Today we are joined my G Sabini-Roberts, who shares some wonderful insights into how small businesses such as driving schools can be better allies for the LGTBQ+ community and why it's important to let your customers know that you're a safe space for people. G is also a branding genius, so if you're considering re branding, be sure to check them out. 

Find more about The Queer Box here: https://thequeerbox.co.uk/

We are also joined by Chris Bensted of the DITC who, despite it being a quiet week brings you some of his thoughts and ideas around the theory test.

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Foreign.

Welcome and thank you for joining us on the instructor podcast where every week we're joined by experts and innovators, leaders and game changers so we can hold a mirror up at the instructor industry and see where we can improve and raise our standards.

So if you're ready, we'll make a start.

So thank you for joining us today on the instructor podcast.

I'm your host, Terry Cook of TC Drive.

As always, if you're enjoying these episodes, make sure you click, subscribe or follow wherever you're listening so they drop into your feed every Sunday.

In today's episode we're joined by G Sabini Roberts.

Now, G has joined us to talk about the LGTB plus community and essentially talk about how as small business owners, we can be better allies to that community and we can provide more support and a better safe space.

It's a real eye openening conversation and I've spoke to G previously about this and some of the things they've told me have really made me, you know, take a step back and look at the way I am and what I can do.

And I appreciate that it's not all about me, but I won't talk about that anymore.

Now I'll let you enjoy the episode.

What I will say is that shortly after this, G went and did a TEDx talk.

Now, I'm not saying that's a direct.

Consequence of recording this episode, but who knows?

We're also joined today by Chris Benson of the DITC giving us our regular update.

Now, it's been a fairly quiet week in the news for instructors, so he's dropping some tips and information and ideas around how we can better prepare our students for the theory test.

So make sure you stick to the for that.

So let's make a start with the episode.

See you on the other side.

So welcome to the Instructor podcast and today we are joined by the brilliant and inspirational G. Sabina Roberts.

How are you doing today, G. All well?

I am great, thank you.

I'm not so sure about the inspirational, but I'll do my best.

You inspire me regularly.

So that's where that's come from.

No.

Thanks for joining us today.

It's great to have you on and I'd just love if you could start off by telling us a little bit about yourself, a little bit about your journey and about what you're up to now.

Sure.

So I'm giui.

I will start by saying I'm non binary.

I use they them pronouns.

And I know we're going to be talking A bit about gender and LGBTQ stuff at some point during this conversation as well.

So that's my personal story.

I'm also autistic, so I bring in the neurodiversity side.

Um, but the main thing that I'm known for is branding.

I've been running Branding by G, my branding design and consultancy business for getting on for 10 years.

It'll be 10 years in January.

And most of what I do professionally is branding based, working with business owners on their brands in various capacities.

Brilliant.

And there's some stuff I want to pick into there.

I know you mentioned about getting stuck into the diversity and the LGBTQ side of it, but before I do, I know that you're a driver.

I know I've seen on Facebook recently you've got a nice new car to go traveling in.

It's a nice shiny one as well.

It is, yes.

Regularly polished at this end.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm interested.

On.

I ask everyone this about your experience learning to drive.

You know, what was your instructor like?

How did you find lessons?

How was your test?

You are asking me to dig right back into the depths of time here.

So it was back in the 90s, so I was 17.

Normal story.

My parents got me lessons for my 17th birthday.

I took my test about 10 months later, passed first time.

I don't remember any great traumas from it in any way, shape or form.

Although the person who I did my driving test with, I do remember her name was Mrs.

Corner, which I thought was particularly funny.

Awesome.

Just looking back, how were you around the test?

Did you struggle with nerves all, or was it.

Was it.

Did you find it easy or.

I think nurses are very normal.

So yes, I was anxious.

I think that showed.

I did have a selection of minor faults on the test as a result of that, but I did have an excellent instructor who was very thorough.

And there was no take the test after four months and get through it quickly, we're not even putting you in until you're ready kind of attitude.

And so by the time we did get there, I was confident.

I knew everything I needed to know and I was capable.

It was just going to be a matter of did it come through on the day without any, you know, drastic emergencies, like something unexpected happening on the road.

I think that was my biggest fear.

Fear of the unknown.

But I had an excellent instructor and she worked well for me in terms of being thorough and making sure we were absolutely ready before we jumped.

It's interesting you say that because as I've been recording these podcasts I'm asking everyone that question.

And there doesn't seem to be a middle ground.

They either have an excellent instructor or the world's shittiest instructor middle ground.

So I don't know what that says about our industry.

All right, just coming back to something you mentioned earlier.

Now, you described yourself as being non binary.

Now, I've only found out what that's meant recently, a few months ago, actually, through speaking with yourself.

So I'm sure there'll be a lot of people out there don't know what non binary means.

What.

What does that mean, if you don't mind telling us?

It's a gender identity.

So we have binary gender identities which are male or female.

And if you imagine that as a binary, one end you've got your men, the other end you've got your women.

And the majority of people tend to identify in one of those camps, but there's a bunch of us that don't.

So people are probably familiar with the concept of trans people.

People who would transition from male to female or female to male.

