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Current Curiosities
[Reading] Diarios de Motocicleta: Notas de un Viaje por América Latina by Ernesto Che Guevara [Listening] Someday My Prince Will Come by Miles Davis [Watching] Marvel Zombies Summary: North Dakota LGBTQ+ Summit Professional Development Workshop What I've researched and written below was originally part of my workshop, Queering the Labyrinth: Navigating Human Resources, at the North Dakota LGBTQ+ Summit, but I wound up coming down with whooping cough. In 2025. Uff da. I had great plans for individual reflections and connecting circles and collaborative problem solving. The best laid plans and all that. I do hope to facilitate a version of this workshop in the future. Anyway, what I've written below are some tips on how queer and trans professionals can attempt to protect themselves in increasingly hostile work environments. But protect ourselves from whom??? From the colleague casually using slurs in office conversations??? No. From the supervisor telling you to ignore harassment from your team members??? No. From the department seemingly designed to handle reports of discrimination and harassment??? Yes. LGBTQ+ professionals need to learn to protect ourselves from Human Resources. Indeed, Human Resources was not designed to address the unique needs of queer and trans people. (HR barely addresses the needs of women — and women account for nearly half of the workforce!) HR as a system was designed by and for cisgender heterosexual (cishet) white men, which means HR's only interest is protecting capital and those (mostly white male) leaders at the top of the organizational chart. In order to protect the organization, HR professionals will side with white cishet responding parties over queer and trans (or BIPOC) reporting parties — because it's easier to terminate one LGBTQ+ person than to change the system (and workplace culture). In HR, individual positions function as agents of power within the system. Each agent is infinitely replaceable with each new agent maintaining the upward flow of power, all while having no power themselves — except by proximity, which is inherently corrupting. This also means that self-professed allies (ahem, cishet white women) and LGBTQ+ folks working in HR should not be trusted. Their proximity to white cishet power vis-á-vis HR policies and procedures positions them as your adversary not your ally, not your advocate as you navigate the labyrinthine reporting and investigatory process. A false sense of support and safety can emerge with alleged allies and LGBTQ+ community members in HR and can cause real harm. Always be cautious and critical of all HR professionals. You'll notice my tone is more adversarial than usual. As a queer professional, I've experienced harassment, discrimination, and workplace mobbing on corporate and college campuses. Believing I needed to follow the process, I nearly always reported my experiences under the false impression that reporting would help make the workplace better for me and my LGBTQ+ colleagues. Instead, I often became the proverbial squeaky wheel. For example, as I was reporting a significant breach of university policy, a campus HR leader told me there was a line of people around the block waiting to take my job, so I should reconsider my complaint. These people, man. You should also note that I'm neither a lawyer nor a certified HR professional. Instead, I'm writing from my own experiences and what I learned navigating HR systems blindly and without allies or advocates. I'm writing from the vantage point of previously working in a campus Title IX office and seeing cases of clear-cut harassment and discrimination deliberately fall through the cracks in the system. I'm writing from an urge to protect fellow queer and trans professionals from the harms posed by Human Resources. A Brief Note on SHRM SHRM, or the Society for Human Resources Management, is an international professional organization for HR professionals — the world's largest, in fact. SHRM provides training and workshops for HR managers and lobbies local, state, and federal governments on behalf of corporate leaders. SHRM and its army of credential HR professionals set the tone for what is acceptable and unacceptable in professional workplaces. The outsized power SHRM possesses should not be discounted and should be critiqued. You'll recognize SHRM from its overplayed TV ads featuring its CEO suggesting civility is the key to productive workplaces. But what does civility mean for SHRM??? Honestly, I'm not sure. SHRM has a slippery relationship with words and definitions. But for what it's worth, conversations about civility often target marginalized people by limiting reasonable reactions or responses to workplace harassment and discrimination while tolerating anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-Black attitudes. Civility as an emergent HR concept works to silence underrepresented folks while emboldening bigots. While civility in the abstract is a good thing, civility as