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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] Hola Papi: How to Come Out in a Walmart Parking Lot and Other Life Lessons by John Paul Brammer [Listening] Britney Spears Greatest Hits: My Prerogative [Watching] Shōgun Selections From My Bookshelf
If you're a Fargo-Moorhead local, be sure to check out More Than Words Bookshop in person or support them online via their Bookshop.org storefront. 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): TWSBI Go [Fountain Pen] | Noodler's Firefly [Ink] If you're curious about my former life as an academic and teacher, check out "On Common Books, Civic Engagement, and Claudia Rankine's Citizen," published by the brilliant Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies. Current Curiosities
[Reading] The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion [Listening] The Essential (Dixie) Chicks [Watching] Carnival of Souls Gyro to Hero: Grandma Gum I grew up without grandfathers, which may have been a blessing as both were abusive alcoholics. And after the age of six, I had one grandma. My paternal grandmother, an exceptionally mean Norwegian woman, died from Parkinson's disease when I was in first grade. She lived four houses away from my maternal Greek grandmother, Grandma Gum, in Moorhead, MN. Her name is actually Caroline, but she always had chewing gum in her pockets ready to share with her grandchildren. I believe my older sister, prior to my birth, coined this nickname, which has stuck for more than 40 years, and which my nieces and nephews, her great grandchildren, still call her today. Grandma Gum was born in 1929 in the Little Italy neighborhood of Dilworth, MN. Her father, Nikolas, immigrated alone from Corfu as a teenager. He was a short man with a bushy mustache. Great Grandpa Nick, my middle namesake, worked in the icehouse for the Great Northern Railroad. When not working he cultivated a large vegetable garden in the plot next door and grew carnations in coffee cans placed in every window of the house. He smoked a pipe and imported olive oil from Italy before it was fashionable. (The chair he rested on under a tree where he smoked his pipe currently sits in my living room.) Grandma Gum's mother, Susie, whose family immigrated a generation or two earlier, grew up on a farm and often pulled the plow when there were no animals around to help. She quilted and canned and served as a bonded mail carrier. Great Grandma Susie was a tough, yet deeply caring woman. (She died shortly before I was born.) Grandma Gum was one of nine surviving children. Susie and Nick had a set of twins who died soon after birth and were buried in the same cemetery their parents eventually would be. The twins were separated, one on the Protestant and one on the Catholic side of the graveyard. Susie was a Lutheran and Nick a lapsed Greek Orthodox. I believe Susie married Nick to escape her life on the farm. That is not to say their marriage wasn't a happy one. Honestly, I do not know. Only they knew for sure. During our weekly Sunday morning telephone calls, Grandma Gum often remarks to this day how strict her father was. Nick ruled the house with a leather belt or wooden spoon, whichever was closer at hand. In high school, Grandma Gum and her older sisters were not allowed to date, but her brothers and younger sister were. Isn't that the way it goes? Parents lighten up over time with their younger children (writes the baby of my own family). Theirs was a tough house in which to grow up. Anyway, Grandma Gum graduated from Dilworth High School and took a job at Herbst Department Store in Downtown Fargo, ND. She married her husband in order to leave her parent's home, much like Great Grandma Susie had done. Her new husband served in the Army during and shortly after the Korean War. Together, they had four children. My mom, their third child, was born on a base in Nuremberg, Germany. Their family moved from base to base, from Germany to Kansas and back to Minnesota. He was an abusive alcoholic, and eventually, Grandma Gum divorced him to protect herself and her children. Now, she was a single mom, raising four kids in the 1960s. In order to provide for her family, Grandma Gum matriculated into Dakota Business College. (Now defunct, you can still see the school's ghost sign on the corner of 8th Street and Main Avenue in Fargo.) She could not afford the tuition on her department store salary, so she cleaned the administrator's home in exchange for classes. She worked full-time, attended school, and raised four children without help. Grandma Gum is the reason I went to college (well, that and my parent's Boomer logic that you needed a college degree in order to be successful). She was the only one of her siblings to attend college. Grandma Gum's grit, problem solving, and hustle have had a significant impact on my life. As I mentioned earlier, I grew up