Thomas Hoffman is not just a brilliant mate of mine, he's an absolute legend in the fields of inclusion, diversity, and culture reform. Thomas takes us on a deep dive into the ever-evolving conversation about gender identity, biological sex, and the societal systems that shape (and often constrain) our understanding of these topics.
We discuss the nuances of biological sex, gender identity, and expression, unraveling how each differs yet overlaps, and why our binary frameworks fail to capture the beautiful complexity of human experience.
Thomas shares fascinating insights from his work in gender equality and culture reform, addressing why inclusion is vital - not just for individuals but for societal growth. We touch on contentious topics, from gender in sport to workplace culture, exploring how systems and biases create barriers, and how they might be dismantled.
This episode isn’t about answers - it’s about questions. Questions that challenge stereotypes, open minds, and, most importantly, invite understanding and respect.
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THOMAS HOFFMAN
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Email: tyhoffman@gmail.com
TIFFANEE COOK
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Forday team. Welcome to another episode of Roll with the Punches podcast. I'm your host, TIF Cook, and today we're speaking to a friend of mine. His name is Thomas Hoffman. He's incredible at what he does. He works in diversity and inclusion. He is one of the best communicators in this space that I have sat down and chatted to. So I hope that you enjoy this conversation as much as I did, because we're talking about all things gender and gender expression and biological sex and gender in sport. Nobody wants to go to court and don'te My friends are test Art Family Lawyers. Know that they offer all forms of alternative dispute resolution. Their team of Melbourne family lawyers have extensive experience in all areas of family law to facto and same sex couples, custody and children, family violence and intervention orders, property settlements and financial agreements. Test Art is in your corner, so reach out to Mark and the team at www dot Testartfamilylawyers dot com dot au. Hang on, stop the bus, wait right there. I just want to take a moment before the episode to let you know about a couple of online workshops and programs that I have coming up because I am super excited about them. The first one is a ninety minute workshop online. It is called why the Fuck Am I Stuck? And I'm going to be talking about all things self sabotage, repeating patterns, dysfunctional relationships, habits, underlying beliefs, the unconscious mind, comfort zones, environmental triggers, emotional dysregulation, toxic behavior, values, purpose, old stories, trauma, ego, people pleasing, negative self talk, all of the shit that can get in our way and keep us stuck despite our very best efforts of wanting to move forward or be something different or do something different. So if this feels like you, then come and join the conversation. It is a cracking twenty seven Australian dollars. You do well to buy handful of avocados for that price, so get around it. And if you can't come live, then you can definitely watch the recording. It will be available to everybody who registers. That is December twelfth, and then next year in twenty twenty five, early February, I will be starting the next round of the mind PT That is me, the mind PT reps for your mind ten rounds with Tiff ten Rounds with TIF is a ten week program designed to transform your mindset, build resilience, help you build the life you want. Take life's punches in the face and turn them into wins. Take adversity and turn it into your greatest Ally. It is your ultimate mastering for mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing, and we are diving in deep, deeper than I would say, in my fair opinion, deeper than a lot of ten week programs do. Mental emotional, physical wellbeing, energy optimization, self confidence, understanding and overcoming trauma, understanding your values, finding purpose, figuring out what the fuck we're doing here in this life and how to do it better, and how to take responsibility for the things that we can actually change and we can sometimes we just don't fucking understand it. It's all about perspective, it's all about taking control, and I'm all about heavily supporting a small group of people through that process ten weeks at a time. I am currently coming towards the end of my current session of that, and it is filling my cup and I am absolutely loving it. So if you want to be a part of it, it is a small group and there are limited numbers of that one so please reach out to me for either of these two workshops. Reach out to me via Tiffcook dot com, send me an email and say I want in, and I will send you the link to check out the details of the programs and you can go from there. Thomas Hoffman, Welcome to Roll with the Punches.
It is so great to be here, and after years of listening to you and your amazing get I feel honored that you were even consider me in the same breath, same breath as some of those guests.
Mate, I feel like I've been quietly kind of nudging you here and there to lure you onto the show. So when you finally reached out and said I think there's a conversation here worth having, I was super excited, super excited, and I still remain super excited. But I want to tell you one thing. This morning, I just had a quick browse over. We wrote some notes. You wrote some notes. I'm not going to take any credit for that. That's not my style. My style is reading your said page of notes three minutes before jumping on. But I read. I just had a quick read through kind of the things we're going to talk about, and the first paragraph gave me a jolt of anxiety because what I realized is what I actually love is we're going to have this conversation that for a lot of people is it's tough, if it's complex, it's pointed, it's fraught with emotion and defense and fucking up and all of the things. And as I realized that there's like I'd put a big post up recently about sex, gender and sport with all of the Olympics controversy, after people had prodded me to have a say, and I just thought, Fuck, I'm going to get picked up on gaps that I've left in that like I'm going to like did I wanted to write a post that wasn't going to cause anybody any inflammation, just give quite what I perceived from my standpoint to be a fairly balanced, sensible outlook on a really complex issue. And then I just went, oh shit, Thomas is going to pull me up and make me realize that I've got massive fucking holes in my information here. Anyway, the rest of the conversation I'm really excited to have because there's so much that not only Oh, but a lot of people don't know or get to see or ever have the opportunity to understand about this ever more seemingly ever evolving space. So welcome and let's go. First. Come, have a bit of background about you, what you do.