But there's also a group of us that sit in the middle.

I do.

I am not a woman, I am not a man.

I don't feel either of those things.

For me, the way I experience gender is.

Is a very neutral.

It's a neutral experience for me.

So I don't feel like I'm in either of those camps.

And I am in the middle.

So I use my pronouns are they and them.

And that's essentially what non binary people are.

We are outside of that binary notion of male and female.

We sit somewhere else in that.

The exact place where we sit and how we experience that and inhabit that differs person to person.

When this, when I first came across this, I did your course, and I think it's called the queer Boxer name.

Yeah, the queer friendly business course.

Yeah, yeah.

And at the end, and I hope I'm not giving any way of your trade secrets here, but at the end you did add some like, sliding scales and you'd rank yourself in, not rank.

You know, I mean, Microsoft was one side or the other and one of them was male, female, and.

And there were a few different ones.

And I remember when I was doing that, it was, it was a real eye opener for me because I thought there were some of them where I've.

I had to think about it.

Yeah.

And I may misremember.

I think one was like masculine, feminine.

I think that was.

And it's like, I'm not masculine.

Yeah.

And it really got Me thinking.

And I spent some time over that and I look at the male, female one and I just feel completely male.

I don't think there's.

For me, there's no gray area there.

But that masculine really got me thinking.

So it's.

We live in a society that genders everything.

Gender is ultimately a construct.

A behavior is a behavior.

So if you're very confident and outspoken, as if you're a man, then that can be, that's almost expected.

And people don't tend to question that.

If you're confident and outspoken and you're a woman, then people will say you're being very blokey.

It can feel, you know, we've assigned confidence and outspokenness to use that as an example, as a more masculine trait.

It isn't.

It's simply a trait.

It's simply a behavior.

It's a way of being.

But because we as society have said these things are masculine, these things are feminine, then you're either.

If you're a man, then you're either doing being a man right by using those behaviors, or you're doing it wrong by using those other behaviors.

And that's crap.

We are who we are.

Who you are as an identity is who you are as an identity.

You're a man.

But the fact that somebody said that that particular way of behaving is a masculine trait or a feminine trait, it's got nothing to do with your identity.

That's how you express yourself.

And you express yourself the way you express your yourself.

You're no less a man if you're wearing a dress than if you're wearing a pair of overalls.

It makes no difference.

If you're a man, you're a man.

Yeah, it was a real output to me because I, I've spoke to you about this before and kind of admitted that I don't necessarily if ignorance, right word, but I was definitely very naive in the past about my approach and I wasn't exposed to, to the other side much and, and I just shut off from it.

And it was only really over the past couple of years where I've sort of opened up to the, to the LG TBQ plus community and actually almost embraced it.

Maybe that's not the correct term, but you know, been accepting of it and, and, and, and so forth.

And in fact, just mentioning that I used in a post, I think it was on Instagram a few weeks ago, the, the phrase LG tbq and someone actually pulled me up on it and they said that the Q wasn't appropriate, they said, because it's either really blase and it's like got one of several meanings which then defines down the phrase, or it's used for the word queer, which they found offensive.

I'd just be interested in your thoughts on that.

I've got a question to reflect back on you.

The person who shared that with you, do they identify as queer?

Do they identify?

Are they an LGBTQI person?

I didn't actually ask them, but looking back, I think they may have been.

Just looking at the profile, I think they may have been.

Okay, at the end of the day, we're all different.

We all identify in different ways, we all feel comfortable with different words.

So there is doesn't matter what you do, there's always going to be somebody who doesn't like the way you do it.

We're all human and we are diverse and that's just the way it is.

However, the term LGBTQ is one of the more common ways of phrasing it.

And typically, as somebody who works in the field and teaches it to business owners, I would recommend continuing to use it.

By all means, acknowledge that that person feels differently about it.

They are entirely within their rights to feel differently.

But for those of us I identify as queer, so for me, if you miss out the queue, you've missed me out.

It's one of the reasons why we put the plus on the end.

It almost doesn't matter so much anymore whether you go lgbt, lgbtq, lgbtqia, they are all valid options.

Having the plus there simply indicates that you know there's more to this and you are simply stating that you're in this position and you recognise there's more.

People can fit into that however they wish.

It's much more important that you acknowledge it in some way and then people know that they're safe with you.

They're not acknowledge it at all.

But certainly the cue, it actually means a number of different things and that person having an objection to it.

I mean, would it be better if you put multiple cues in there?

I don't think it would.

That just complicates it further.

It can represent queer, it can represent questioning.

And I think one of the issues with the queer notion is that queer has been used as an insult, as a derogatory term.

It's been used in a negative way against members of the community.

So it is a potentially sensitive subject.

And it's one of those things where historically maybe you wouldn't use the word queer if you weren't a part of the community yourself.

But I think that's become a lot less these days as well, because I have no objection to anybody, no matter who they are, identifying me as queer, because that's my identity.

So you can call me queer.

Anyone can call me queer, because it's accurate.

It's true.

And that's okay.

It's not offensive anymore because I own it.

That makes sense.