without grandfathers — both dying from complications of their respective alcoholisms long before I was born. In her own way, Grandma Gum was both grandma and grandpa. Some of my favorite memories are of her picking me up from Packerland Preschool or South Elementary in West Fargo, ND, driving across the Red River into Moorhead to craft or project — and bond. She had a large backyard with apple and plum trees, lilac hedges, lily of the valley transplanted from her mother's house, and a substantial vegetable garden like her father. She and I would weed and push-mow, prune trees and bushes. We'd work on home projects together with me handing her specific tools from the metal toolbox. Many of the tools belonged to Great Grandpa Nick and had been modified for his small, arthritic hands. We'd paint siding and trim and once installed carpet. I learned how to jerry-rig furniture and other household items with what she calls MacGyver tape. Grandma Gum filled the void left by addiction and abuse and instilled in me a kind of gentle, determined masculinity. She was the one family member I did not worry about coming out to when I finally chose to more fully, more openly be myself at age 25. To paraphrase Miley Cyrus, with Grandma Gum I got the best of both worlds. She is a grandmother after all. She taught me how to sew and knit. Together we made a quilt out of old bluejeans that I still keep in my car (at her advising) in case I ever get stuck on the road during Minnesota's frigid winters. We baked — peanut butter blossoms, fudge, zucchini bread (one loaf with chocolate chips for me and one without for her). We built furniture for my Barbies and Ninja Turtles. We spent a lot of time in her craft room, my favorite room in her house, which had thick orange and brown shag carpet. I cannot tell you how many times a lost sewing needle lying in wait among the tufts slid into the side of my bare foot. To this day, I avoid high-pile carpeting at all costs. While we baked or worked on projects, Grandma Gum would put a tape into the VCR (after The Young and the Restless finished, of course). It would be one of two movies: Sister Act or Fried Green Tomatoes. We'd sing along with Whoopi and her gang of white nuns while crafting. But of the two movies, we'd return more often to Fried Green Tomatoes and cook. She loves to fry food in olive oil, just like her father. We'd fry green tomatoes when in season or zucchini, which was more abundant throughout the summer. While I didn't realize it as a child, this movie is hella queer and also shaped my way of being in the world. Fried Green Tomatoes tells the story of two stealth queer women, who after much hardship finally end up together, opening the Whistle Stop Cafe, where they cook and bake for their community — and barbecue an occasional Klansman. The secret's in the sauce! (My sincere apologies if that spoils an over thirty-year-old movie and an even older novel for you.) I do not know if Grandma Gum realized how queer our favorite movie was. I could ask her during our next telephone call or visit because at 96, even with fading eyesight, she's still feisty and living on her own kitty-corner from my parents' house in West Fargo. I like to think Grandma Gum knew I was different as a child, maybe not queer per se, but she actively supported me and my curiosities. I like to think we rewatched Fried Green Tomatoes because she saw something in the movie that she also saw in me, even if she didn't have the words for it. I like to think that when the inevitable happens, I will always be able to find her among Smokey Lonesome and Sipsey and Big George and Ruth and Idgie in the frames of our favorite movie. It's vital for queer and trans children to have at least one adult in their lives who sees them, who listens to what's being said and left unsaid, who supports them as they navigate their emerging identities. And at nearly forty years old, Grandma Gum continues to be that person for me, as I navigate the precariousness of being a queer professional in the Upper Midwest. Sometimes her advice feels wildly dated, but she means well and relies on her own experiences as a woman surviving the workplace at a time when workplaces weren't built for women, especially women with children. (Workplaces still aren't equipped to support women — or queer and trans people.) Her intention has always been to support and protect me. And for that I am forever grateful. Grandma Gum is my hero — or gyro if you're feeling feisty. 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): Moonman Wancai Mini 2.0 [Fountain Pen] | Monteverde Capri Blue [Ink] Current Curiosities
