Trailblazer: Meet The First Out Transgender MBA President At A Top-10 B-School

Have you found that you’re able to bring a different perspective than some of your peers in your business classes?

Definitely. I tend to be the person in my class who makes a point about labor rights, or who adds a pretty strong social justice and DEI lens to everything that we’re talking about in school. Those perspectives are welcomed in the classroom usually, and we’re able to have pretty constructive conversations.

What specifically about Haas made you choose to go there?

Haas was my first choice all along. I was very excited by both the amount of DEI opportunities that were at Haas–whether that’s the Race and Inclusion Initiative, or a much broader range of electives that relate to social topics. There is a large and thriving queer community at Haas, which was obviously a huge deal to me. And as someone who’s orienting to go more into the DEI side of HR and tech, being on the west coast in California was a huge draw.

You may be the first out trans president of a student MBA association in the country. Can you explain the thought process of wanting to take on a leadership role in your class? Did you have any reservations about being out as transgender student leader, particularly with what’s happening in the country right now?

When I was applying for business schools, out of the 12 or so schools I was originally even considering, I emailed the LGBT group at every single one and asked if they could connect me to any trans or non binary students currently enrolled or recently graduated. Out of those 12 schools, I got connected with maybe three people. It was quickly very clear to me how few trans folks are in business school.

So as I was considering student government, I knew most business schools probably don’t have an out trans student, much less a student body president that’s trans. I don’t know to what extent being the first trans person in a position is important, nor do I think that being student body president is frankly that big a deal in the general scheme of life, but it did feel meaningful to me and was one of the main reasons I decided to run at school.

Visibility as a trans person is a really complicated thing. Because, to some extent, you are proud of your identity, and you want to be out, but also visibility comes with a risk and actual danger in some cases. I think being a visible trans person– and by visible in this case, I mean someone who’s in some sort of public role– is challenging and exhausting and sometimes scary. That risk is something you have to always have in your head as a trans person. Those are things that I weighed, but it also felt important to me and I’m proud to be doing it.

What has been your experience at Haas so far?

Genuinely, I’ve had a really positive experience. I’m so lucky that there are a handful of other trans and non binary students at Haas. At Haas specifically, we have a little pipeline of trans and nonbinary students that I feel very excited about. Just having a community at school and not literally being the only one is huge.

As always, as in all DEI work, there’s so so so much room for growth. I think students do incredible DEI work, and also, at Haas, as with any other business school, I think that there could be lots more institutional support, –whether that’s funding staff time or ensuring staff have all the resources they need to support us.

It’s challenging to do high-quality DEI work with how busy you are as students. It’s just like what happens in the corporate world where people are working their whole job, and then they’re also asked to lead a whole employee resource organization on the side. It feels the same in business school. You’re a full time student and you’re recruiting, and you’re also trying to run this whole initiative on, say, auditing our classes for best practice around anti-racism, or inclusion for international students. You can’t do that super well if you’re doing all those other things. And that’s why there needs to be more staff and resources at Haas–as everywhere.

What are you doing as student body president to make trans and DEI issues more visible?

I organized an event on trans advocacy with one of my best friends, Via Abolencia, who’s one of the co- presidents of Q@Haas. The event was called Trans Futures, and we brought in a panel of five trans advocates from diverse career paths to speak about their work to our classmates. It was just incredible to hear their stories, about the work they’re doing, and how they have built their lives around giving back to our community. It was really inspiring.

As a trans person, you’re often the only trans person in the room. It’s so rare to be in spaces where trans people are running the show, especially in business school. A lot of cis people could go their whole lives without being in a space like that, unless they really intentionally seek it out. Being able to bring that to Haas was very special to me, and I don’t know that a similar event has ever happened at Haas before. I’m glad we were able to provide that.

Do you think being the first helps lift up other trans students in business school?

I hope so, at least a little. Thinking historically, we saw so much movement forward with LGBT political equality in the United States in the early 2000s, which was partially driven by so many gay, lesbian and bi people becoming more visible in the world. A lot of times cis and straight people need that kind of relational exposure to somebody queer in order to have a less abstract and a more empathetic reaction to queerness or transness. So, yeah, I think it does matter that I’m out here in business school, where trans people are underrepresented, speaking openly about my gender identity. I also think that there’s clearly still a long way to go, and I don’t want to overstate my personal importance in any way.

In the last year, the national conversation around trans rights, and even a transgender person’s right to exist, have taken a really dark and probably dangerous turn. Has that made you reflect about what it means to be out and trans and in a leadership position right now?

It definitely has. With the incredible amount of anti-trans legislation that is going through many state legislatures right now, it does feel very important to me to be outspoken about who I am. I think I have a level of privilege at this point where it is safe for me to do so, and so I can use my voice much more loudly than I could have in the past.

I think trans people often show the world the freedom you can access if you’re truly unafraid to be yourself. For people who are invested in the often oppressive gender norms in society, it’s scary to see trans people so clearly transgressing those – I think that’s really frightening to some people. So, I think that trans people being out and being themselves in the world is powerful, and shows that there’s a more honest way for people to be themselves in all aspects of their life– even if you’re not personally trans or queer yourself.

What are your plans or goals for the Haas MBA student association in the coming year?

I’ll be president through December, and my main priority is creating a great experience for new students coming in. I’m excited to have a whole new class arriving, and I want them to have a positive social experience and feel welcomed into the school.

What are your career plans after graduation?

I’m interning at Cisco right now doing internal leadership development work in HR.

There are two hypotheses I came into business school with: one was food entrepreneurship, which I’ve been able to explore at Haas through classes like Lean LaunchPad, which has been amazing. The other was the more DEI or leadership development-oriented side of HR. I’ve gotten to test both in different ways. I’m really loving my internship at Cisco and hoping to stay on with them after I graduate.

What does Pride Month mean to you?

Pride Month is always a good reminder to both celebrate who you are, and remember the history of resistance that Pride Month comes from. Pride Month was born out the Stonewall uprising, where queer and trans people rebelled against the laws and situations in society that were negatively affecting them. I love Pride Month for the fact that it’s a combination of celebration and rebellion all at the same time, which feels very appropriate every year, but unfortunately it feels particularly appropriate for trans folks this year. I want us to be our boldest and most beautiful selves, and also be actively organizing to address the anti-trans legislation in state legislatures right now, along with the negative life conditions that a lot of trans people, especially trans people of color, face all the time from violence and lack of economic opportunity. So I think Pride Month means all those things for me. It’s an intense duality in some ways, but it’s what’s beautiful about Pride as well.

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