deployed by SHRM demonstrates HR's steadfast dedication to its founding roots — cishet white men. SHRM has a troubling record, too, when it comes to equity and inclusion. At its annual conference in September 2025, SHRM featured Robby Starbuck as a keynote speaker. Starbuck is well-known for his fight to end organizational DEI policies and practices, specifically targeting initiatives for LGBTQ+ folks and Black people. In 2021, notable anti-LGBTQ+ Fox News personality Gretchen Carlson spoke at SHRM's Inclusion Conference. And in 2019, Drew Brees, who supports and advocates for infamous anti-LGBTQ+ hate group Focus on the Family, also spoke at SHRM's Inclusion Conference. What does inclusion even mean anymore??? Moreover, SHRM removed equity from its DEI strategy in 2024, claiming the organization was rolling equity into inclusion and belonging. This move, however, ignores systemic and intersectional barriers addressed through an equity lens. With its global reach, SHRM is setting the standard, and by extension, the policies and procedures of many organizations. If inclusion for SHRM means featuring anti-queer and transphobic thought leaders, how can LGBTQ+ professionals trust any SHRM-certified HR professional to handle matters of discrimination and harassment objectively??? Honestly, when I see SHRM in an email signature block, I immediately become cautious and critical. And you should, too. Challenges of Reporting Harassment + Discrimination Making a report of anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination to a supervisor or HR staff member comes with potential consequences, including but not limited to termination (in North Dakota). Below are some considerations before submitting a discrimination or harassment complaint:
State + Federal Protections
Documentation Strategies The time to start documenting (as simple as daily journaling or saving all communications) is during the interview process. Continue this practice for the duration of your employment. The accretion of evidence is key to proving patterns of harassment and discrimination or a hostile work environment.
Single-Party Consent Both North Dakota and Minnesota are single-party consent states. In single-party consent states, you can record conversations as long as you have consent of one party. You, you are the consenting party and do not need to disclose to the other parties present. (Again, double-check signed contracts and nondisclosure agreements.)
Your iPhone will save the date, time, and location for every recording and you can add notes. Resources
Final Advice Unfortunately, my ultimate advice is if you experience anti-queer or anti-trans discrimination and harassment in the workplace, begin searching for a new job immediately. (I know it's challenging in our current Trumpy economy.) Do not report your experiences to HR. Reporting will only put a target on your back. (Again, for HR it's easier to eliminate one queer or trans employee than properly investigate hostile working conditions.) Once you've secured a new position and have submitted your notice, do not participate in exit interviews or surveys. Your responses will be held against you (if you need a reference or decide to reapply at a later date). And your responses will change nothing, will not prevent others from experiencing what you experienced in the workplace. The house always wins — and HR sets the house rules. I hope to have a more upbeat tone in my next post on interrogating my internal cop. (LOL) Fingers crossed! Thank you very much for your time. If you have recommendations or curiosities, please fill out this nifty contact form. Sending y’all supportive, well-caffeinated vibes, Creighton Today’s Pen(cil): Modern Fuel Click Pencil [Mechanical Pencil]
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Current Curiosities
[Reading] Howard the Duck by Chip Zdarsky and Joe Quinones [Listenin] Why Won't You Date Me with Nicole Byer (ft. Bruno Alcantara) [Watching] The Real Housewives of Potomac What's Lurking Under My Bed??? For as long as I can remember, I have been afraid of some thing lurking under my bed, waiting to grab my ankles. I have no idea where this fear came from or why it persists. (Could it be growing up on the same block as a funeral home???) Occasionally, I still take a running leap into bed to avoid even the slightest chance of an arm, connected to a hand reaching from under the bed to snatch my legs. For three summers during graduate school, I worked as a camp counselor for a STEM program designed to encourage Indigenous middle and high school students to pursue medical careers. The camp, Indians into Medicine (INMED), was a partnership between the state medical school and Indian Health Services (IHS). We stayed in dorms, ate at the dining hall, and the campers learned in labs and lecture halls. On the weekend, we visited IHS clinics, state parks, and science museums. We had talent shows, water fights, and bonfires. To this day, INMED is my favorite job. Anyway, sometime in the middle of our ten-week program, the counselors