Despite recent changes in legal protections and increasing public acceptance, trans and gender diverse people disproportionately face experiences of stigma and discrimination at work simply because of their gender identity or gender expression. And, this is particularly true for people with intersecting identities such as race, indigenity, or disability. As part of our research, we compiled current best practices for trans inclusion, both in terms of basic accommodations, such as non-discrimination protections, assisting employees with transitions, gender-inclusive facilities and forms, and more advanced inclusive practices, such as executive leadership support, inclusive recruiting, regular training, targeted allyship programs, diversity and inclusion managers, and networking with relevant community organizations.

“Build back better” is an expression coined by a UN task force charged with coming up with improved disaster-recovery plans. For them, building back better meant using recovery after calamities—they were thinking of earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes—to restore equitable social systems, revitalize livelihoods, and protect the environment. Don’t just rebuild houses—install clean water systems. Don’t just improve early warning systems— create safer roads and dwellings. For us in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, build back better means making good on the commitments to stakeholders that everyone was so eagerly talking about last year.

We surveyed 69 organizations which collectively employ more than 700,000 people across Canada. The aim of the study was to document the policies and practices for supporting trans and gender non-conforming people applied by Canada’s large employers. This groundbreaking survey shows that while a substantial portion of organizations surveyed have anti-discrimination policies and training that includes gender identity and gender expression, only a fraction of these organizations have broader inclusion policies aimed at providing equitable professional opportunities for trans and gender non-conforming people.

Australia's apocalyptic bush fires make the dystopian future of "Mad Max" look tame. The World Economic Forum recently reported that it will take another 100 years to achieve gender equality at the current pace of progress. Garbage patches twice the size of Texas have accumulated in both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, wreaking havoc on ocean food chains that reach all of the way to human consumption. Corporations are implicated in it all. That isn't company bashing. It's just a reality.

As we mark International Women’s Day on Friday, many people – including us – will note that not enough progress has been made on women’s economic inclusion. Many will argue that we need to convince more corporate leaders to support the cause and, to do so, we need to make the business case for investing in diversity. Yet, despite a decade of reports from prominent consulting firms and other organizations making just this case, progress in Canada and around the world has stalled. And this very desire to make the business case might be part of the problem.

Workplaces and executive boardrooms should reflect the world’s diversity, and lots of companies are using the so-called “business case” for diversity to instigate action. But, popular as it may be, it’s a failed strategy. Corporate leaders would be better served if they stopped trying to justify diversity with profit margins and stock charts—a mentality that can ultimately hurt the very groups these policies are meant to help (more on that in a moment)—and instead embrace diversity because it is the right thing to do.

Trade-offs, conflicts, and challenges, however, can be the source of innovation and transformation. Companies can develop explicit and coherent plans for addressing the tensions created by trade-offs. The stories of two large, well-known organizations, Walmart and Nike (as well as Levi Strauss & Co., mentioned below), show the ways that well-known organizations with varied stakeholders manage trade-offs. This is not to glorify or vilify them, but simply to show how frequently interests and agendas can conflict and highlight the kinds of difficult decisions that arise most often in today’s globalized economy. Coping with stakeholder trade-offs forced Nike to come up with less toxic glues and more environmentally friendly materials for its shoes and Walmart to pressure suppliers to change both products and their packaging to reduce waste and the environmental effects of shipping.

Women leaders are often portrayed in popular culture as suffering from Queen Bee Syndrome (think Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada). The media is filled with advice about “what to do if you work for a Queen Bee.” But what if the Queen Bee isn’t real? Or at least she’s sorely misunderstood? Gendered differences in expectations make us see Queen Bees when they aren’t really there. Looking across a wide range of studies, there is no evidence that senior women are less helpful (or more harmful) to junior women than senior men are to junior men. Studies find little evidence that women are more competitive towards other women than men are towards other men. And women and men do not differ in their use of aggression. Indeed, having a female manager is, with few exceptions, either positive or neutral on women’s rates of promotions and wages.

Today we’re facing a whole slew of social, economic and environmental crises—gun violence, climate change, gender inequality, job dislocation, food insecurity, plastic pollution and the opioid epidemic, to name just a few. The responses from governments are often inadequate. Indeed, the problems are so complex that no single sector can address these challenges alone. Policies may not go far enough, or simply cannot address the entire issue. And, as we are seeing in the United States, governments may actually be pulling back on regulations meant to address these crises. What’s interesting is how often corporations are stepping in to fill the void.

In 2008, author Rebecca Solnit’s now famous essay, Men Explain Things to Me, set off a firestorm. Though Solnit didn’t use the term “mansplaining,” the essay is credited with birthing the term that’s now part of regular parlance. Women (and other underrepresented groups such as people of colour and non-binary people) had finally found a way to articulate that phenomenon they routinely experienced, particularly at work. Yet, fixing the women” is a costly solution for women, and could result in companies losing valuable female employees. It will ultimately be ineffective without organizational change. Women shouldn’t be asked to “handle” mansplaining. Organizations should handle it for them.

In No Place Like Home: Lessons from Activism in LGBT Kansas, C. J. Janovy offers up progressive lessons in a red state.

Building truly inclusive economies requires that leaders broaden their understanding of gender and the many different ways gender identity can affect inclusion.