[Reading] One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad [Listening] The back catalog of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby [Watching] The Mortician on HBOMax Trainings, Transitions, and Maps In 2022, as a learning partner for a hella conservative construction company, I was sent to Salt Lake City to become a mindset workshop facilitator. My professional objective was to bring this training back to the organization and share its capitalist gospel with internal teams and external project partners. (The workshop seemed to be heavily influenced by Mormonism in ways I cannot fully articulate. Also, the training lacked any discussion of difference or inclusion in the workplace.) I was excited to travel to Salt Lake, home of the newest Real Housewives franchise, and experience the heart of Mormon culture, which I'd only encountered through Big Love and Nightly News reports on the church's anti-LGBTQ+ doctrine. My personal objective during off-training hours was to become a Harriet the Spy-style anthropologist to better understand these new Bravo women. However, I never actually got the chance because the training was in the northern suburbs far from iconic locations like Beauty Lab + Laser (and the parking lot where it happened!). Anyway, on the first day of the workshop, we were asked by the charismatic facilitator (who looked like the dad from 7th Heaven or a sober Pete Hegseth) to introduce ourselves one by one. Half of the participants came from the same Utah-based anti-LGBTQ+ Christian counseling organization. When it was my turn, I mentioned my corporate role and company, and then pointedly said I'm a freelance LGBTQ+ inclusion and professional development consultant while looking each of them in the eye. I've spent much of my life making myself small for the comfort of the cishets (including at the company sending me to this particular training) and I was not going to tolerate cishet nonsense in this collaborative learning space. As I mentioned in the last post, I will speak up to a fault particularly to support and advocate for queer and trans folks. Others introduced themselves: mapmakers, programmers, social workers, more corporate trainers. I listened with interest and noted who might be fun to have lunch with. Though to be honest, this introvert was exhausted after making my small queer stand during introductions and wanted to sit by myself in the sun. (It had been a frigid March in Minnesota, and honestly, I was happy to be by myself several states away from my corporate colleagues.) When we broke for lunch, I grabbed my catering box and headed outside away from everyone else to recharge. As I ate, my gaze shifted from the nearby mountains to Instagram and back again. Quietly, one of my classmates approached and asked if she could sit with me. She was curious about my consulting work. I mentioned the cancer center where I facilitated a customized Safe Zone for medical providers and shared some of the difficulties leading LGBTQ+ Programs at a conservative land-grant university (a story for another day). She was curious and asked many questions about queer and trans experiences. In turn, I asked about her work as a cartographer because as a former postcolonial scholar I'm fascinated by maps with their encoded histories, shifting borders, and changing place names. It was a great conversation. Then she became quiet. I asked if she was okay, and she responded that her teenager had recently come out as transgender. She was struggling with what this meant for the child she knew and their new gender identity and expression. She wanted her teen to know she loved and supported them, but at the same time, she wasn't sure how to navigate this change. Mostly, I listened, though I asked the occasional question. Sometimes folks just need space to be heard where they can work safely through their thoughts. As with many parents of queer and trans children, she was struggling to reconcile the person she thought she knew with this seemingly new person. I stressed that her child was still her child, that they are the same person whom she's always loved. But now, they were comfortable sharing their whole self with her. And this was evidence she had created a loving and supportive parent-child relationship. This didn't quite convince her, so I switched tactics. I love a good metaphor, especially in learning spaces when grappling with challenging or abstract ideas. My new cartographer friend was from a European country, whose name and borders had changed over the centuries due to shifting empires and war. I analogized the land as the person her child is (and has always been) and the changing borders and place names as the transition. The land and the people are still the same, only the descriptions we use have changed. As a mapmaker, this made sense to her — thank Hermes! She planned to use my ham-handed metaphor when she spoke with her parents to help them become more comfortable with her teenager's gender identity. I was honored she felt comfortable sharing her story with me and happy to help her navigate this new terrain. This is why speaking up, advocating is so important — it lets folks know who you are