gathered to watch Paranormal Activity after all the campers went to bed. We met on an empty floor of the dorm and watched the movie. The movie — as well as the silence and darkness of the nearly empty dorm — scared the hell out of me. When the movie ended, I headed back to my room, pulled a chair next to my bed to use as a desk for my MacBook, and sat down on the bed with my feet dangling. I began checking Facebook (it was 2010 after all), when SOMETHING GRABBED MY ANKLES. I screamed and sat there and thought well, I guess this is how I go. I didn’t even consider fleeing. Or fighting back. I just froze, resigned to my fate. My greatest childhood fear had been realized. Then the bed started bouncing up and down. And finally I heard the laughter. One of my campers was hiding under the bed and there wasn’t a lot of room between the floor and frame for him to breathe — or laugh. Immediately, I knew who it was and yelled, [redacted name], get the heck out of my room! Laughing uncontrollably, he scurried out from under the bed and left. (Don't tell [redacted name], but he was one of my favorite campers.) I did not sleep at all that night. I started locking my dorm room door. And I began checking under my bed. (Something I still do, especially after my annual Halloween slasher film rewatches.) My greatest childhood fear had been realized. I survived like any final girl, and like any solid franchise, it’s only a matter of time until it happens again. Thank you very much for your time. If you have recommendations or curiosities, please fill out this nifty contact form. Sending y’all supportive, well-caffeinated vibes, Creighton Today’s Pen(cil): Rite in the Rain No. BK13 [Mechanical Pencil] Current Curiosities
[Reading] The Allure of Elsewhere: A Memoir of Going Solo by Karen Babine [Listening] Houseplant's Houseparty Double LP [Watching] The Real Housewives of New York Seasons 5-10 On Pencils and Rhythmic Hands Today is National Mechanical Pencil Day. As an adult, I often use wood pencils for their cedar scent and line variability, but growing up, I loved the precise point of a mechanical pencil. In elementary school, I worked hard to control my shaky hands (essential tremor). My hands had a rhythm all their own. My hands rhythmed before lunch or after recess, when I was tired or wired. (My hands in this moment are rhythmically moving across my keyboard because I'm slightly over-caffienated.) My handy rhythm is most visible when holding mugs of coffee or something for someone else to read — or when writing. My handwriting was wobbly and unsure, which is challenging for a young perfectionist. A few times I cried angry tears in kindergarten because my hands were shaking and my printing looked impatient, wild, rushed. I only wrote with wood pencils, usually the sports ones put out by Mead every back-to-school season. (I always hoped for a Minnesota Twins pencil in the pack, but rarely found one.) But as the graphite dulled, my handwriting became worse and my frustration rose. One day, my piano teacher, who wrote notes on my scores in Bic mechanical pencils, handed me one and told me to keep it with my piano books. I loved that pencil: the fine, consistent line, that click. On our next family trip to Target, I begged for a package of Bics and got one — black barrels with multicolor clips. Immediately, I began practicing my handwriting with the new Bics, finding that smaller lettering, tighter hand movements improved my writing, giving me more confidence. (This would become an issue later when a high school biology teacher threatened to fail me if I kept using my precise, though small, handwriting. But as a very stubborn Greek, I won the standoff and earned an A.) Cursive, too, with its smooth, connected letters gave me more control over my writing and my hands. As a college educator, every time I lent a book to a student for research, they'd remark on the size and precision of my marginal notes. So tiny! So neat! How can you read it?! God, I love students, especially first-year college students while they still possess wonder and curiosity before the mechanisms of Higher Education and capitalism grind it out of them. Some students will hold onto to these attributes, but you won't find them in the Business School. (I said what I said.) My handwriting is mine, something I've worked very hard on — it's deeply personal. My rhythmically shaky hands are mine, too. (Any other Elder Millennials hearing Jewel at this point in the essay?) And with mechanical pencils I learned discipline and control. Later with wood pencils, I relearned to let go, rediscovering the freedom of imperfection (more on that later). Anyway, in no particular order, here are a few of my favorite mechanical pencils:
Thank you very much for your time. If you have recommendations or curiosities, please fill out this nifty contact form. Sending y’all supportive, well-caffeinated vibes, Creighton Today’s Pen(cil): Cross Bailey Light [Fountain Pen] | Colorverse USA Sky Tinted Waters [Ink] We are one week out from the presidential election.