Yeah, sure, so not just on this issue, but like physically, you and I come from opposite ends of the country. So I was born. I was born in Perth, kind of on the edges of Perth, semi rural country, Scottish mum, social dad, no one ever knows what social war is their islands off the coast of Africa. And spent eleven years in Canberra workplace relations, worked in defense doing HR But probably the bit that kind of like the intersection of my personal life and professional life was working on gender equality and working on gender in defense and looking at how people move through the world and how gender and sex shapes that. And as you pointed out, this is such a fraught issue and it literally occurs at the nexus of so many complicated and difficult points. It's political, it's personal, it's to do with families, it's to do with how we grow up. It's history, it's tradition, it's so many factors. And I think the thing that I'd love to employ you and listeners is that you know, this is a complex topic and everyone is learning. I have a detailed knowledge of sex and gender because I've done training on it and I've had to deep dive in it, and then I've had to educate others on it. So I have a decent understanding of it, but I'm still learning. And every audience that I talk about this with, I sometimes think, you know, some of my audiences are medical professionals, they're high ranking political people. Sometimes they're high ranking military people, and I always think, oh, I'm going to have to be across this because I'm going to get it wrong. These are very smart people. And almost every time I'm delivering to an audience of people with their mouths open just looking at me being like, oh my god, I never knew this. And then when I cast my mind back to when I was trained to deliver this by an amazing organization called Pride in Diversity, who are based in Sydney, who work with workplaces to make them become LGBTI inclusive. When they took me through this training to train other people, I kind of left it and then had to reconstruct my view of the world because I didn't realize that I didn't realize the full under the full breadth and depth of sex and gender diversity, and then of course how our society shapes that, and then how we perform that in society. And so I had to unlearn and relearn a lot of things, and so everyone does every time we have this conversation. And so yeah, I think if you go into this conversation with rists spect, with wanting to learn, we're all capable of learning and growing. We all bring our history and traditions and our experience to it. But I think if you go into it open minded and connecting meaningfully with people, I generally I've never had a bad experience having this conversation, even if a lot of it is quite profound for people.
What do you think the biggest thing that comes up that prevents people from understanding or what's the biggest misconception that overarches this whole topic.
I think it is probably the fact that, as in if I could kind of get everyone to understand one thing about biological sex and gender identity, it would be that they're two different things, and they are usually related, but not always. And the problem is is that our society deals with them as though they are one and the same and they're just not And so that's probably the big thing I'd get people to do reading on and reflect on is that, yeah, they're just different things, and they're usually related but not always.
Yeah. I also think that the idea I say the same thing about gender and sexuality, I think that gets I think sexuality gets pulled into gender and probably is a more triggering part of the conversation as well, because that's where people have maybe had their traumas or have fears around things and get really defensive. For people. When the first conversations of people being trans started coming out, the general populations association with that was when they've seen drag shows and you're flaunting yourself out on the stage in a really sexual manner. So's that's their understanding. So yes, I found that to be one of the first confusing components. Yes, for a lot of people in that space.
Well, yeah, and there's I think the other thing that's confronting is that it's personal for people because whether we like to admit it, we all have a gender identity, of biological sex or sexual identity. We all express that every day, so it's personal to all of us, and of course it involves something that's new and different, and you know, we are genetically programmed to fear things that are different. Yeah, you know, it's part of our DNA. It's what kept us safe as k people. The world nowadays is very complicated, and one of the things I like to say is that prejudice doesn't survive experience. And for the vast majority of people, it's not that they have an inbuilt prejudice against anyone, it's just that they actually haven't met someone from that community, of that background, of that sexuality, and generally speaking, when you do have an interaction with someone, and you meet someone you learn to have a conversation and do all all of those things that human beings do, then prejudice is bias, all of that stuff just falls away. But for a lot of people, you know, there's that opportunity for communities and people to mix. Isn't away super common depending on where you are.
Yeah, you remind me of the first conversation I had back in episode number five when I first started this show with my good friend Pharrell, when he shared his journey first time publicly. And what I loved about that was we had this beautiful, you know, two naive people in the space as friends having a conversation with in front of the world about his experience and someone who's grown up for the last however many years in the space of being a boxing coach in this hyper masculine area. And when that episode went out and went nuts and there was zero backlash from any of the people who I know that know him, and nothing came back in any untoward manner of people really wrap their arms around him, and I just felt really proud because I would not have been surprise. I won't say I expected, but I would not have been surprised if there were sniggers or shitty comments from people in a sport like that around a topic like this.
In my line of work, you know, either doing diversity inclusion or culture reform, I frequently the job essentially frequently is about getting two groups of disparate people to work together. And one of the things I always love finding and I always to remind myself of, and I always remind other people of, is you never know who will actually be supportive. And it never ceases to amaze me when you cast the net widely, exactly who puts the hand up to be supportive to be an Ally. I started this year doing some volunteer work for Ambulance, and I do that in Country Victoria. So we're about an hour and ten minutes out of Bendigo, So you know, this is Country of Victoria, small town, less than a thousand people. And one of the people I work with is absolutely phenomenal, the best practitioner gets so many commodations, is brilliant with patients. I've learnt so much from him. But the external packaging is pretty pretty. Graff rides a Harley big handlebow mustache, swears a lot and loves telling smuddy jokes and oh god, maybe she edited that out. No, but the point is Raffer's guts but hard of gold. And we were at a job recently because these are small country towns, and this was at a CFA branch, and so you know, the volunteers and community are all interconnected. So there's all families and there's photos on the wall, and he's talking me through who's there and who's family they're from, and there's sporting people that are photographed on the wall. And then another crew came to do a handover, and of course I was getting the back story of everyone in the crew, which I didn't necessarily need, but described a person who I didn't think anything was different about the person when I met them, but my colleague said, oh, yeah, that's that's so and so used to be a bloke. Now they're a sheiler, and then just follow it up with much better as a sheiler. And I just thought to myself, is that the most inclusive thing I've heard all year? I think it is.
I just started watching Will and Oh what is it on Netflix? Will? And it's Will fare All.
Oh, yeah, that's a good story. It's the Will Ferrell And I'm not sure who the person is, but it's a friend of theirs.
Yes, and that it was one of their producers or scriptwriters for many Minion years who's transitioned into it. So what they're doing is a documentary road trip as her first I'll have to google a name now because I feel ridiculous that I can't remember. I feel it starts with.
H No, I've heard someone's recommended that to me. I haven't watched it because I work in this space and dip out of it sometimes I get a bit overload. But let's let's jump into it, because I've got a few things I want to walk you through, and then we'll will.
And Harper will in Harper. Now we can move on.
