More Than Just Rainbows: Elevating Your Pride To True Allyship

I have been the witness of my nephew’s journey as a transgender man over the past 20+ years. It started for me when he was in high school, but for him long before that. As his family struggled to understand, I quickly took a stand that he is my relative — I do not care if he is a he or a she, pink, blue, red or green for that matter. In the background, I worked to support the remainder of my family wrestling with how they felt. I look back now and think maybe I could have been more vocal, more present, but I did what I could. There were and have been dark days and if I could only be a safe place for no judgment, that was something I could do. His transition was full of crying, anguish, surgeries and so much mental fortitude over the years. As a witness from the sidelines, I am glad to say he made it through to the other side.

Fast forward to today, my nephew is the strongest and happiest I have ever seen him to be. He is working to live his best life, has friends, love, his family, a career and more. Most importantly, he is still here with us. Transgender and nonbinary young people who came out about their gender identity and had high family support reported lower rates of considering and attempting suicide in the past year. Throughout my nephew’s journey, I realized I needed to do more, speak more and be more vocal — for gender-neutral bathrooms, for non-biased reasoning, for standing up to people that create fear, doubt and uncertainty for transgender people around the world. So, when I had the opportunity to sit on our NTT DATA PRIDE Employee Resource Group’s panel on raising LGBTQ+ kids, I jumped at it. While I did not raise my nephew, I could tell my story as an aunt and the role I played as his ally.

I think many people are simply not sure what to do when faced with a transgender person and what I would say to you — is be positive, be supportive, seek to learn, seek to understand, do what you are comfortable doing, but just do. I recently saw a statement that said at the end of the day, I would rather be excluded for who I include, than be included for who I exclude.

As allies, there is always more we can learn about how to accept others. That is why I was so proud to see our PRIDE Employee Resource Group recently launch our Safe Zone program. The program promotes allyship by preparing employees to be engaged, active and visible allies of members of the LGBTQ+ community. Allies are so important in helping improve both the workplace and the world.

Here is my hope: that one person or thousands of people read this and take a step toward supporting a family member, a friend, a colleague or complete strangers that are seeking to be understood, to be accepted and to be included.

Learn more about PRIDE at NTT DATA.