The stakes for LGBTQ+ communities are higher than they have ever been in my lifetime. And as a queer professional, I am terrified everyday for my fellow queer and trans folks. Your vote communicates what and who you value. You cannot vote for Trump — or any Republican — and claim to be an LGBTQ+ ally. You cannot vote for the party actively stripping human rights from queer and trans communities and still claim to be an ally. You cannot vote for the party harassing and targeting trans youth, banning essential healthcare and still claim to be an ally. You cannot vote for the party attempting to legislate queer and trans communities out of existence and still claim to be an ally. LGBTQ+ allies vote for candidates advocating for and supporting queer and trans rights. LGBTQ+ allies stand with queer and trans communities in the face of rising Republican fascism and hate-fueled legislation. Ultimately, your conscience is your own — and the consequences of your vote are yours alone to own, but the impacts of your vote will be felt by queer and trans communities. Please exercise your right to vote this election season and stand with queer and trans communities. Thank you very much for your time and consideration. If you have questions, curiosities, or are interested in learning more about inclusion and leadership possibilities for yourself or your organization, please fill out this nifty contact form. Sending y’all supportive, well-caffeinated vibes, Creighton Today’s Pen(cil): Musgrave Pencil Company Bugle 1861 [Wood Pencil] Tomorrow marks the official start of Pride season. And honestly, this year I am more concerned than ever about the safety of my fellow LGBTQ+ community members.
We now live in a post-Trump conviction era — and as a country, we have witnessed again and again what his aggrieved followers do when Trump and his ideology lose. And Trump lost bigly yesterday. The threat of danger to queer and trans folks this Pride is incredibly real. Allies, your role at Pride must evolve past simply showing up in support and celebrating. As allies, you may be called upon to upstand, to intervene when queer or trans people are being threatened, harassed, or harmed. Upstanding for Allies If you witness harassment or violence targeting queer or trans Pride attendees, it’s your job as an ally to upstand.
