Holding Safety - guest G Sabini-Roberts

Jenn wilson 

“Your only job is to be their safe space. Whatever that looks like.” — G Sabini-Roberts

Jenn Wilson is joined by guest G Sabini-Roberts (they/them)

G is an Entrepreneur, Writer, Trainer, Speaker, Activist & Branding Specialist

Episode Overview

In this episode, Jenn sits down with G Sabini Roberts to explore their journey as a branding expert, LGBTQ+ activist, and neurodivergent entrepreneur. G shares how their lived experience across gender, neurodivergence, and sexuality informs their work in branding and inclusion. From founding Branding by G to co-creating Rainbow Wise, G offers insights into purpose-led business, supporting LGBTQ+ youth, and building inclusive platforms.

Join Our Mailing List HERE

Subscribe for bonus content HERE

Connect with G Sabini-Roberts

Website: https://brandingbyg.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gsabiniroberts

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gsabiniroberts/

About G:

G is an entrepreneur, writer, trainer, speaker and activist. They are the founder of Branding by G, co-founder of The Queer Box and Rainbow Wise, advocate for inclusion, co-author of two books on Neurodivergent Entrepreneurship and author of ‘When Is A Women’s Group Not A Women’s Group’. G has been running their own brand design business since 2012, helping hundreds of businesses to grow show-stopping brands. They have been running events, training and facilitating spaces in and for the LGBTQ+ community since 1996 and in academic and business settings since 2004. Always leading with curiosity and kindness, they bring their unique stories from the margins of gender, neurotype and sexuality to deliver thought-provoking and memorable experiences to your audience.

Episode Takeaway

Our differences are more than something to tolerate or accept - but to embrace and celebrate. When we work with, rather than bush back against those differences we can let it fuel our creativity and our activism. We can find joy, strength and wonder in our own uniquenesses - and when we celebrate them in other people, especially the young, we can unleash their brilliant potential.

Further Resources: links to offers from Irregular that are relevant to the episode

Irregular Everything

The Irregular Membership

Map My Month Method

More about this episode:

1. Identity as Visibility and Safety

G discusses how being visibly queer and neurodivergent creates safe spaces for others to be themselves.

2. Branding as an Identity Journey

Their branding work goes beyond visuals—it's about helping people express who they are and how they want to show up in the world.

3. The Power of Personal Storytelling

G reflects on how sharing their own journey has helped build trust and connection with clients and communities.

4. The Birth of Rainbow Wise

What started as a favor for a sister’s school evolved into a pioneering e-learning platform for LGBTQ+ inclusion in UK schools.

5. Self-Funding Activism Through Business

G explains how running a successful branding business enabled them to fund and build Rainbow Wise without external grants or charity status.

6. Business as a Tool for Social Change

They explore how ethical entrepreneurship can be a powerful way to create impact and redistribute resources.

7. Supporting LGBTQ+ Young People

G shares insights on how adults can be safe spaces for queer youth, especially in a climate of increasing hostility and policy regression.

8. The Role of Community and Connection

From family life to online networks, G emphasizes the importance of collective care and mutual support.

9. Practical Advice for Allies and Parents

The episode closes with guidance on how to respond when a young person comes out—and why being a safe harbor matters more than having all the answers.

Want to hear more?

Subscribe now for After Hours Bonus Episodes every week - click here

Or join  The Irregular Membership and get Jenn’s support to start your own personal rebellion.

Season 1 Episode 6

End Time: 00:33:04.740

Jenn Wilson: Hi everyone and welcome to this recording of the irregular humans podcast with me, Jenn Wilson and my guest today is my friend and sometimes colleague, even just about G. Sabini Roberts. And they are a branding consultant. And they are a community activist for Lgbtq communities, especially young people. And we're going to get into that. They're also a finalist for the national diversity awards, and I'm cheering them along every step of the way, because that would be a well deserved win. Morning G.

G Sabini-Roberts: Morning, Jenn, thank you for having me. It's a joy to be here.

Jenn Wilson: It's a pleasure to see you as always. So tell us about your irregularness.