And I suppose, you know, from my perspective, me using the term LGTBQ is me attempting.

It's me trying.

It's me, you know, making an effort.

And I would hazard a guess that people making an effort is all that you want.

Really?

In that sense, absolutely.

It's sad that we have to.

But I want to recognize.

I know the main audience with your podcast here are other driving instructors.

If I'm looking for a driving instructor and I am queer or trans, then I don't know if somebody is safe not saying it, saying, hey, I'm here for everybody.

I don't need to say it because I'll just work with anybody, and I'm fine with that.

That's great.

I'm glad you are.

But I don't know that.

I don't know if you haven't mentioned it because you're okay with everybody and you don't think it's necessary, or you haven't mentioned it because you are not.

You're not willing to mention it because you're actually homophobic or transphobic.

I don't know.

And I live in a dangerous world where I never know at any given time if somebody I meet on the street or encounter professionally is going to react in a negative way towards me.

I am at risk all of the time because of who I am.

So if I see somebody openly state that they are LGBTQ inclusive, that's all I need to see on your website, on your Facebook page, somewhere, if it's mentioned somewhere, then I know that you're okay.

I know I'm safe with you, and I need to know I feel safe with you before I get in a car with you for an hour.

Yeah.

And it's.

It's really interesting because on my zoom, and I put it elsewhere as well, but on my zoom, I put he him after my name.

And I've had a mixed response from putting that.

It's not like, about hundreds of people in touch, but I've had a couple of friends that have seen it and have.

Why are you doing that?

Well, that's silly.

I know you're a block.

Well, it's not aimed at you.

You know, it's aimed at other people, but then also when I don't tend to use zoom to.

To do stuff for social media.

But I have done a little bit recently, you know, I put one this and actually forgot that you could see that on there.

And someone messaged me and just said, thank you for doing this.

And it's just.

It was really nice because.

And would you say that's a good way to go about it?

Not as well as putting, like you could, I suppose, as the pride flag as the lgtq.

But to actually identify your pronouns, it's another identifier.

Obviously using pronouns is specifically gender related.

It's got nothing to do with your sexuality side of things.

It's useful in two ways.

So the first one is that I know that you have thought about this stuff.

I know that you are clearly LGBTQ inclusive in the way that you work because you've made it blatantly clear in the way you use your own language, and I love that.

So anybody in the community is going to see that and know you feel safe.

It's a brilliant signifier.

But the other side of it is it's really supportive of those of us who don't use the pronouns that people assume us to have.

So I was assigned female at birth.

I was born into a female body.

And although in some ways I have transitioned, my voice is still at this pitch.

My height is never going to be anything above five foot three and a half.

I'm never going to present and be assumed to be male.

I'm certainly generally not assumed to be a they, them.

People see me and assume she, her, which is not true.

So I am constantly misgendered, which is why I need to put my pronouns everywhere I turn up so that people use the right ones for me.

And I just feel okay.

For me to have to do that is scary because there are going to be people who don't understand what that is, who have never encountered that before.

The more people who put their own pronouns in things, particularly people who have gender privilege because they are assumed to be the gender that they are by everybody that they meet.

It's really useful because it normalizes the process of identifying what our pronouns are.

So it means that it becomes normal for everybody to have their pronouns.

Means I don't have to think about whether to use he, him, she, her, they, them for you, because it's right there.

It just makes it easy and it makes it normal, makes it safer for me.

Yeah, I think that's obviously a lot of good points, but the Word normal.

I think it's by me doing that, it's normalizing it.

So then it's not making it exceptional when, when you were to do it.

So it's not making you stand out in that sense, I suppose, which is be a good thing.

And you also made another key point there.

I thought you use the word privilege.

And I really Only the past 18 months, two years, have started seeing my privilege.

And for me it stemmed back to the Black Lives Matter movement back last summer.

And I realized I've got the privilege of being white.

You know, I'm never going to be turned away or looked down upon because I'm black.

And that goes to everything.

It's a straight white male.

I don't have to worry about any of that.

I don't.

And it was only when I accepted that.

And that's not me saying I'm not privileged.

I've got having no disadvantages.

That's not me saying that.

But that's where I do.

I don't.

I struggle with my words sometimes, so please forgive me, but that's where I do almost have an advantage, in that I'm not, I'm not going to be looked upon a certain way.

Yes, yes.

Without even thinking about it, you, you will never have to experience a lot of the disadvantages that anybody who isn't a man, women or trans people, black people, gender diverse people, people with other sexualities, all of those things.

You don't have that.

And that is a privilege, but it means you have the opportunity to use it.

And that's one of the things I love about you and why I was delighted to be invited to come and speak to you today, is because you use your privilege proactively to support those people who don't have it.

And that is allyship in action.

And you do it brilliantly.

I appreciate that.

Something I'm trying to do better.

It's finding a balance.

I mean, I think sometimes for someone like me, and I'm sure there's a lot of people like me, and I'm sure there's a lot of people that refuse to accept change, but it's finding something that relates to me.

And I know this is a really almost trivial point, but the thing that worked for me was, and I think I've mentioned this to you before, my name's Terence, and if my mum's listening to this, by the way, she'll hate me saying this, but my name's Terrence, but I hate the name Terrence.