For more on upstanding, check out this Bystander Intervention Tip Sheet from the American Psychological Association. Safety Reminders for LGBTQ+ Folks
An Additional Consideration Cops do not belong at Pride. Every queer and trans person, regardless of citizenship status, race or ethnicity, deserves to feel safe celebrating Pride. As Roxane Gay wrote in her thoughtful 2021 New York Times opinion piece, police harassment of LGBTQ+ communities did not start with the Stonewall Riots and did not end afterward. And BIPOC queer and trans communities bear the brunt of contemporary police harassment. Fellow queer and trans folks, I wish y'all happiness and love this Pride season. Be safe, be proud, be you. Thank you very much for your time and consideration. If you have questions, curiosities, or are interested in learning more about inclusion and leadership possibilities for yourself or your organization, please fill out this nifty contact form. Sending y’all supportive, well-caffeinated vibes, Creighton Today’s Pen(cil): Musgrave Pencil Company Tennessee Red [Wood Pencil] Words Matter. Lately, while applying for open learning and leadership development positions, I’ve noticed a troubling trend in Human Resources in which these vital organizational departments have rebranded themselves as Human Capital. The term human resources is bad enough as it often connotes humans as resources with the goal of protecting the organization from you and not resources for the actual humans who compose, who give life to the organization. And human capital is human resources’ darker ideological sibling. The term human capital draws on a long history of human enslavement and exploitation, and as a former literature and writing educator, reminds me of Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place (1988). In A Small Place, Kincaid travels back to Antigua, her home before moving to the United States as a child. Kincaid catalogs the harms enacted by the British Empire on this twelve-by-nine mile-wide island as she taxis from the airport to her hotel. In particular, Kincaid focuses on how slavery and capitalism (another set of ideological siblings) shaped the island’s culture and Antiguan’s understanding of both themselves and the dehumanizing machinations of capitalism. Indeed, Kincaid writes: You [white North Americans and Europeans] will forget your part in the whole setup, that bureaucracy is one of your inventions, that Gross National Product is one of your inventions, and all the laws that you know mysteriously favour you. Do you know why people like me are shy about being capitalists? Well, it’s because we, for as long as we have known you, were capital, like bales of cotton and sacks of sugar, and you were the commanding, cruel capitalists, and the memory of this is so strong, the experience so recent, that we can’t quite bring ourselves to embrace his idea that you think so much of. (36-7) Here, Kincaid deftly links our modern concept of (human) capital with the objectification and dehumanization experienced by Africans violently removed from their homelands, barbarically ferried across the Atlantic, and casually sold like commodities to support the endless consumption of capitalism. Kincaid connects human capital with its lived and entwined histories of enslavement with banking and commerce systems (Barclays, for example). Words Matter. And choosing to name your human resources department human capital draws on the dark histories and legacies of enslavement, dehumanization, and exploitation in North America and throughout the Global South. Words Matter. Thank you very much for your time and consideration. If you have questions, curiosities, or are interested in learning more about inclusion and leadership possibilities for yourself or your organization, please fill out this nifty contact form. Sending y’all supportive, well-caffeinated vibes, Creighton Today’s Pen(cil): Musgrave Pencil Company 600 News [Wood Pencil] If you are curious about my approach to teaching A Small Place, check out “My Favorite Essay to Teach: Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place.
And for a look into my former life as an academic, check out “Educational Archipelago: Alternative Knowledges and the Production of Docile Bodies in Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place and Marjane Satrapi’s The Complete Persepolis.” Both pieces were published by the brilliant Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies. Fellow inclusion and belonging facilitators, I am begging y’all – please stop using the iceberg metaphor in your DEI workshops. Whether intentionally or not, you are communicating to your audience that those unseen aspects of ourselves, which lie out of sight below the water, are potentially dangerous. A better visual metaphor is prairie grass.
