Getting Nominated For A Women’s Business Award As A Nonbinary Person: A Tale Of Curiosity, Allyship And Hope

Back in June I received an email telling me I'd been nominated for the Diversity & Inclusion Champion award in The Female Business Awards 2024.

My first reaction was, quite naturally, ‘Oh wow! I never get nominated for awards!’

But it was closely followed by ‘Oh. WTF?’

Because I am not a woman. I’m nonbinary. 

Not only am I nonbinary but I recently published ‘When Is A Women’s Group Not A Women’s Group’, a book in which I specifically talk about inclusion in relation to women’s spaces. One of the core truths in that book is that when you invite people who are not women into a women’s space, it is no longer a women’s space.

So finding myself nominated for an award at a women's business event triggered a bunch of feelings.

There was amusement. There was confusion. There was excitement. There was disappointment. And yes, there was that ouchy gender-dysphoric sting in the tail.

There was also curiosity. I knew nothing about these particular awards or the people running them. I didn't know who had nominated me (I still don't). Without knowing more I didn't know how justifiable any of these reactions really were.

So after I’d taken a few deep breaths and checked in with a few trusted folks to make sure my head was level, I reached out to the organisers.

It was the best thing I could have done.

The organisers founded The Female Business Festival and Awards a few years back because they are passionate about serving, celebrating and elevating women in business. They’re not backed by big corporate sponsorship or doing this to make a fast buck (we all know those types of awards exist, but this is not one of them). These are good people doing good work to support other folks and their little local event is rapidly evolving into a national thing.

This year they made the decision to introduce a new award category: The Diversity & Inclusion Champion and in the spirit of inclusion they decided to make this award open to other genders too.

And this is where things got tricky. The two lovely humans who organise the awards are awesome at what they do but they are not diversity and inclusion specialists and they didn't run the idea past anyone with a more specialist DEI skillset. They - like many - had thought this was an inclusive act in and of itself and they had no idea of the can of worms they had just opened.

Because by opening up this award to other genders it meant there was a chance that someone who is not a women might win an award at the Female Business Awards. Some people would - justifiably - have some strong reactions to that. Some of those reactions might pose risks to some of the very people they had intended to support. Some of those reactions could impact their reputation and standing.

Situations like this are not uncommon.. We see it all the time when small, grass-roots initiatives do well, become bigger and draw larger crowds. Those larger crowds are inevitably more diverse, which puts the events under more scrutiny and any gaps in their provision get spotted and pointed out.

Cue the ‘Oh sh*t.’ moment.

The FBA organisers were now having their version of that moment.

At this point, they had a choice.

▪ They could have chosen to back away and ignore it.

▪ They could have chosen to react defensively to being challenged.

▪ They could have decided that they were going to go back to being exclusively for women because anything else felt a bit too hard.

But they didn’t do any of these things. They invited me in to help them learn.

They welcomed every question. They sat in their discomfort. They understood that they had missed some important steps and they asked for help so they could make it right.

I also had choices here.

▪ I could have chosen to just walk away.

Boycotting events that don’t meet your ethical code is a practice I thoroughly support, but it’s not one I always run with and I didn’t do that here, for good reason.

I believe it's easier to be an agent for change from inside a room than from outside of it. If I have the resilience to stay in a room and I believe my presence there will make a difference, I’ll stay.

▪ I could have gotten angry and made a big noise about what wasn’t OK. (And let’s be honest, this wasn't all OK. Good intentions are not enough when it comes to inclusion and although it had been unintentional, they had caused discomfort and hurt.)

But I didn’t do that either.

I chose to see the organiser's good intentions as significant and worthy of support.

I chose to celebrate their willingness to learn by becoming part of their learning journey. On and off for two months now they have continued to be open, humble and beautifully receptive in every conversation we’ve had. We are still having conversations and they are still acting on them.

❔ Is their event now perfectly inclusive?

No. (I don't think perfection in inclusion is possible anyway.)

❔ Is their lineup this year proportionally representational and thoroughly diverse?

Also no.

❔ Are they moving in the right direction and do I believe they will continue to do so in future years?

100% yes.

They have updated their websites and channels to make their inclusion of trans women clear. They have also decided to keep the Diversity and Inclusion Champion Award open to people of all genders. But in order to do that appropriately, they have had to make some additions to their wording and criteria.

Sidenote:

As a nonbinary person, I do not belong in women’s spaces. I absolutely support the existence of women's spaces (as long as they include trans women) because until we live in a society where women no longer experience discrimination and violence, sometimes, those spaces are needed. There’s a time and a place for them (I’ve literally written the book on that), but their existence is valid.

As long as men still dominate mixed gender/mainstream business awards, there is a valid reason for women’s business awards to exist.

But for me to stand up and accept a nomination for an award that is meant for women is inappropriate. And that’s before we even touch on the dysphoria-triggering nature of me choosing to enter a women-centric space where I will inevitably be misgendered some of the time by some of the people in it.

However, this particular award was never meant to be just for women.

The intention behind this award was different. Doing inclusion well requires you to listen to marginalised voices. The organiser's knew that some of the voices they wanted to celebrate in these awards - voices that support business women in their inclusion journeys - may not be women’s voices.

They wanted to recognise this and I can totally get behind this intention. We just had to figure out how to word it well. We did.

This is now the definition of the award:

“Unlike all other categories, the Diversity and Inclusion award is open to people of all genders. However, because these are the Female Business Awards, all nominations for this award must serve women in business and champion equality for women as part of their contribution to diversity and inclusion.”

And on these grounds, in this situation, at this time, with these people, this is good enough for me. I have chosen to continue with this nomination.

❔ Is this a perfect response by them, or by me?

Probably not, no. 

I’m not sure there is a perfect one. There are lots of imperfect responses, with some being better than others. This one, in my opinion, is better than many.

❔ Have all the implications of this been thoroughly considered and worked out?

No. But we’ve done our best with the knowledge we have.

❔ Is this an appropriate category for a women’s business event at all?

Honestly, there are valid arguments on both sides. But these are their awards, built on their values, delivered by them to support their community. They are putting their blood sweat and tears into it, not to mention their money. The rest of us get to choose how we engage, or not, with that.

And my choice is to celebrate good intention over imperfect delivery. My choice is kindness and grace, even when it’s uncomfortable. My choice is to support these two lovely humans in their well-intentioned work.

I am blessed with the resilience to be able to sit with the discomfort that comes with situations like this and to get to play a part in navigating them.

And as it turns out, that Diversity and Inclusion Champion Award nomination?

I’ve now been shortlisted.

You never know, I might make it to the finals yet.

But whether I do or don’t thousands of people have already read this story on Facebook and many more will read it here now.

Some of those people will learn something from it.

And that’s a pretty good win regardless.