So I asked people to call me Terry.

And if I have someone to call me Terry and they refuse to call me Terrence, I'd be pretty annoyed.

Yeah.

Because that, you know, and that's a real sort of minor point compared to what, you know, the LGTBQ community go through.

But it's a similar thing in that sense.

And I know you changed, I hope you don't mind me mentioning this, but I know you changed your name quite recently, quite public about that or legally change name, I should say.

And one of the things that I love about following you is how open and honest you are about things.

And I know that's not right everyone, not right for everyone, but it's something you do.

And I think you were talking on a post the other day about you just want people to try and if they make a mistake, then as long as you make an attempt to correct it, that's not a problem.

Definitely.

I get that this is hard.

I experience it being hard.

I have people in my life who are trans and non binary who have changed their names, changed their gender and I mess it up sometimes even though I'm expecting the same of other people.

We all do.

And it's okay.

I think this is one of the things that people get very concerned about and very anxious about is what if I get it wrong?

I don't know what I don't know and I could put my foot in it.

Maybe I just need to keep quiet and hide or not engage with the person at all or whatever.

And that obviously is never going to be helpful or useful or foster positive relationships.

We've got to try and we've got to accept that we're going to mess up.

Yeah.

You know, we all mess up all of the time in all kinds of ways.

In day to day life, you know, I bump into you, I spill tea on you.

You know, these things happen, accidents happen, little mistakes happen.

And we were very good at saying, oh, I'm ever so sorry and moving on.

And it's the same.

It's not the end of the world if somebody accidentally calls me by my old name.

I mean, I prefer it if they didn't, but I get that someone's going to do that sometimes and that's okay.

My parents still do it all the time that you know that despite.

I know their intentions are good, but they've had, they have like 37 years of my old identity to be entrenched in them.

They picked that name that I have now discarded so I can give them some slack, but they still acknowledge it.

At least some of the time when I do.

Yeah.

And this is all we can ask for.

It's okay to mess it up, but please do acknowledge.

If you don't acknowledge it, then I don't know if you don't know, in which case I've got to come out to you and have that awkward conversation with you again, which I have to do all the time, by the way, or I don't.

So I don't know if you don't know or if you're being a dick and being deliberately, you know, doing it deliberately incorrectly, or if.

If you did just make a mistake and you're too embarrassed to comment on it.

I don't know, and I don't know how to react to that.

And it makes it difficult for all of us.

So it's okay to mess up, but please recognize it, acknowledge it, talk about it.

It's cool.

Awesome.

You mentioned before about being an ally.

So in business, I mean, obviously I'm speaking specifically on the driving school, but I suppose it applies to all business.

What.

And it's quite a broad question there, so apologies, but what, as businesses, could we do more to be more inclusive, to be more accepting, to be more of an ally, to be more welcoming?

I think you are a excellent example of very simple steps that you can take.

So it's things like the pronouns that's really useful.

Mentioning it somewhere, you know, mentioning.

Even if it's on the footer of your website or somewhere, somewhere down there.

But have it visible publicly that you are LGBTQ inclusive.

You, anybody, is welcome to come and work with me, regardless of sexuality, gender, race, list the things and make it clear so we know.

Because if we can't see it, we don't know how safe you really are.

And we are used to risk.

If we know that we are not at risk with somebody, it's immediately a big appealing factor.

It increases your bottom line.

In fact, statistically, we know this.

People have researched this.

I think it's something like businesses that are openly LGBT inclusive have something like a 6,7% greater share market share.

They are actually genuinely, statistically getting more customers as a result of being inclusive.

Because it's not just the people that are.

It's not just the LGBTQ people or the black people or the disabled people.

It's not just us that benefit.

You're a brilliant ally.

I suspect you will be much more inclined to work with a business that you can see is clearly also a strong ally.

If they say they're LGBTQ inclusive, you're more likely to go and Work with them because you know, you've got a similar ethos.

Yeah.

So it actually works across the board.

It's not just supporting the communities, the disadvantaged communities, it's actually making a statement for everybody.

It's being part of that positive change.

I think one of the other things it's done for me is it's helped me get more customers that I enjoy working with.

You know, we go back to before when I mentioned about the, the scale of masculine feminine.

I used to say that my ideal customer was female.

That's not true.

And I just assumed female feminine.

I put that together, but it's not true.

I don't enjoy working with the heavily masculine people as much.

And because I tailored the way I speak and the things I post, the way that I write, it's attracted a different clientele and it's not necessarily attracting the LGTB community, it's just attracting people that I enjoy working with.

And, and I think that's because what it's doing is it's almost excluding the bigots.

Someone looks at my page and sees LGTBQ and they're homophobic or whatever.

Well, they're not going to come to me.

And that's only a good thing.

Totally, totally.

People become self selecting and that's brilliant.

Yeah.

Saves a lot of time just on that.

And this might be a slightly odd question, but we have obviously got the extreme the other way.

The people that aren't confused or aren't uneducated, the people that are just genuinely bigots and homophobic and racist and sexist and all that kind of stuff.