Perfect because otherwise we'd be up at three am thinking of it. Yep. So there's kind of if we were doing this in person, there's a there's a visual that I'd walk you through with kind of four horizontal lines on it, and the first horizontal line is like a spectrum. Well they're all spectrums, but the first horizontal horizontal line is biological sex. So biological sex is our physical body. So that's our hormones, it's our chromosomes, which are determined determined by genetics. We've got internal organs and then we've got external organs as well, and all of those have like natural variations. Medical literature kind of recognizes a few hundred different variations between one hundred percent one hundred percent female anatomy and one hundred percent male anatomy. There's a range of things in the middle. There's an intersex variation. It occurs correction intersex variation, So people that fall in the middle of that, as in it's not one hundred percent female, not one hundred percent male. About one point eight percent of the population which doesn't sound like a lot, but one point eight percent of a population in the Western world is actually about the same amount of people who have red hair. So as common as red hair is, intersex variations are common through the population, and a lot of people go to their grave without knowing these things, because have you had a chromosomal test. I haven't had a chromosomal test. I wouldn't know what mine says. So a lot of people find out later in life. It's pretty common when for people to find out, that's when in sexparition, when they go to have kids and they've got it, they have a difficulty doing so. There's situations where like a man might have some internal remaining female organs, or a woman might have an internal like leftover non functioning testing that secretes just enough testosterone so that they can't become pregnant. But yet it's about one point accent of people. There's a couple hundred different conditions recognized by medicine, and I would guess that they'd continue to find more because as population increases, the amount of people with these variations increase. But a reasonably common one for men is one called climb filters and cliin felters is a condition where a biological male has normal male presenting external and internal organs, normal male hormone levels, but has a different chromosomal combination, so they will have a double They basically have an extra X chromosome, and about one in six hundred men have it, but the problem is of those men who have only one in six get diagnosed, so it's very underdiagnosed and as a result, if it's untested, it's untreated, it can lead to infertility, but under treatment it can be infertility is not an issue, and it's you can live a completely normal life. And I actually a friend of mine has client Felters, And the only reason I knew about it is because I was friends with them for a while. They lived in a country of Victoria. They were coming down to an endocrinologist down here, and I remember thinking, oh, that's a from my limited understanding of the medical system, I was like, that's an extremely specialist, specialist specialist. And then eventually they told me why they come down because they get like a regular check up, and I was like, huh, interesting, wow, so yeah, pretty common and intersex variation. And also the other thing that I find interesting is that a lot of those factors can change throughout our life as well, Like hormones can change day to day, month to month. There's foods that we then impact our hormones. There's medicines that change our hormone levels. You can artificially change your hormone level. In the health and fitness world, I'm sure we're very familiar with people who artificially change their hormone level.
I've seen World or two or getting around.
Yeah, yeah, that's it.
In my world.
There's a bit of a debate as to do we call people that take TRT as receiving a gender affirming care.
I'm going to use that in the gym. I'm going to use that.
Random factoid, which will probably go into later. But there's a lot of men have I can never pronounce this word guyanocommast. It's basically male breast tissue. Men who get it, men who develop early. Range of reasons why it can develop, and they get it. They might get it removed, but common amongst bodybuilders because some of the substance they take can cause it can be a side effect of that. But gynocomas DEEA, I think that's pronunciation. Don't quote me on that. Apparently it's the same. It's basically top surgery, and that's one of the surgeries that people who are affirming their gender or who are transgender get. But apparently the most common recipient of that surgery is cisgender men.
Wow.
Yeah, So biological sex, we've all got one and they're different and they changed about our lifetime. So this is the bit that is as I said, I want I would love people to take away from that gender and biological sex are different, usually related, but not always. If biological sex is our physical body, gender identity is our psychological body. It's our sense of self. Like, how do you wake up in the morning and know who you are? How do I wake up in the morning and know my gender identity? It's unique to us. There's a range of different identities. Again, if we're looking at that spec dam there's you know, man boy on one side, woman girl on another side, and then there's a range of different identities in the center, which they refer to as non binary identities. There's, yeah, a bunch of them. There are also other cultures throughout the world have different gender identities, have third or more gender identities. A lot of indigenous cultures through the world have two spirit people, which are people who embody the kind of you know, the spirit of both the man and the woman. A friend of mine is from Samoa and he is puffeying correction, he is fuffing. They are puffing, which is a gender identity where man but takes on the ceremonial and traditional roles of women in his society. Is kind of referred to as the auntie sort of thing. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, gender identity, it's our unique sense of self, but it is informed by society. So you know, how we express that changes depend on where we are. Some cultures have very rigid expressions of gender identity, others have more fluid ones. But ye range of gender identities. I don't know what the stats are on who identifies where, but there's a range of descriptions in the middle. And they also change over time. There's new people, people come up with new ways that reflect them new words that reflect themselves. And so if you've heard the LGBTI acronym, that kind of gets letters added to it all the time. That's because as people begin to recognize who they are, society begins to understand more and evolve, we get new letters added to that, but as a range of gender identities in the center, and then on the third spectrum down we've got gender expression. So gender expression is how you present yourself to the world. That includes your hairstyle, your makeup, the name that you use. It includes your pronouns, which I'm sure will come back to to and you know, sometimes our gender expression is you know, the car we drive or the clothes we wear, you know, the music we listen to and there. That's one of the things that is tricky is that whilst gender is unique to us, our sense of self, how we express gender is informed by the society that we're in. I generally express my gender in a reasonably traditionally masculine way. There's some parts of me that present in a bit more of a feminine way, you know. To be honest, if I could be bothered with makeup and looking great in you know, there's there's I love those people that like you mix with that masculine and feminine presentation that looks so cool.
Shout out to my mate Brett, who will definitely listen to this. My I call him my gym husband, and I've done my best to turn him to a heterosexual male. But it won't work, but he beautifully expresses he for me, He's got this beautiful mix of masculine and feminine and like nails, and I just love it. I love seeing people. There's someone at Aldi that works there sometimes and he too wears beautiful nails, And I really I appreciate it in people now, which is I wouldn't have noticed it before. Again until I knew someone. Now I noticed in other people.
There's something that is so powerful. So it's just so powerful. I think it speaks to the human spirit when we see people that are living one hundred percent authentically as themselves. Yes, And I feel like even if I feel when we witness people like that who walk through the world as unapotted, apologetically themselves, I feel we all benefit from that. Yeah, because we all have masks that we put on and roles that we feel that we have to play, and when we see that, I think it has a powerful effect. I know we haven't caught up in person in a while, but my partner Jordan that he messes with gender expression. He always has loves painting his nails. He always has beautiful nails on. Occasionally he wears skirts to you know, different occasions or work or something, and seeing how he walks through the world with his sense of confidence and sense of self and you know, his care for people, and you know, just having the nails. It's a great point of conversation. He connects to women, he connects to men. We were having breakfast in Brunswick and there was this We were in this cafe and there was a local person who was either having a darg or mental health episode, and this person was harassing this woman. This woman kind of ducked into our cafe to escape this guy. And just as I'm watching this scene unfold, thinking oh shit, we better do something, he had leapt up and was getting a bit emotional here. I was just thinking, oh, we need to help this person. And he had already leapt up, and he positioned himself between the woman and this guy with his back to the person, and was talking to her and connecting with her and just making her feel safe and comfortable and actually getting her to laugh during this unpleasant moment.
