Rep·re·sen·ta·tion (n): Beyond Checking a Box

On the importance of not being the "only one" in the room.

BY CHELSEA GRIFFIN

I remember the moment I first felt like I was the only one in the room like me. It was 2003; I was 13 years old, and riding the school bus home in suburban West Linn, Oregon, sitting next to my best friend. Another student saw a pro-marriage-equality sticker on my guitar case and said, “Ew, are you gay? Do your parents know? Are you allowed to have sleepovers with girls? I can’t believe you’re gay!” All the other children stopped to stare, laugh, and make comments. 

“No, I’m not gay! Anyone should be able to get married!” I responded, turning my head so she didn’t see my cheeks go red. I didn’t know what my sexuality was or would be then, but I knew I might not be “normal.” To me, normal was defined by what I saw around me. I didn’t know any LGBTQIA+ people in my city, all of my parents’ friends were in heterosexual relationships, and every book I read and TV show I watched portrayed romantic love as between a man and a woman. Every social signal I had said, “it’s not normal to be gay,” and so I put my head down and hoped I would fit in. 

LGBTQIA+   lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (or questioning), intersex, ally (or asexual), and a plus sign to cover anyone else whose identity is not represented.

Since then, I’ve been the only queer person, or one of very few, at many places I’ve worked and lived, from past jobs in outdoor education and nonprofits, to ultimate frisbee teams I’ve played on and friend groups I’ve been part of. For a long time, I worked to assimilate to heteronormative culture and people around me in order to survive in places I worked. This meant hiding a large part of my identity and life experience and constantly having to explain myself to people. It felt like I was coming out over and over. In part this was because there was so little representation in my communities that the people around me didn’t know how to think from another perspective. The conservation field is no exception, and it’s not just LGBTQIA+ people who aren’t adequately represented.

But what is “representation” exactly? Representation is not being the “only one” in the room, whether it’s your race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, physical or cognitive ability, or another defining facet of your identity that influences how you move through the world and how others treat you. Imagine if I’d had another person or multiple people with me on that bus willing to say that it was normal to want equal marriage rights, or who had parents in a same-sex marriage, or who were queer themselves. It might have changed my relationship with myself and my ability to trust others at a much younger age. 

Author Chelsea Griffin on the water. JANE DERDERIAN

It can be an incredible burden to be the only one like you in a room and that’s part of why increasing representation is so important — people can’t be themselves unless they’re allowed the space to do so. Sometimes that space comes from seeing others who are like you and represent your experiences and identity. You know the feeling I’m talking about. When you walk into a party you look for people you know or someone like you to start a conversation with. Someone who makes you comfortable. Imagine walking into a room and finding no one like you. Representation is seeing yourself in those you are proximate to. This might be because of a physical characteristic like skin color or gender identity, or a less visible part of your identity like cognitive ability or sexuality. Representation is not being the only one in the room. 

In the United States some identities have been more heavily represented than others, such as white folks, heterosexual people, and able-bodied people. When we talk about the need for greater representation, we are talking about that need specifically relating to identities that have been historically left out or underrepresented in stories, in media, in decision-making, in workplaces and professions, and so on. This act of leaving certain identities out is called “marginalization.” For example, a 2019 study conducted by Green 2.0, an organization that collects demographic data in the environmental sector, found that among 40 of the largest green nonprofits, only 20 percent of staff and 21 percent of senior staff identified as people of color, despite the national population of people of color at that time being more than double those percentages.

But why does representation matter? Sometimes simply looking around and seeing people who represent an identity that we also have makes us feel safer to speak up, be who we are, and not just be seen, but feel seen. 

Camping along the Colorado River during a river trip. BRIAN CROCKFORD

I recently guided a 16-day river trip though the Grand Canyon for Grand Canyon Youth, a nonprofit that focuses on creating greater access to the rivers and canyons of the Southwest for young people. Of the six guides on the trip, I was one of four who identify as queer and one of five who identify as female or non-binary. In my 13 seasons of river guiding, nothing like this had ever happened. I should note that this group was almost entirely comprised of people who identify as white, and was not racially diverse. While there was a lot of gender diversity on the trip, there is also great privilege in being white-bodied people in industries like outdoor recreation. My ability to relate to my coworkers, offer constructive feedback, advocate for myself, and bring my full self to my work, was very high on this trip. I felt like I was able to contribute my skills and expertise in a more meaningful way.

With greater representation, people generate better and more creative ideas, and solve problems more strategically. Increasing representation helps nonprofits pursue their missions more authentically. When people see themselves represented in the staff of an organization, it makes it easier to reach out to different communities and build trusting relationships. Greater representation also increases staff retention rates and builds leadership based on empathy and reciprocity. You can imagine that, in a field like conservation, these benefits can be incredibly valuable. 

At the Grand Canyon Trust, we know representation alone is not enough. Increasing representation in any space without also sharing power and access to decision-making won’t create change and might actually further alienate people who experience identity-based oppression. Imagine being asked to sit on a committee or board, or join a staff, but not having your ideas and experiences heard, valued, or supported, and only being asked to join those spaces because of your identity, not your skills and expertise. This is called “tokenizing” someone. Being tokenized is extremely harmful and actually decreases your ability to build trust with someone.

Conservation, as a professional field, has dedicated itself to supporting ecological protection. At the Grand Canyon Trust our mission is “to safeguard the wonders of the Colorado Plateau, while supporting the rights of its Native peoples.” That’s a hard goal to accomplish when everyone working to accomplish it comes from a similar set of life experiences.

The most durable strategies for protecting the Grand Canyon, adapting to climate change, and opposing destructive uranium mining are developed by the people most heavily impacted by these issues. This means the voices of those people must not only be at the table, they must be in decision-making and leadership roles. This includes Indigenous people, LGBTQIA+ people, Black and Brown people, and many more.

The author at the Grand Canyon. JANE DERDERIAN

We believe we need greater representation of these identities — identities subjected to oppression — on our staff and in the broader conservation field. Conservation and the Colorado Plateau have their own histories of racial injustice and exclusion and, as a largely white organization, we know we have work to do.

Over the past four years, we have taken important steps to formalize our longtime work to be more just and equitable, and to prioritize diversity and representation by building more inclusive spaces. We’ve designed a strategic Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Plan to support us in doing so and while we’ve taken strong steps, we have a long way to go and a lot of improvement to make. 

It’s experiences like I had on the school bus that make me want to do the work I do, and it’s experiences like I had on the river that give me hope that the work will make a difference. While I’ve spent a lot of my professional life feeling alone in my identity, I’m not, and I’m not the only one who has experienced being “othered” either. I know that increasing representation within organizations also means increasing access to a sense of belonging for staff. My deepest hope is that this will lead beyond representation to meaningful and lasting change. I know I want to be a part of that change…do you? 

Chelsea Griffin leads the Grand Canyon Trust’s justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion work.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The views expressed by Advocate contributors are solely their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the Grand Canyon Trust.