Would you.

Again probably an odd question, but would you rather they just come out and explicitly said that, you know, and I don't mean throw abuse but I mean make it be known so that we can accept that.

Right.

There's a dick over there, you can stay over there and we'll stay in our nice inclusive area.

In a way, yes.

But equally, I don't think, I think for everybody, it doesn't matter where you are because the person who has those beliefs clearly does not think of themselves as a dick.

They for whatever reason are able to justify their own beliefs to themselves and they believe that they are right.

And much rather everybody was simply upfront about stating who they are, what they believe in, the things that matter to them.

And we can all make our own choices.

Everyone, sadly, even the bigots are entitled to their own choices.

As long as they are not actually causing damage to other people.

They can believe whatever the hell they want.

And if they're able to talk about that openly.

Then we're able to self select away from them as well.

So yeah, all of us just talk about the upfront about who we are as human beings.

Makes everything easier.

Make a nice change as well in a lot of cases, somewhat actually it's sort of specific to our industry.

I think that I'd love to get your take on and quite a few of the groups, I mean on Facebook for instructors.

There's been a lot of talk recently about female only driving schools.

Yeah, my.

In fact, I won't tell you my take.

I'll ask for yours first.

It does seem to quite divisive in the.

A large proportion of people like, yeah, it's fine, it's their choice, no problem.

And what's the reason why?

Could it be that it's a religious reason?

Could it be the, you know, there's been an incident there.

They don't want to work with men because there's been instant somewhere.

But then there's the other side which are.

That's shouting from the rooftops, sexist.

It's discrimination against men and that side of it.

So I'd love to hear your take on that.

Absolutely.

Well, the challenge I've got in that is the first question is where would I fit if I right now was looking for a driving instructor?

I clearly can't go to a women only driving school because I'm not a woman yet.

I am probably not the kind of person that those driving school owners are trying to exclude so that it's challenging in that way.

Because I think rather than saying it's a gender thing, it is usually more of a behavior or an attitude or a type of person.

It's more about what they don't want rather than what they do.

And that can inadvertently exclude people they don't mean to exclude.

So there is that side of it.

But the other side of it is if you are running your own driving instructor business, then it's your business.

You get to decide how you run it and who you run it for.

And if you want to make it just for women, then make it just for women.

If you want to make it just for disadvantaged communities or people who are otherwise excluded, do that and use different words than women only.

There's been nothing wrong with somebody having a men only driving school if they want to.

It's a free world.

We can do what we want.

If you are pissed off at the fact that there are women only driving schools out there, then set up a men only one.

Nobody, nobody Minds, you know, rather than complain about what other people are doing.

Make your own choices and do it your way.

And that's absolutely fine.

I think that's a really good take and that's similar to mine.

Although straight away you raised some of that I hadn't thought of, which is where would the non binary people thing is?

You know, and like you said, it's probably not aimed at that section.

It's probably aims.

It's probably aimed more at no men when you break it down.

But it is a challenge, I suspect.

If I went to a women only driving school and said, hey, I'm a non binary person, would you work with me?

I'm guessing a lot of them probably would because I'm not the person that they're trying to exclude.

They just haven't thought about it that much.

And this is an issue that I deal with a lot.

There are a lot of people who have women only spaces who actually are starting to recognize it's not a women only space, it's an anti oppressive space or you know, it's a group for people who are disenfranchised or disadvantaged or have been excluded in some way.

You know, and often it's not even about gender.

There have been some of these spaces that I've talked to people about and when we've actually had the conversation, it's not even been that they're not willing to include men because actually in their image gay men would be welcome or trans men would be welcome because those are also people who have experienced abuse and are excluded in other ways.

And actually they want to create a space that is nurturing of those people.

So it's often that they just haven't thought about it enough.

That said, there is a lot of trauma out there.

There are a lot of dickheads out there and there have been a lot of times when things have gone wrong that have hurt people.

And if that's the case, then those people have every right to do whatever they need to do to make sure that they feel safe moving forward, whatever that looks like.

And if that means that they need to create a women only space or a men only space or trans only space, then that's what they need to do to feel safe.

And that's okay.

Yeah, I think the other thing, you know, slightly different angle on it will be the discrimination side.

It's not like the government has released a new law saying that men aren't will have driving lessons.

You know, it's not women only, it's just there's a Couple of schools that have said we only want to teach women.

It's, you know, so I don't know.

I find that quite, quite interesting.

Like you said, you managed to make it clear.

You've used less defined terminology, but you've managed to make it clear that the people that you welcome in your school are more a particular flavor of person.

You said that it was less of the masculine, more of the feminine traits.

But is it.

Would a masculine presenting person who is very thoughtful and aware and likes to question things, would that person fit into your yes pile?

And I suspect they possibly would, yeah.

So it's actually not about being masculine or feminine.

It's about the way you think and the way you behave rather than anything gendered.

Oh, there you go.

You've made me think about what I'm doing again there.

So that's good.

I'm gonna have to rethink my ideal client again.

But no, you're probably, like I say, it's behavior and its thought process and sometimes you can't always see that.