Yeah.
So yes, seeing people who walk through the world like that is just it's so powerful for everyone.
Yeah, that gives me, Oh you make me cry. It don't make me crying.
No, No, me make sure we're going to get through this. And so, yeah, people can express their genda in a wide range of ways, more masculine, more feminine, and a range of kind of more androgynous identities. So you might remember, you know, the early nineties, the kind of rock and roll you know, androgynous's look was pretty popular. Then you go back into eighties pop culture and you look at you know, David Bowie's and Prince and stuff like that, who mix the masculine and feminine together. You know, that's a kind of androgynous presentation. And how we express our gender is usually most often linked to our gender identity, is not always linked to our biological sex. So again it's another it's a third factor that might have a difference. And then finally there's sexual orientation. So orientation is our romantic, physical, or psychological attraction to people. You know, we can either be attracted to someone of the opposite gender to us, the same gender to us, or there's a bunch of people out there who are attracted to people of any gender or different genders, and a range of infinite variations there. So if you kind of lined up all of these factors on a grid, you'd have on one side, you'd have someone who is biologically male, identifies as a man, expresses themself in a masculine way, and is attracted to women. And then on the other side of that diagram, you'd have someone who is biologically one hundred percent female, identifies as a woman, has all the physical attributes, presents themselves in a feminine way, and is attracted to the opposite. It's attracting for masculine as presenting person. That's what they refer to as the as the binary sort of thing, the heteronormative binary. As you can imagine, most people fit on one side of that diagram, but as we also know, there's a bunch of people that fall somewhere in the middle, and most studies estimate it's about ten percent of people for somewhere in the middle. Personally, I feel that I fall somewhere in the middle. As far as I'm aware, I haven't had any I haven't had a chromosomeal test. Don't know what my DNA is doing, although if my health conditions anything to do with that, my dad's genetics, it's probably pretty fucked. As far as I'm aware, my biological sex is male. My identity is I'd say mostly towards the man's side. I don't feel strongly wedded to. My identity is. I don't mind being referred to in the feminine. I've got lots of great girlfriends. Me and my friends will refer to each other in the feminine all the time. My gender identity is, yeah, towards that demand's side, but not one hundred percent. I described as a man adjacent, and I generally express myself in a slightly more masculine way. As I said, if I was less lazy and I was better at makeup and doing my nails and stuff, maybe i'd fuck with my presentation, but I don't really. And then finally, my orientation is I describe it as not heterosexual because in the past I've had attraction to people of all different genders and gender expressions, so I kind of think, well, I can't really put a label on that just yet. So yeah, I just consider myself not heterosexual. So I'm in the middle of that diagram, and depending on where you catch me in what day it is, it might vary. And for most people there is some element of that that they're a little bit that's personal and unique to them.
I feel like so many of the questions that are going to jump into my mind, like the one that just did a binary questions with non binary answers, such as I was about to say, do people base their sexuality or their sexual preference on biological gender or gender identity without really knowing being consciously aware.
I think that is like like gender and our sense of self. I think that's entirely unique to that person, and I think I would guess that the vast majority of people have never really kind of questioned that, Like, you know, you just know, like how do you wake up and know that you're Tiffany and you're this and and you know this is how you walk through the world. Most people just know. I think it's it's mostly for people who I described it as, you know, we don't wake up and have a strong sense of this is definitely who I am. We all have that for most of us in the queer community. We wake up one day and we're like, oh shit, I'm different, and then we've got to work out, first of all, what that difference means for us. Sometimes sometimes that can be fuck. We've got to find a label, what is this? What describes this feeling what community, who's my tribe or my people? And then we've got to find a way to communicate that to the world. So I don't know. I think a lot of people wouldn't really know. I have friends that, oh God, a fantastic friend of mine who I meet in Cameron, who lives in Sydney, basically his when questioned about his sexuality, his responsible as anything goes as in, he was attracted to the person I knew he dated men while I knew him, But I'd also see you have some pretty close and romantic interactions with women as well. So yeah, I just think for most of us, we don't. It's not something we ever really questioned unless you realize, oh shit, I'm not like whateveryone else is doing.
I remember storytime, it would have been fifteen years ago. The Greyhound was still a thing, and I used to love the Greyhound. What a beautiful, happy and safe place for a female to go and you know, have a few drinks and have a dance. But I remember in there once meeting a couple of blokes that were dressing trans and this was, like I said, fifteen years ago. So my both in terms of the psychology and human behavior aspect that I'm so intertwined with and obsessed with. Now that was like that version of Tiff didn't have any of that. It was just I was like Tiff, she'd move from Tazzy, she hangs out in Melbourne, and now she's gone to this the Greyhound with a bunch of men.
City girl.
Yeah, having a lot of drinks.
Which is how I when I come to the country, a part of me comes out. I sometimes still feel in Melbourne, I'm like, wow, look at this place.
So we go into this place and there's this in these two incredible blokes dressed as women, dressed up. I met them and we had a ball, and I remember catching up. I can't remember his female name, but his name was Simon, and we caught up and went rollerblading a couple of times afterwards, and he was telling me his story. So he was previously married. Marriage broke down and he went overseas for a while, start sending these boxes home to his wife's house or ex wife's house, saying don't open until I'm back. And when he comes back, there full of clothes and sparkly dresses and boots, and it was amazing. But I remember him saying at the time the last time I caught up with him, He goes, in a couple of weeks, I'll have my last psych appointment and I'll learn if I if I'm a transman or a transfemer or whatever the term was, or just a blow that likes dressing up as a woman. And I remember this question in my mind of complete confusion, going, how how does that? How do you? How does someone not? What does that feel like? And how do you sit in the office of somebody else where that other person, based on conversations tells you the answer of whether or not you are or you aren't something now? And that's such a I think of him a lot now. I'd love to know what perhaps she now they I kept thinking of them often, and I wonder what their life is like now.