G Sabini-Roberts: It's a funny one, isn't it? Because our own irregularness is actually our own normality, isn't it? So, you know, actually, aren't we all irregular compared to each other. But in terms of other context, I'm queer. I'm non-binary. I use they them pronouns. I'm autistic. I you know, tick a whole bunch of these wonderful intersectional boxes. I have chronic health issues, you know. So I'm very much in a lot of those places, anyway, which actually, I don't think makes us that irregular anymore. Because 90% of the people I interact with most days has their own version of those things, anyway. So isn't it nice that we are now able to acknowledge and recognize a lot of this stuff and find each other within it.

Jenn Wilson: Absolutely. And I mean, I think that's 1 of the reasons I kind of use the word irregular rather than those labels, because those labels can be so loaded, and I don't always want to wear them front and center. I mean, I look like me, and I move through the world being me, but I don't necessarily need to, you know, wave the flag every single moment of every single day so irregular feels like a a more inclusive, actually way of saying I'm other than normal, whatever that's meant to mean. But it's.

G Sabini-Roberts: Yeah. And I think, certainly just being on a video call, looking at both of our faces here, we can't help it. We walk into an average room, and we stand out.

Jenn Wilson: Hmm.

G Sabini-Roberts: And that's yeah. We some of that we can't change, and some of that we have actively chosen to embrace. So here we are, and glorious, and it brings, it invites in other irregular humans, doesn't it? It? It creates an image of being a safe space for people, because you're clearly one of them, in whatever flavour that might be, we find each other more easily, and that is a beautiful thing.

Jenn Wilson: It really is. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And one of the things that I love about you, G, is that as I emerged into the the online business space of the last couple of years. You were a very visible person in that space. So your job, your work, your kind of you know way you make your bread and butter is by doing branding work which has nothing particularly to do with being a they them a queer person, or any of those things but your visibility in those ways. The book you've written about when there's a women's space, not all women's space, which is a brilliant book. I recommend it to everyone, and those kinds of things mean that you are exactly what you said, someone who it feels safe to connect with. I wonder if you've had the same challenges that I sometimes wrestle with of. There's the work that you do that is just work. And and you know well, it's not just work, but you know, it could be. Anyone does this kind of work and the activism that you do, and them being 2 separate things and.

G Sabini-Roberts: Yeah, it. Sometimes it can feel that way. But I think there is more of a connection than you might think on a surface level, because what I'm doing is branding, and I'm not doing corporate branding. I don't work with large organizations. I don't do long briefs where we've got consulting periods with different groups of people, and and all of that stuff. Branding in that sense is. I won't swear. But it is not a fun thing. It doesn't turn me on in the slightest. It's the opposite of that. I work with individual business owners, small business owners with maybe a small team, but no more than that, the majority of my clients are owner, run businesses or solo owner run businesses and actually creating branding for a human being who is turning their skills, their passions into the way that they are generating their income, that it's an identity piece.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

G Sabini-Roberts: It's very much a who are you? Who are you as a business, but also, who are you as a human? And how do we find a way to weave those parts together, to create a business that not only functions well in a business sense, but from a branding sense also visually represents the way that they want to turn up in the world, and the way they want to make their audience feel.

Jenn Wilson: Cool.

G Sabini-Roberts: So there is a strong thread that runs through both, and that is about identity, and about owning your own identity, whatever that is.

Jenn Wilson: And.

G Sabini-Roberts: We may have more than one that we choose to put out into the world. But that's that's the work. And that, I think, is why I enjoy it so much. Why, I'm still doing it after 30 years. Because actually, I get to work with people, and I get to work with who they are, and help them to celebrate that. And that is just a glorious thing.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah, absolutely. And do you find I do that? My own story, which is a very, very slow coming out story, and I don't mean coming out as queer, particularly although that's part of it, you know. It's an Adhd diagnosis. When I turned 50 you know, it's it's uncovering layers of myself, and getting more comfortable with my own irregular identity, and and owning it and going. Actually, this is who I am not going to try and hide or fit in or blend in and be generically like someone else. I am uniquely me, and we are all uniquely ourselves. Do you find that that when you're doing branding work. That's a that's a story that's happening for people.