So you speak to the person, you get to know them.

But as you mentioned before, if you put that out there, the type of person you are, that's going to pre select the people that, that come to you.

So if you are that racist, homophobic, sex, sex bigot and you go and tell people that, well, you'll also get raised homophobic, sexist bigots and you can all go off together in your little driving school and you'll all be happy.

Yeah, brilliant.

We'll create a little island for you.

Go for it.

Yeah, I suppose the last.

I've kind of touched on this already, but the last question I wanted to ask around that we spoke about, like pronouns and so forth, but is there anything we could be doing?

And I suppose I'll use me as the example, the white straight male.

Is there anything I could be doing to individuals to make them more welcome?

So I know that we've spoke about the way we are online, so I suppose I'm meaning more in person or the way you interact with people.

I think it's about recognizing the processes you have and how you make people feel safe.

So, for example, you may have a trans student.

And the thing is about recognizing that personal relationship and whoever walks into your space or gets into your car in your instance, asking them where they're at and meeting them there.

What name?

What's your name now though, in your industry, obviously when they go to sit their driving test, you need their legal name.

It's a legal document.

This has to be you.

And that name actually might be different to the name that they prefer to be called.

I was known as G by my friends for about five years before I got around to actually changing my legal documents last year, which is the process that I've talked about a lot.

So I actually had a mismatch between what my legal name was and what my day to day name that people knew me as.

And if I was having a driving lesson, I would want my instructor not to use my legal name, but to use the name I'm known as.

And so for the people in your industry recognizing that certainly for trans people, there can be a difference between legal names and the name that they prefer to use.

Make sure you use the name that they want you to use.

Just ask them what that is.

Ask them what pronouns they use and use those.

And if that's difficult, one of the advantages you've got in your industry is when you're in the car with that person, it's a one on one relationship.

You're not talking about them in the third person.

So there's actually very few opportunities to mess it up.

Because I'm not saying, oh, I'm not sitting in the car with you saying, hey, Terry, he, blah, blah, blah.

I'm saying you.

I'm just referring to you.

I'm using your name and I'm using the word you.

So it's not actually that challenging, but it's worth knowing so that you can refer to that person correctly in any other context.

Yeah.

And that's what you meant.

Again, the point about the license there is really good going for a test, because, you know, if I'm going for a test and, you know, I don't want to be called Terence, I want to be called Terry, and I go there.

And if I don't know that beforehand, that could come as an unpleasant surprise when the examiner addresses me that way.

So I suppose as instructors, we could let you know, if we're aware.

We can let the students know.

Actually, when you go for the test, the examiner will call you by the name on your license.

You can ask them to call you something else.

Yes.

And that almost takes away a little bit of pressure on the test day as well.

So that's good.

You've mentioned a couple of times today about being safe and being at risk.

Now, again, I hope you don't mind me asking this.

I know there's obviously extreme examples, you know, of what a risk and being unsafe is, but I was wondering if you could maybe share some of the Again, without going into anything too extreme, some examples of what you might mean by that.

Is it like you said, being called the wrong name or being identified incorrectly or is there other examples there as well?

Yes, I mean there's obvious things around abuse, harassment, physical violence.

All of these things happen, have happened to me, happened to a lot of people in my community.

So there is that.

And we do not know if that's a risk for us in any situation.

So yeah, any reassurance you can give us that that ain't going to happen is brilliant.

But it is much more subtle than that.

If I obviously people often assume me to be female.

I have a wife, my wife refers to me as her wife.

This is the language that we use.

So it does get a bit confusing at times.

But if I'm talking about what I did on the weekend and you're constantly referring to a husband or a boyfriend because I haven't told you that, making assumptions in those kinds of ways, I'm feeling less and I don't actually at that point know if I'm safe saying, well, actually I'm married to a woman.

I don't know.

I don't know if when I do that it's then going to result in a different kind of reaction from me, a different kind of behavior.

I am mis gendered.

I'm not seen as me.

A lot of the time people assume things about me that are not true, which on a daily basis eats away at who I am personally.

And so that risk that I'm talking about isn't just about are you going to physically attack me, it's about am I going to get out of that car at the end of that lesson feeling as whole as I did when I got into it.

That's, I don't, I'm struggling with a word to put that.

It's quite strong, you know, when you're.

Saying that.

I can see why you would struggle with that.

And I mentioned before about finding something to relate to and I realize these are two completely different things.

But it's the thing that I connected to straight away, which I'm vegan.

And that's not, that's a choice.

You know, it's not like I've, I was born vegan.

This is my choice.

And I often hold back from telling people that because it provokes an unpleasant conversation sometimes.

So for something I'm holding back, that's a choice.

I can only imagine what it must be like in, you know, for someone like yourself or someone from the LGT community because that's just an uncomfortable conversation for me that might happen now and again.

It's like to have to have that all the time.

Yeah, that's quite.

But it's an excellent example in terms of how it feels.

Yes, it's a choice, but it also matters to you.

It's who you are, it's part of your identity.

And I know because I've seen you talk about means a lot to you.

It was a very thought through process for you.

And you have reasons that matter a lot to you.