I am, I think we'll I think this is one will definitely come back to. When I'm having this conversation with people. I and I touch not really lightly, because I'm paid to do so, so I and people and I do have to put terminology in words and language up there, so I do it really lightly. I put up list of terms like pan sexual, transgender, gender affirmation, all of those things, and I don't go through it and do a line by line this is the definition of this because I don't think it's useful. I think that language is constantly evolving. I think that language is also a tool as well, in the same way that a car, or a hammer or a gun is a tool. And what matters and what depends on what outcome is produced depends entirely on how you use that tool. A gun or a hammer, or a car or words can all be used for good or it can be used for nefarious purposes. And so I think of it like this. I want to give people the understanding and ability to begin to unpack this themselves, and then they can go and learn the language, they can go and learn the tools. And also, you know, we just spoke about like the infinite variation of all of these different factors and they're all unique to us, and you know, so therefore, you know, a common question is how many genders are, And it's like, well, I don't know how many genders are. How many people are there We all have a unique sense of gender. So I think of it as in, you know, words still define and categorize people, and I want people to think bigger than categories and boxes.
Yeah.
Yeah, And also yeah, like as I said, it's the tool, Like there's no point giving people the tool until you know that they're going to use it well and it's going to be safe and it's going to produce a good outcome. But my understanding and you know, my my lessons learned from my trans friends, and I want to talk about this simply because as we'll go into the sports discussion, trans people in the same way historically that you know, you name the mind gliance population, you know, Jewish people, Aboriginal people, they get used as like a cudgel, as like a wedge issue. You know, in the US at the moment, politically it's hugely popular to be anti trans. The vast majority of people do not care about how other people live their lives, but it is politically and socially lucrative for some sections of society, so it comes up all the time. And you know, I think like this, there's a lot of questions about you know, people accessing transgender health care, and the reality is everyone deserves to access healthcare. And also, as I mentioned earlier, some of the treatments, you know, bodily affirming surgeries, gender affirming drug or hormonal interventions. They're accessed by a lot of people. A lot of people access to RT, A lot of people see endocrinologists. A lot of people have surgeries to make their physical body match their sense of self. That is something that is not unique to trans people. That is a common human experience.
So true, that's so true.
On that note, I think that's a really good segue into the issue that kind of gave rise to this. So this was was it a few a little bit ago? It was the Olympic boxing gender situation? Yeah, A main calif was the person. Yeah, yeah, So do you want to kind of share with me about like what was kind of happening for you in that space?
And well, I, like I said, I posted about that just because people were nudging, really kind of nudging me for thoughts. And I remember having having break you with someone and he goes, this is your space. You should really you should say something. And this was before so this was before any anything was really any real information to come out. There was just bickering and carry on and nastiness, and so I was like, so I sat and I just had to think about it, and I was like, what so I put some thoughts up. I don't know. Do you want me to read that it was a long post? Yeah?
Sure?
Or I can just give an overview of the synopsis of it.
I feel free to read it because I love your writing is identical to Hay you talk, so readal words in your voice.
All right, I'll read it. I'm terrified I haven't read it for a while. I'm like, God, I've probably already evolved my thinking and I'm going to be like, oh, Tiff, all right. So here we go. A few peeps nudging me for this take on, for my take on this whole Olympic boxing gender uproar. So here are some of my thoughts. I consider it to be extremely unjust and dangerous to allow intersex athletes to participate in a female category, particularly in a full contact combat sport that already carries a high risk of personal injury. Weight categories exist to ensure safety. Let me come back to something on that too later, and athletes who fail to make weight, even by a bees dick are not allowed to compete because you put because putting safety above all else, including feelings and inclusivity, matters most not to mention it's just downright fucking unfair. I empathize deeply with female athletes who have trained their asses off and sacrificed so much to represent their country at an Olympic event, only to have such a ludicrous situation unfold, which should have been absolutely resolved long before they stepped into the ring. I can't begin to imagine what it feels like to have come so far for a once in a lifetime moment ripped, ripped beneath them in what has turned out to be a global circus. Excuse me for my inability to read everybody have. I also have a level of compassion and empathy for the intersex athlete slash S because I think there were two at that point who did not willingly choose their biological circumstances. However, the reality is that life's not fair and all we have and we all have to accept and play the cards that we're dealt. If an individual's biology presents a gray area with no current fair solution for competition, the last thing an individual you should be doing is competing and in a combat sport that risks serious injury or at worst death for their opponent. Yet, my friends, as we spew venom across the internet. We also need to remember that at the end of the day, that's a human being and one who is at the receiving end of far more hate and vitriol from the masses than that putred convicted child rapist Stephen van Derveld. I know who I'd prefer to see the hate and vitriol directed to out of the two. We talk so much about kindness, we talk so much about bullying and changing these types of behaviors. We talk so much about mental health, and when push comes to shove, I see a world throwing kindness in the bin and not walking the talk at all. The IOC has created a shit show on several fronts this year. Do better, IOC, do so much better than this. And then there's an update that I've put in later that says I acknowledge that Demane, if that's pronouncing her name correctly, is a biological female, not intersex, as previous information was incorrectly informing My above thoughts on the topic still stand true. However, this further highlights our need to be kind and pause to think critically. Put yourself in a Mana's shoes right now and imagine seeing the hatred that is played out across the globe directed at her. This should be the best moment of her life, not what is likely now the worst. There's so much There were so many parts of that reading it now that made me that it hurt me to say, like some of the harshness in like, I stand by how I was feeling. But when I think about because as you were describing gender before on the spectrum, I could already feel my relationship with what I knew I'd talked about here shifting because again perspective that I was opening up. So yeah, there were a few parts of that. Anyway, give me some thoughts on that talk to me.
