Words Matter

Hello, welcome back to another session. My name is Cynthia Fortlage, award-winning executive board member and coach, public speaker, and consultant. I'm here today to talk to you about why words matter. Have you ever gone to a restaurant or a pub or somewhere that they're serving and you get greeted with the colloquial phrase of, "Hi guys." What do you think when you hear that phrase? Do you associate and go, "Yep." Perhaps you're a man and you hear that phrase and you go, "Yes, that's me. I totally align to that. I feel it identifies who I am." Or perhaps you experience what I do when I'm with a number of my female friends. And while we don't want a performative "Hi ladies," we don't associate the phrase to necessarily refer to us specifically, but we do associate it as a common everyday phrase that's said. But let me share with you some insight that you may not have that may prevent you from accepting without understanding the concept of why words matter. When I hear the phrase, "Hi guys," what I have to question is, was it the colloquial greeting or did I just get outed? If you're not familiar, outed being the process for an LGBT+ identifying person to have been outed, in my case as a previous identity, not as my current identity. And the question comes in when that is called into question, my safety is called into question. And when my safety is called into question, I have to reassess the situation for both my physical safety my emotional safety, and my psychological safety. It is not pushing it too far to suggest that I need to evaluate the environment around me in order to assess, am I physically safe? Is there someone who objects to me being in that space that may wish to do me bodily harm? And I know you're going, Cynthia, that's probably taking that analogy a little far. Is it? I'd like to draw your attention to what's called the transgender panic defense. In United States and Australia in 2019, there was 33 women who were murdered by men who were in front of a judge and went, judge, I was with her. I didn't know. I got surprised. I panicked and I killed her. I'm sorry. And they got away with murder. In today's light, it is important to recognize that most of those women were Black or of Latino origin as well. But even while I enjoy a lot of privilege, that they didn't, that threat is still very real to me by responding with "Hi guys." So what could they do? You could go, "Hi everyone," or "Hi folks, welcome," or even from the United States, from the American South, you have Hi y'all, an absolute non-gender-specific, wholly inclusive phrase. So the next time that you're in a team meeting, you're in a group, listen for hi guys and really question, is there a different phrase that could be used to create further inclusivity for everyone that may be part of the group. That's just one phrase that we need to think about when we talk about why words matter. I look forward to seeing you in the next session, and thank you. Have a wonderful day.