and where you stand and that you are (potentially) a safe person to talk to. Our lunchtime conversation brought me back to life after a dull morning seated in that workshop in a way silence, sunshine, and mountain views may not have. Over the next four days, powered by thin conference coffee, I asked blunt questions about inclusion and highlighted the importance of difference in the workplace much to the annoyance of the facilitator and the gathered anti-LGBTQ+ counselors. I never heard how my new mapmaking friend's conversations with her child and parents went after she returned home. Occasionally, I think about our lunchtime conversation and wonder, but then I remember I was present in the moment and that's what matters. This experience reminded me of why I'm drawn to the work I do: teaching, coaching, community engagement. I'm built to support others on their journeys, which often means I never actually see the journey's end, but that is the work. Put another, hella clichéd way, I may help to plant the seeds, but very rarely do I get to see them bloom, but that again is the work. So I will continue on my own journey being a happy little gardener, supporting the growth and success of queer and trans folks (and the occasional ally) — while weeding out bigots. 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): TWSBI ECO-T [Fountain Pen] | Sailor Shikiori Souten [Ink] Yesterday, I attended a faculty and staff listening session hosted by the campus executive council. What struck me most during this town hall were the many colleagues seeking answers and reassurances (receiving neither) about how to best protect queer and trans (and BICPOC) students, staff, and faculty from not only the Trump administration, but also the North Dakota legislature — both of which are actively targeting, dehumanizing, and attempting to erase LGBTQ+ communities from society. Again and again, colleagues asked the campus executive council how the university plans to handle laws designed to discriminate against queer and trans members of the campus community. And each time this concern was raised, the executive council, which is mostly male and mostly white, responded with we will follow the law.* We. Will. Follow. The. Law. We will follow the law landed darkly and reminded me of the good Germans who reported Jewish and LGBTQ+ people to Nazis (original recipe, not our current Trump-Musk variety). Law-abiding Germans looked the other way as Nazis rounded up Jewish and LGBTQ+ people and sent them to concentration camps. Good, law-abiding Germans enabled genocide. Moreover, in the United States, slavery was the law of the land for hundreds of years, and segregation was legal for at least an additional century. At what point do we stop following unjust laws, laws designed to discriminate, dehumanize, and cleanse people from society? We. Will. Follow. The. Law. This response from the campus executive council was bone-chilling and highlighted the limits of allyship. Allyship is rarely unwavering, nearly always conditional. Allies have the privilege of dropping their allyship as soon as they face any challenge, any test of their mettle.
For me, this campus executive council listening session resurfaced a question I've returned to again and again since the 2024 Election: Are allies worth the effort when allies can and often do sell you out to protect themselves at the slightest inconvenience? I've spent my post-academic life working toward LGBTQ+ equity, inclusion, and belonging — encouraging straight folks to become allies and advocates for queer and trans communities. Over the years, I've received threats and slurs from colleagues on college and corporate campuses. But I continued to coach one-on-one and facilitate workshops on allyship because I believed the work was important and would lead to a better, more inclusive world. But we are experiencing the regrowth of fascism at an alarming rate through Trump's executive orders, general Republican bigotry, and the indifference of good white people — and now I'm no longer sure allyship is worth the time and energy. So in this atmosphere of rapidly rising fascism and waining allyship, I am winding down Creighton Brown Consulting, which offered individual LGBTQ+ professional development and organizational workshops, to focus on Rough-Draft Thinking, which will explore my thoughts on queer and trans inclusion and other curiosities. The next post will be (hopefully?) lighter in tone. Though I will always be me and will to a fault speak up. Here are a few things that have exercised my curiosity, caused me to reflect, and delighted me lately:
I look forward to you joining me on this journey — and would love your recommendations! 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): Sharpie [Permanent Marker] * The listening session was recorded and distributed via campus email. |
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