That's why I wanted to read. I thought this, first of all, your post war was from what I knew that you would have been aware of at the time. Would I would have described it as right down the middle, It wasn't negative or ill informed. I would describe it as, to be honest, probably slightly more sophisticated than the average punter. But you talk about some really the nexus of some really complex issues, and so I thought it'd be really great to kind of have that conversation again with that basis of understanding of the infinite variations. So one of the things that comes up in my space often. I remember when I was doing this, having this conversation. It's cast in my mind back a few years actually at an army base in Queensland and it was to it was a mixed room, it was there was some commanding officers in there all the way through to soldiers and it always military people always continually impressed me with their with their sophistication on this topic. And I was asked the question about sporting teams and I thought, oh God, here we go. I know nothing about sport. I can't do this. And the person pointed out to me, they said, you know, sport's a really important part of what we do. You know, it's part of team camaraderie, it's part of our fitness. You know, how do we you know, divide these teams. This is how we would normally do it. And I didn't have any advice for them because I think, and similar to this case that you're talking about, for them as well, there was a purpose to separating the teams. It was, you know, for safety, it was to allow an even competition, Like if you have a competition, I'm guessing where one party is far higher performer and one is a lot lower performing than there's you know, it's not going to be a good game. It could be unsafe that Yeah, it's just got a whole pile of problems. But the reason why I wanted to revisit this is because the problem is not the people. The problem is the system that forces people into one of two options. You know, what would you do in a situation where there is a woman boxer who is a higher weight category and is just naturally a lot stronger. Earlier earlier to this, probably about in the mid two thousands, there was an Olympic This played app the Olympic level with a I think she was a sprinter called Caste Semenia, I think in about twenty twelve. And basically the situation that they that they occurred was they got to competing at the Olympic level and there was all these controversies that were really successful. They had a square jaw line, there were all these allegations, you know, how could they be so successful? They must be a man, all of these things. Cast A Semenia biological female had, as I said, pretty gross interventions and inspections of their internal and external body that no one else gets submitted to and I can only imagine how invasive and confronting that would have been. And then in order to participate, essentially, they just had a naturally higher testosterone level. It was something like two or three times higher and the average for women. So that just gave them an advantage. In the same way, Michael Phelps has an abnormally large wingspan with his arms. The distance between his arms is longer than his height, which is not what most people have, So he just has this natural advantage. Castasmenia just had this natural variation that in turns out in that sport gave them an advantage. And so the problem is not the people. People are all different and there's billions of us in the globe. The problem is is that we only give people two options to go into. So when this army sold to ask me about sporting teams and how do we divide and separate them, and said, look, I don't know, but I think what everyone has to do is we've got to kind of step back to what are our values in this situation. And with sport, there's values of makeship, there's values of participation, it's of so many social, physical, psychological, emotional ben efforts, and everyone deserves to participate in that. Everyone deserves the chance to have a go. And you know, in competitive levels, we all deserve a chance to compete to our level of aptitude and ability. And it's just unfortunate that we have this way of dividing that for some people doesn't work. And I wonder if there are better ways of doing that. Maybe it's by weight, maybe it's by competitive level, maybe it's some other method. But you know, sport is an important part of societies across the globe, and I think to have it in a way where we're basically saying you can't compete unless your biological anatomy lines up with your psychological sense of self, which lines up with these categories, and we've determined that you are this category. And you also put an important point about the IOC creating a shit show. I would agree as well, because you know, should we make competitive athletes submit to a hormonal chromosomal test to doctors interventions? We don't put everyone through that. They say that they're doing this for the sake of fairness. Not everyone's going through that test. You would if you tested any population, you would find one point percent of people have some kind of variation. And of that population, I'm sure some of them would be athletes and some would be not. And the other part that makes this conversation difficult to have right now is that, for whatever reason, you know, we're seeing it, we're seeing it a lot in the US. There's a kind of popular political movement against this. There's a few podcasts that I listened to Matt Berenstein, absolutely fascinating. He went through the case of in the US, there was this college swimmer was basically drew with a transwoman swimmer and has made a career, you know, up on stage alongside Donald Trump speaking at Conservative Circle, was selling merchandise, you know, being interviewed on Fox News, become like an advocate for you know, keeping trans women out of sport, out of women's sports. And you actually go back into the case that gave rise to this. The person came fifth, they tied for fifth. This was a college swimmer who didn't come first, didn't come second, didn't come third, didn't come fourth, tied for fifth, and they didn't have two medals to give out to the two people who tied, so they gave one to one athlete and the other one they said, you're your medals in the male and this person has now made their entire professional life and identity about rally against trans people. When that trans person wasn't stunningly successful. They tied for fifth. So that's the other reason why it's hard to have this, because there's a there's a there's a backlash and of resistance to it, and I think that it is really hard to have a conversation in that heightened emotional state, and you know, when it's so you know, it's so sticky and complicated. But my understanding with the main colief situation is that it kind of got raised as like it there was like a political kind of political influence, like it was kind of alleged that this country's athlete was better than the others, and so they kind of that went into the media, so conversations and questions about their gender identity came up. And you know, the IOC doesn't have a most international bodies society, most organizations, even in the health system working as part of the health system, there still isn't a sophisticated and comprehensive understanding of sex and gender. When I collect patient data. I'm still ticking a male and a female box. Male and female refers to biological sex. As we know that there's one point accent of people that don't have that. Our treat guidelines still refer to you go down this pathway for a man, you go down this pathway for a women. What about people for whom it's different. We know that trans people, depending on where they are in their gender affirmation process, some trans people who have their gender identity as man are recognized by the state as men have Medicare data as man, become become pregnant and have children's I think something like it's been a couple in the last census period, there was a couple of one hundred births according to Medicare data by men. So, you know, it's really hard to have this conversation accurately because as a society and our societal institutions still don't do this in a sophisticated way, and we still don't do it with nuance as well. I met a trans paramedic a few months back who was talking to me about the research that they had done mainly on themselves, and so they were talking about the half life of medications and a medication that they were on had Basically they weren't certain what the half life of that medication for them was, because the half life in studies for men was a matter of days and the half life for women was a matter of weeks. So there was this huge variation in how this drug affected a man versus a woman, and personally for them, they didn't know. But I think the thing that was kind of shocking for them, and what was shocking for me in terms of this story, was that this was a really common medication. This was not some out there experimental thing. This is medication that a lot of people take, and we actually don't have different treatment protocols for men versus women for that medication, but we actually know that it affects them differently. You know, we know that women have been historically understudied in medicine. You know a lot of drugs aren't adequately tested on women. Heard, but my limbs and understanding of medical research in this space is that it's more complicated and difficult to test medicines on women because there's more variations in hormones, there's variations in how it affects them. One of the things that makes me so passionate about gender inequality is when you dive into it, it's fucked for everyone. Like when people talk about gender inequality and they talk about, oh, you know, it's really sad for women, it's like, it's really sad for everyone. You look at mental health, suicide, violent crime, incarceration for men, and it is massively overrepresented. And then you look at family and domestic violence, you look at being victims of sexual violent crime, you look at pay inequality, and it's fucked for women. And then you look at kids growing up in the world and this world that they're growing up into, most of these markers have actually gotten worse, in the worse in the last couple of decades. Have haven't fixed these things. And so yeah, gender and equality, like it harms and fucks all of us over, haven't. I haven't done it yet, but I'm really interested in finding out. There's this really great training by the Jesuit Social Services. It's primarily around mental health and suicide intervention for men, and it's called the Man Box and the premise of it is essentially that you know, as a man in society, you're boxed in and you've got pretty limited ways in terms of expressing gender. And we know that men are very low on health seeking behaviors. You know, the informal way I'll put it is that you know, for your average man, we will sooner kill ourselves than reach out for help. Why is reaching out for help gendered? Why is caregiving gendered? You know? Why is it stereotype that only women can and should look after kids? Again, in my line of work, one of the things that places look at is flexible work arrangements. We know that there's barriers for women to access in flexible worker nds. We know they suffer a penalty with their pay, We know they suffer a penalty with their career. There are also barriers for men who want to access flexible work arrangents. They suffer negative repercussions as well, negative reputation. Isn't that the worst job? Why don't you have a woman at home managing that for you? Oh, you're really not going to make partner if you're taking time off for your kids. Genuine equality, like it literally fucks all of us over. So yeah, So there's that aspect, and you know the fact that we all deserve to participate, and you know, we shouldn't have these barriers. We should all be able to participate and compete fairly and equally. But that's just not the case.
