we are all humans, and we should restructure our language to prioritize names or other ways of identifying each other without gender being part of the equation. We should embrace people’s autonomy to tell us who they are without assuming how they present correlates to their gender identity or sexual orientation.
I don't expect perfection, but I hope for a mindset open to learning, evolving how we relate to each other, and being gracious as people make their way through these changes. It is sometimes challenging for me to unlearn and relearn people's names and pronouns if they've transitioned or started to identify differently. There are many times I've gotten it wrong. I apologize, correct myself, and move forward. Sometimes, I’ll repeat a person's first name over and over if I continue to mess up their pronouns. We're all learning how to communicate differently in a way that honors who people are.
I hope that people will ask themselves what it means to create intentionally inclusive spaces and ways of working, from the greetings we use to our focus on accessibility. What does that mean for you, and how do you greet people and design spaces? What does it mean for those training to offer consumer experiences? Wouldn’t it be better for me to remember the positive facets of a flight rather than the negative? To recall the stage performance of the concert I attended rather than how I was addressed in line for the bathroom and the laughter that ensued around me?
And while we are on the subject of restrooms, this is a friendly reminder that you are not the bathroom police.
I can read, and I can see the signs, and I’m choosing the restroom that’s best for me. Don’t worry about it - worry about you. I laugh a little inside every time someone does a double take and leaves the bathroom to re-read the sign outside after spotting me at the urinal or the sink washing my hands. You can see the question like a sign above their head - Did I go into the wrong bathroom? At the Kentucky Derby a few years ago, someone opened the door to the bathroom, saw me washing my hands, and literally threw themselves backward, knocking someone else over. It was comical. After looking at the signage again, they returned through the door and dashed for a stall without making eye contact.
Ok, so after that detour, back to greetings and language. If you need ideas for what language to use instead of ma’am or sir and ladies and gents, here are some recommendations:
Use they or them until you know someone’s pronouns
Describe people by something they are wearing (For example, I can help the person in the striped shirt next)
Greet people with "Hey y'all," or “Welcome friends and family,” or “Hey folks!”
Do any of these experiences resonate with you? Are there questions that it brings to mind? I'd love to hear from you!
Feel free to share your thoughts, questions, and responses in the comments, send me a DM, or email me at connect@joshmiller.ventures
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About: Josh Miller is a queer changemaker, public speaker, photographer, and outdoor explorer. He is the owner of Josh Miller Ventures and the co-founder + CEO of IDEAS xLab—an organization that uses the art of storytelling and community collaboration to impact public health. Miller’s work has been featured by The New York Times, the Aspen Institute, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He is a Soros Equality Fellow, received the 2022 Nonprofit Visionary Leader Award from Louisville Business First, and was selected for Business Equality Magazine’s Forty LGBTQ+ Leaders under 40 and Louisville Business First's Forty under 40. Miller is a two-time TEDx speaker and has been described as a "force in our community.” He holds an MBA from Indiana University and an undergraduate degree from Bellarmine University. Previously, he served as an advisor to the Derby Diversity & Business Summit and co-chair for the Louisville Health advisory board’s communications committee.