Iceberg as Visual Metaphor Of particular note, Freud (yes, that Freud) is the one who gave us the iceberg as a visual metaphor to understand the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious minds. He mapped onto the iceberg the conscious mind (thoughts and perceptions) above the waterline, preconscious mind (memory and knowledge) just below the waterline where light still penetrates, and unconscious mind (instincts and fears) deep in the darkness below the waterline. As with any novel metaphor, Freud’s use of the iceberg evolved over time into the trite visual aid we see today in too many DEI workshop spaces. As anyone who’s watched Titanic knows, the danger posed by icebergs lies below the water’s surface (where Freud's unconscious mind with its fears is located) with a small piece jutting visibly above the ocean’s choppy plane. In many DEI workshops, facilitators ask participants to map onto a blank iceberg those visible parts of themselves onto the smaller part of the iceberg above the waterline. These observable parts often include race, (apparent) gender, actions, language, style, profession, etc. Then facilitators ask participants to map the invisible, the unknown parts of themselves onto the larger below the water portion of the iceberg. These unobservable parts can include age, disability, religion, culture, sexual orientation, morals and values, etc. By mapping these invisible parts of ourselves, which are meaningful and impactful aspects of who we are, facilitators are intentionally or unintentionally communicating to their workshop participants that these unseen parts of our identities pose a risk to the safety of others and are potentially dangerous. Prairie Grass as a More Meaningful Metaphor A better metaphor for the seen and unseen aspects of our identities is prairie grass. Prairie grass is often as tall above ground as it is deeply rooted below ground – creating a mirror, showing the visible and invisible as equally meaningful and impactful. Unlike the grass in your front (or back) lawn, which has shallow, superficial root systems, prairie grass’s roots reach deep into the earth, grounding each stalk, allowing it to grow equally as high into the air. We can still map the visible and invisible parts of our identities onto prairie grass with the stalks representing what others can easily observe about us and the roots demonstrating what is unobservable to others. And the roots are the key to this new metaphor. Unlike the solitary iceberg floating alone in the ocean, prairie grass roots reach out to each other, interlocking, creating stability and community. The interconnected roots communicate that no one is a lone reed (yes, I am referencing You’ve Got Mail), that we exist in community. We gain strength and nourishment from these unobserved parts of ourselves. And these unobserved parts of ourselves are not dangerous, but instead they ground us and offer opportunities to more deeply connect with those around us. Prairie grass’s stalks and roots work collaboratively to sustain the whole plant – and no part (consciously or unconsciously) of the anatomy of prairie grass (as metaphor) communicates the unseen parts of ourselves are dangerous. Thank you very much for your time and consideration. If you have questions, curiosities, or are interested in learning more about inclusion and leadership possibilities for yourself or your organization, please fill out this nifty contact form. Sending y’all supportive, well-caffeinated vibes, Creighton Today’s Pen(cil): Musgrave Pencil Company My-Pal 2020 [Wood Pencil] Welcome to Rough-Draft Thinking, a blog where I will reflect on the inclusion media and ideas I consume and my experiences as a queer educator, consultant, and engaged community member living, working, and dog-walking in the Red River Valley.
I chose to title my blog Rough-Draft Thinking, a phrase I’ve used with students, friends, and family for years, because it creates space for initial, unpolished thoughts. Rough-draft thinking leaves open the possibility of learning and growth through revision of perspectives and ideas. Rough-draft thinking relies on curiosity over judgment, on closely and actively listening to others. (Yes, like many of you, I’m also drawn to the lesson in that particular Ted Lasso scene.) As a former college educator, I encouraged curiosity over judgment, though I didn’t realize it at the time. When I started teaching in the English Department at the University of Kansas, I made the decision to comment on rough-draft student essays in pencil rather than pen or cumbersome Microsoft Word comments. I liked physically holding my students’ ideas in my hands. I liked responding as a reader in marginal comments and writing a quick supportive endnote to each student in pencil. I like the pretense of impermanence graphite offers. Graphite’s erasability quietly connotes that writing (and learning) is a process, requiring revision, further development of ideas – reminding students nothing is fixed permanently in place. And most mistakes are fixable, are opportunities to exercise curiosity, learn, and grow. By commenting on student rough-drafts in pencil, I also encouraged progress over perfection and practice is the point. Though, as a recovering perfectionist, I occasionally have to remind myself about the importance of celebrating progress and honoring the experience of practice, so I draft posts or outline projects in pencil, first, before committing them to the digital spaces. (For those curious, my favorite pencil for writing is the Musgrave Tennessee Red.) As an organizational learning partner, I actively incorporated curiosity over judgment, progress over perfection, and practice is the point into every workshop I created and during every one-on-one coaching session. And now I bring these lessons into my work as an inclusion and leadership consultant. My goals for Rough-Draft Thinking are to:
Thank you very much for your time and for joining me on this adventure! And I cannot wait to start a conversation with y’all! Sending y'all supportive, well-caffeinated vibes, Creighton Today's Pen(cil): Blackwing 602 [Wood Pencil] Half the pressure, twice the speed |
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