And when you think deeply about like I remember, I had a conversation with a friend recently and she does a lot of work in the pride space, and we were talking about the definition, like it's one of the problem lies within everybody's conditioned association with man or woman. And then now the trans community are putting themselves into this pre existing box and everyone's going, no, you don't belong there, because there's no other box available. But that's the only association we have, is like we are either a man or you're a woman. It's like you're a whole different beaks, Like you're just you're neither of those things.
It's there are constant machinations and you know, stereotypes. And one of the things that I talk about the people often surprise to learn about is that, for example, like you know, misogyny and you know, hateful attitudes about women, they're not unique to heterosexual communities. I've heard that amongst every it's almost a time honored, shameful part of everyone's history. You know, some of the worst and most misogynistic things about women I've heard out of the mouths of gay men, and you know, for four gay men, you know, it was women who supported us through the AIDS crisis in the eighties. It was famous women who fundraised, who cared for people who you know, ran nursing homes for gay men dying of AIDS when governments and health systems weren't investigating, weren't providing care to them. And the thing that I try to encourage people to do is to you know, when they're like, oh, this is unfair trans people participating in sport, or you know, men saying oh it's unfair a woman got promoted ahead of me, or whatever myth or perception you may call, I try to get people to step back and think of, rather than just that individual situation, think of the system and context that this occurs in. You know, why is it stereotyped that women should be caregivers and men should be aggressive? You know, why is it stereotyped that, you know, gay men should be effeminative, effeminate. You know, it's the problem is not the people. The problem is the systems that try to box us in to these limited categories. But I do think the common thread of your post that kind of really spoke to me, and the bit where I was like, oh, you nailed it, tive like, I know you may feel that you looking back on it, maybe it's not that sophisticated, maybe, you know whatever. The bit that you absolutely nailed is that you talked about the important values in this situation, and I think these are the values that are hopefully going to get us as a society through and we can do better. You know, you talked about fairness. You said, you know this is about fairs, there's got to be safety for the people involved. You know, this is a complicated area, and haten vitrel is also involved and it shouldn't be. And I really wish that we could navigate a lot more of these conversations without the hate and vitreol. But as a society, I don't know how we're doing it. You look at you know, women's rights in the US. They've gone backwards and they're on the precipice of going backwards even more rapidly. So I don't know if we're in a better position to have this conversation now than we were previously.
It's hard, but you know, I think about people are attached to why is all this coming up now? And this is how things have always been. You can't just invent genders. You can't just invent you know, like people always talk like that and it's like, yeah, but humans made this up, Like everything that exists was made up by a fucking human. We made it up. Yeah, and that's because we weren't very Just like my post before is less sophisticated than I am now, I would write it differently. Back then, we weren't as sophisticated as we are now. So some of us went, hey, I've got an idea. There's a man and a woman and this is the way it is, and all the other people went, oh, okay, cool, thanks for letting me know.
So on this point, the example that I love to talk about here because I think it's just fascinating how it's just this mistake that human beings we just seem to repeat over and over and over and over again. And I do agree, like, yes, it does seem that there's all these trans stuff nowadays, and you know, why are all these cross dresses on my TV? And blah blah blah blah blah. The fact is you know, sex and gender diversity, and you know, trans people and queer people, they are becoming more prominent. Like you know, I'm you know, thirty eight, thirty nine, and I can still remember ten twenty years ago you would never see a queer person on the TV, and if you did, it was a very limited representation or in narrow representation. But now we are seeing more of that. So I do see how people perceive it as oh, this is a new thing. But the problem is you look at history, and trans people have existed, Queer people have existed through time immemorial, like you know, you look at ancient Greek history, like you know, there was there was plenty of like yeah, so like the reality is people queer people have always been in society and participants of society. So it's not new. The bit that is new is the prominence. But I think also my favorite example to raising this is left handedness. So if I'm talking to a big room of people on this topic, I say to them, who is left handed, and a couple of people will put up their hand. If you talk to someone who is very young and left handed, they will say, oh, yeah, I was left handed. There was a bit of confusion when I was in year whatever at school, but now I'm left handed. If you talk to someone who is much older about left handedness and what their experience was, they will tell you I was at school and if I ever used my left hand, I would get wrapped over the knuckles and I got all these bruises on my left hand. So I eventually learned to write my right hand, but it was really bad and uncomfortable, and as an add I've reverted back or whatever the case may be. So if you looked at the stats, if you ask the question in nineteen sixty five, how many people are left handed, of course you're going to have no one putting up the hand as saying they're left handed. If you ask the question today, we're left handed? This is no big deal. Of course there's going to be more people putting up their hand and saying they're left handed. And you know the reality is for safety. As a queer person, I still when I go into new environments, I still hold back. I still assess the environment. I still look for safety. I think who's going to be supportive, who's going to be an ally, who's going to be a risk. You know, Unfortunately, I have had situations in the workplace in twenty twenty four, not in my current workplace, where I have felt physically in danger and I've you know, I was facilitating a session and it was really heated and not going well and very antagonistic, and I did still think, Okay, if I where are the doors? How do I leave here quickly? You know, if that's environment which you're surveying me, And am I going to put my hand up and say I'm queer? Of course I'm not going to do that.