So the fact that it's a choice rather than who you are, it is still who you are.

And the fact that you could be in a situation and disclosing something about yourself that means something to you has the risk of you being judged, of people changing the way they appear to you, behave towards you, seem to respect you.

The fact that sometimes you end up being asked to justify your own position in your own life.

And I'm sure that's happened to you.

You know, people actually say why the hell are you doing that?

That's wrong in some way.

Whatever their beliefs, they believe is wrong.

And you have to be challenged about this thing that you were just trying to order a coffee, you know, or you, you were just trying to make casual conversation.

You are question.

Nobody has the right to tell you who you are or who you should be.

Same counts for all of us.

The person in front of you is the person that they are and they have a right to all of the aspects of their identity and we do not have the right to judge.

The fact that I was born with a vagina does not mean that I am any more or less anything than anybody else.

It does not impact on my gender.

You do not have the right to tell me that I'm actually a woman because I was born a certain way because that's what you believe.

By all means have your belief.

I might think it's wrong, but you're entitled to that belief.

You do not have a right to tell me who I am.

That's a really impassioned response and it's made me a little bit emotional and it seems like the.

The perfect way to end that.

So I do appreciate always end up.

With a giant question.

So where possible finish with a vagina.

So just before we go, a couple of last things.

Firstly, it's a question or something I ask everyone at the end of the podcast if you was to leave us I suppose primarily instructors, but sure it'd be applicable to everyone with one piece of advice or one tip or Something that we could do going forward to maybe become a better ally.

What tip or piece of advice would you leave us with?

I'd go with what we started with.

Make it clear what your position is.

Just be upfront with it in your marketing, in your social profiles, all the places where you turn up, make it clear who you are and the things that matter to you and who you support and the right people will find you.

Awesome.

And then finally, is there anything that you want to promote?

Where can people find you?

I know obviously your big one is your branding business, so I'll put all this in the show notes as well, so if anyone's listening, they can go and click on the link straight away.

But have a minute to sell yourself.

Brilliant.

Well, we haven't really talked about branding today, but if you want to find out more about that, it's branding by g dot com and that's everything brand related.

But what might be more relevant for people listening to this is the queer box.

That's the other business.

And that business is entirely about teaching business owners how to be more LGBTQ inclusive.

We have a course that you can take.

It's a video course and I know that you've done it, Terry, so you can vouch for it.

And it is a breakdown of all of the things that you didn't know, you didn't know how to behave, how you can implement them in your business to make sure you're as inclusive as you can be.

And you can Access that@thequeerbox.co.uk.com Excellent.

And I do vouch for it.

I thought it was for someone like me, who, again, I'm reluctant to use the word ignorant, but there's probably a bit of ignorance there, but naivety definitely.

I just found it really easy to access, really understandable and thought provoking.

And like I said, especially the bit at the end with the sliding scales.

I was sat there for about 10 minutes thinking about that and I thought, that'll just be a 2 second job.

As for Brandon by G, I haven't asked you this yet, but I will be asking you back on season two to speak about that.

Brilliant.

So thank you very much for joining us today.

It's really appreciated.

It's been a brilliant guest.

It's been wonderful to be here.

Thank you, Terry.

Keep up the good work.

Thank you.

So, really thought provoking discussion there with G. And a big thanks to G for coming on.

It's really good to be able to have someone to talk to because this is new for me now.

From my perspective of someone who is, you know, consider themselves male and straight and you know, doesn't suffer any of the, I don't know what the word is, but discrimination almost that, that other people may suffer, I don't see this, I don't feel this.

So for.

For someone like me to be able to have this discussion as open and as honest as Jesus is really refreshing and lets me see the other side and it lets me see what I can do better.

So I hope that you guys listen to this, maybe take away something and take a step back and think, what can you do just to make people feel a little bit safer around you, to make people feel a little bit more welcome, a little bit less distant or disregarded.

Yeah.

So it's just a really good episode and I did get a touch emotionally.

Yeah.

Because as I said during the episode a couple of times, it's something that I was able to relate to.

I was able to find something like a parallel that I was able to relate to.

And as soon as I did that, it just, it, it clicked for me.

So see if you can find something to relate for that or something to compare to.

And I love the passion in G's voice as well.

A couple of times towards the end there where they went off on, I'm gonna say rant, that's not the right word, went off on like a little monologue, but it was really impassioned and really powerful and, and really thought provoking.

So yeah.

Hope you enjoyed this episode.

In a second we're gonna head over to hear the.

The latest from Chris Benson of the ditc.

Big shout out to Chris coming on every week to giving us the.

The updates and sharing his thoughts on the stuff within the industry.

Really thought provoking stuff he always brings.

And yeah, go check out the ditc, the Driving Instructor and Trainers Collective.

Great site, great benefits.

I'm part of it.

It's not expensive.

Just go check it out.

Seriously.

The links will be on the show.

Notes for everything.

I will as well.

Everything be G. And for me, if there's anything that you want to hear in this episode or sorry, future episodes, drop me a line.

Get in touch.

If you think you want to be a, a guest, you know, someone wants to be a guest, you want a specific area covered, again, drop me a message.

