Impact is always going to be more important. The impact that you have left on that person, now that they feel unsafe and harmed is more important than what you intended to do or how you intended your behavior to come across.

There are a lot of people who believe even if you are trans you must choose and take part in the binary in order to identify as trans. They believe people who refuse to choose should not be allowed to identify as trans until they do. There are also people who believe you should not be able to identify as trans unless you partake in Gender-Affirming Hormone Therapy (GAHT) and Gender Affirming Surgery.

The next time someone says PTSD and your brain automatically pulls up a cis White man who is also a combat veteran , challenge it to think of anyone else. Challenge it to think of a trans person who has been disowned by their family for transitioning or a Black person who just had to watch another Black person be murdered. Think about who is defining trauma and why they are defining it this way.

To clump people together from different groups just because they are being harmed by systems based in White supremacy because we assume that everyone who isn't White receives the same type of harm from these systems is extremely harmful and unsafe.

It's giving the Wizard of Oz, when they pull back the curtain. My thoughts and perspectives were minimized and criticized and not in a constructive way. It's so important, you have to figure out what you don't want, work backwards and build questions based off of that, otherwise y'all end up in situations like mine.

This language saves lives. It allows people to feel safe enough to be their full selves. It creates spaces for people to share the language they’d like used when speaking about their own individual bodies. Without similar language people like those who have been showcased in this article will feel unsafe, excluded and discouraged to speak up. Remember to always be critical of who’s being centered and to ensure you’re being as inclusive as possible with your language in order to create safer spaces for everyone to thrive in.

You're walking in with all these firm boundaries that really aren't based in humanity or connection, and then you're saying that you know how things are going. The reality is there's a wealth of research, there's a wealth of scholarship, and I'm sure, we've both seen, in person, when folks call themselves neutral very often, they're the exact opposite of it.

And the fake it till you make it, I see that more a skill set for most people, but with Black people, it's not only a skill set, it's it's the way we have to navigate ourselves in this world. It's the way we have to carry ourselves, it's the way we have to be-

And so colorism is something I feel I can speak directly to, because any anything can be a source of that for someone else, right? For some people, it's sizes, and for some people, it's ableism, transphobia, you know? So a lot of these social problems can have this a similar impact on other people, depending on their identity, and because of my particular identity and experiences, I feel like I can speak to colorism in a way that does create change, both for individual people but also in communities and cultures.

Being in HR and being Black, is interesting. It's one of those fields where there's an expected vibe. And I'm not that person, because my goal is to create an environment where you get to be whoever the heck you want to be all the time. I don't want you to turn things off about you.

We are not all educators and should not all be expected to be. I love talking about boundaries because they make it so easy to see how harmful people truly are after setting them. Thank you so much Jessica for reminding us of the boundaries we are allowed to set! In this episode we discuss: -Why Blackness in the workplace is different -Knowing that it's not you, it’s them -How documentation is key to being safe

What I've noticed is that narcissists don't respect boundaries. They don't have empathy when their behavior is pointed out, sometimes they'll just speed right on by it and make excuses for it, or other times, they'll just deny it. Of course, gaslighting is happening, and all of it is with the goal of centering themselves and centering themselves in other’s worlds as well.

That was my fear. ‘I don't want anyone knowing I'm Bipolar. I don't want them to think that I can't do my job. I'm the best recruiter on this team.’ But if I felt more comfortable--maybe someone else was Bipolar. We never know if we don't get to those places where we can have those conversations. It starts from the top. It starts with leadership, and then those conversations can take place.

And I was like, ‘now you're violating my boundaries in my space. And I don't have to take that.’ Suffice to say, I don't work there anymore. It is what it is. But that's one of many examples over the last few years where me establishing my boundaries, creates major issues for White people and People of Color who have adjacency and access to little nuggets of White privilege that they like to use against other people.