And if you make your comparison of like, does anyone give a toss if you're left handed or right handed?
No?
Does anyone give a toss if you identify different in gender or sexuality? Apparently? So why fuck?
But if you ask those questions years ago, the answer would be different. So when people say, oh, it all seems like it's a new thing, it's like, in a way, I agree with that, but it's actually not. If you just looked at the data on the page, you would get an incorrect assumption. You cannot take anything out of its context. The thing that is also the I think kind of the opportunity I think of here is that in my space. I kind of work adjacent to, you know, not for profits, social justice campaigners and that kind of sector, and the in the kind of human rights. Well, there's this saying that trans rights are human trans rights are human rights, and I've heard it a lot. I've never fully understood it until it was pointed out to me about how trans issues are used as a wedge to like limit other people's access to rights. And there's a bunch of research that shows that in societies where transhuman rights are protected in law, there's good health care there. You know, there's laws in place saying they can't be discriminated against. Gender equality actually improves the outcomes for women, actually improve things in that society are better for everyone because it's better for trans people. In biology, in human society, and just in life, it's the people at the margins. It's the difference and the diversity that actually keep things safe and good for all of us.
That's powerful. That is powerful. I feel like I want you for a five hour podcast. I have literally ten minutes of your time. I will have you back if we want to go for another round on this, because I think there's so much more to be covered, but I will give you the best chance to use the ten minutes to your advantage here.
I think I think what I would what I would encourage everyone to do is to, you know, have a think about some of these things, and you know, have a think about how you know what is your biological sex? Has it ever been questioned? Do you know what it is? You know? Maybe you do, maybe you don't. Have a think about you know, how do you express gender? And you know is are you happy with that? Are you comfortable with that? How do you feel about wearing super girly femine clothes and dresses?
Like I've been thinking about this actually the whole time. At the gym. Harps always makes a joke to me and I fully say I do with the tool. He's like, You're thirty percent dude, right, because I'm a in terms of my mannerisms and maybe attitude and directness, I'm a bit of a dude like chick. And I think about that. I'm high on the masculine energy type of personality. I have trauma in my life from sexual trauma as a child, right, So there's this relationship with how I relate to men and women, and I've thought about that over time. How much of that story comes into how somebody expresses both gender and sexuality and what does this mean for me? And how will I evolve over time as I identify this within myself and relate to it differently and evolve. I used to have short hair. I'm a boxer, you know, like I'm always in the gym. I left a lot of that behind in or not left a lot behind. I came back from India the Himalayas this year and did a lot of work on some of my trauma and really left behind this idea of the fire and the need for safety and the part of that identity that was keeping me safe from that story, from that trauma. But still, yeah, so it interests me, like it's a yeah, I'm interested in that the idea of what makes us who we are and how we think we are and how we know ourselves to be.
And that's what I encourage people to do. Reflect on how this, how this is for you, and then think about the fact that we may not know how that it is for other people and all of the people that we've cross paths with, you know. In my professional life, you know, I'm often asked to look at you know, improving gender equality in workplaces and improving the culture of workplaces. And the thing I think of is culture is created by how information flows and how decisions get made. And I ask people that are in positions of parent authority, when you make that decision, what input do you have and who is it from? And what you will rarely find is that input is rarely from a broad range of people. It's usually from a pretty narrow range of people. And that's how you get decisions made that aren't inclusive, aren't supportive, you know, unfairly favored certain people in groups. And so that's what I ask people. I remind people who's including this decision, who's in the room, whose voices that you're listening to? Is that reflective of the people that you are trying to serve or the people that you're trying to work for. And so that's what I encourage people to do. Think about yourself, think about the context of society, and then think about the people that you interact with.
Do you have anything you want to promote or share? Can people access all what you're doing? Yeah?
Sure, So I'm more than happy for people to follow me on LinkedIn. I write about issues of organizational development, HR culture inclusion I do. I'm working on culture reform for Ambult's Victoria at the moment, but I also do some consulting work on the side, gender quality, culture form, inclusion, things like that. I just love helping people deal people and organizations deal with his sticky complicated people issues and helping people navigate them and you know, bridge gaps between communities. So yeah, I'm more than happy for people to reach out to me on LinkedIn, and maybe I'll even do my social media as well. Do you link people's Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, yeah.
I have all the links in your show notes, So everybody give him a follow. You're really really good at what you do, Thomas Slite. You deliver really good information. I feel so much more informed. But you do it in a really not just digestible, but really a way that just makes you want to accept it or want to learn more or open your mind up. So thank you.
Oh, not a problem. This has been a really awesome conversation. And hearing your perspective you know about sport, I'm an expert in a world that I don't understand, has helped me understand some of the challenges in that space.
Actually, I referred when I read that post it I said, I'll come back to that. There's one part in the sport, and this is probably why I feel, you know, I passionate about the idea of risk and injuries. I already think it's an unjust sport. There's these weight divisions. You know, you've got to be within three kilos and there's NOE. But it's ridiculous because a lot of the way into twenty four hours, Like they have a system where you can put on ten kilos, you can take off ten kilos of water weight, and boxes do that. So they're allowing a protocol where boxers can put themselves at serious risk. You know that the brain is dehydrated that weight, and then twenty four hours later they put on the weight so they're heavy for the other opponent, they're potentially dehydrated themselves and taking hit to the head. So that's where I get wild about the sporting bodies allowing gray areas because I'm like, you're already fucking up the areas that should be really clear and concise and just and fair, and then you're just opening more doors, like just get it right.
And that situation you described, that danger is there regardless of what a person's biological sex of gender identity is.
Exactly, yeah, exactly. Anyway, like I said, I might have to get you to book back in and come back on because there's so much more I'd love to talk about in this space. So thank you everyone. Go give tom As a follow and tune in next time.