So thank you for listening and here's Chris.

Hi, I'm Chris Benstead from the Driving Instructor and Trainers Collective, the ditc, the signposting point for the driving instructor industry.

And we're here to bring the instructor Podcast news and updates from what's going on and keep you in touch.

But this week it's rather quiet.

I say it's quiet.

Everybody's busy.

That's the issue, I think.

Noses to the grindstone, filling the diary as much as people can and saying, no, sorry, you know, we'll help when we can to plenty of people that are phoning.

So it's really busy out there and it's been quite quiet.

So I'm going to talk about something that I'm really passionate about at the moment, which is the theory test and the problems that we're having.

Some of that because of the workload that's going on and the number of people looking.

So whereas historically people would often start their lessons and then they would do the theory test, they'd have their driver's head on, they'd understand a little bit of the road.

I'm dealing as someone who specializes in theory training with so many people that have not driven at all.

They're starting out with the theory and you then look at the traditional approach to theory training and to the theory test, and it is about revising first.

The apps, the websites, all rely on revision, but revision is something that you do after you learn, not before.

And we tend to work the other way around.

We say, keep doing the questions.

So I've done a few sessions today supporting people and the things that coming up are.

There's words that they don't understand.

The one I refer to when I'm out on the road is often telegraph pole.

Teenagers don't know what a telegraph pole is.

It's a very outdated thing for them.

They don't understand the concept.

So, you know, I say the tree with no leaves and I think there's lots of words that the DVSA use gradient.

Why can't they say hill?

You know, there's words that they use that are not in keeping with common parlance and are not words that are understood.

There's a number of questions that are really confusing.

If you struggle between increase and decrease, you know, it's a muddle of words that makes it difficult, particularly for people who have additional needs involving reading, writing or comprehension.

So it's something I desperately want to see changed.

And it's something that I'm working with people using zoom one to one and trying to help them understand exactly what's being asked and work things through.

So just an opportunity to speak to my colleagues, my fellow instructors and to say, you know, don't underestimate.

I thought I was really good at the theory.

When I was out on the road and I was doing it, we'd spend a two hour lesson sat doing theory and going through it.

Now that I'm specializing and focusing just on that, I am really realizing that comprehension is something that I used to underestimate.

So don't underestimate it.

Take the time to look at the words, not just the subjects.

So it's not just about looking at the facts out on the road.

What the road signs mean, what the road situations are.

And that's really difficult for people who haven't been driving yet to focus and comprehend what they mean by.

And a good example, turning right across a dual carriageway.

Now my local dual carriageways are more motorway like long straight roads, you know, no gap in the barrier.

So unless you can have one in your head, which is a right turn across a dual carriageway, it doesn't make sense.

So there's those situations to translate and then there's just the phraseology and the terms.

When talking about motorways, there's about four different ways of referring to a slip road or joining road, slip rope, joining road, acceleration lane.

The hard shoulder is a really difficult concept.

And then we introduce smart motorways, which some people say don't have a hard shoulder.

But the theory test then says that when the hard shoulder can be used as a running lane and that can be a really confusing concept.

So you know, especially if you don't have motorways near you, take a bit of time to have a look at that one because these are the things that are tripping them up on the, on the theory.

And then how we score the theory is a really fine margin.

You know that it's a 43 mark pass from a 50 question bank.

So you know, they get, they get 50 questions and so often you hear I failed by one and you got eight wrong.

So there were eight opportunities to, you know, eight things that you missed.

But because it's only 50 questions, I'm finding most people are getting 70 to 85% as a, as a mark without necessarily being able to get past that barrier to the next one.

That, that 70 to 85% seems to be the sticking point.

So they can get up to that 70, 75 and then they get caught.

And that's when the comprehension kicks in, that understanding kicks in.

They might be very good at the visual, but they're not necessarily good with the words, trying to translate those into pictures in their heads.

So, you know, give it that extra little bit of time.

Have a look through the questions yourself.

Try to figure out why we're still teaching them to top up batteries with distilled water, because that's beyond me.

And see what you can do to help and look for other alternatives to say I'm using Zoom to teach it.

Happily doing that for a number of other instructors that are referring me pupils because they don't want to do the theory themselves.

And, you know, those people are then being able to succeed.

Free up that waiting list and you haven't got that problem which is, you know, so common to all of us where, you know, they're ready, their driving's great, you don't want it to go off the boil.

But they haven't been able to pass.

They haven't been successful with that theory.

So, you know, there's a lot of, you know, a lot of scope for the apps and the websites.

I use them myself, but also just looking through at the understanding and the words that are being used and the different things that people might need.

It might not be about driving, it might be about language or interpretation.

So I hope that helps someone.

I look forward to some fresh new news in the industry that we can share with you next week, but there's something to keep you thinking.

I hope you all stay safe and speak to you soon.

So thank you for listening today.

If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you click subscribe wherever you're listening so.

That the next one will drop straight into your podcast feed.

If you want to get in touch with us, show head over@tcdrive.co.uk you can get in touch with me by any method over there.

And remember, let's just keep raising standards and stay safe.