G Sabini-Roberts: Very much, very much. I think you said it beautifully just there, when you're trying to be something. If you're trying to be anything, it's going to be a hell of a lot harder than if you just rock up and be.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah, yeah.

G Sabini-Roberts: And that's how I try to phrase things for people. And when I see them saying, Well, I really want to give this message. I'm really trying to do this. And it's like, Stop, just stop. Let's pick that apart a bit and work through what that actually means. And can we do that in a way that actually feels more natural and authentic to you. And I think I accidentally, partly because I'm not a shy person. I do not filter, so naturally. I have been quite open with my personal journey as well as my business journey. For a long time I was blogging back in the days when it was all livejournal and none of the social media channels that we now live on existed. So I've been being open publicly about my personal journey online for a very long time. It feels very natural to me.

Jenn Wilson: Hmm.

G Sabini-Roberts: And I do know that people get drawn to that because it doesn't come as easy to everybody.

Jenn Wilson: To.

G Sabini-Roberts: It can do. But there is a real journey to go on to get to a point where that feels okay. And so I think, partly I have to be open about the fact that I don't think I would have the business I have now if I hadn't also been open about some of the personal stuff that goes on in my life about my sexuality, my gender, my neurodivergence. I think, talking about those things openly before it was as cool to talk about those things as maybe it can be today. Perfect a part of building the platform that I now have. And so yes, yes, I have feet in 2 camps. Certainly. When I'm looking at, hey? You can pay me to do this work, or you can pay me to do this work we've got branding. We've got Lgbtq inclusion, diversity, training, and all of that kind of stuff that we both do. Those things exist. And there's an aspect of that that they do end up needing to be marketed separately, because their different audience is a different offer. But they interconnect, and that interconnection through me being. The human being that I am is what really works, and that's what I end up supporting my clients to do as well, which is just beautiful.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah, definitely. And yeah, you just mentioned you do. Lgbtq plus training. I was out doing some training last night for a town council, and it's great to see organizations wanting to understand and learn more. I know you're also doing work that you're self funding around this. Tell us a bit about that.

G Sabini-Roberts: So the Lgbtq diversity training started over lockdown because we were all locked down. I was talking about this stuff, and I actually, I made a single post. This is about 5 years ago now, which was, please stop inviting me to your women's groups.

Jenn Wilson: And.

Jenn Wilson: And.

G Sabini-Roberts: Became apparent that delivering that training in the way that people typically deliver that which is. either you turn up at an inset day and deliver a workshop. or you do an online webinar, or you teach 4 or 5 of the staff, and then they have to disseminate that through the rest of the staff in the school. None of them are actually going to be an effective way of getting the information that we really need through to all of the people in school. So if we think about a school environment that's got a whole bunch of Lgbtq kids in it, because statistically wise, every school. Does. Everybody in that school needs to at least have some knowledge about appropriate language, about what is homophobic or biphobic or transphobic bullying what it looks like, so that they know that they can deal with it. How to deal with it. When that happens it doesn't work. If only a handful of the staff get that training, and it doesn't work brilliantly if they only get it once on one day when they're also studying for other things, and the next day they're back into standard working Day. A lot of the really important stuff is going to fall out their brains because life. And so we were, okay, how do we do this better? And that's where we went on this totally unexpected journey. I didn't go into this thinking I'm going to be doing Lgbtq inclusion training for schools. It was just a How do we do it? Well for my sister? And we ended up creating an e-learning resource that could then be available to every member of staff. They could do it in tiny bite sized pieces so they could do just one or 2, 2 or 3 min lessons in between their own lessons. When they've got little breaks they could do it over a period of a week or more. They can also dip in and out of it in the future, when that thing just happened in the corridor, and just need to refresh my mind on what I need to do about that they can go back and find that one thing. So in order to actually deliver the an appropriate response and a functional product. we had to invent something that turns out doesn't exist in the Uk. It doesn't exist for schools. And once we'd done that once, it was like, we just need to get this into as many schools as possible. So that's what we're doing. It has turned into quite a feat of engineering when it comes to making the tech work, because we know that this could now get into every school we're having to build a platform that could work for tens of thousands of people to access it every day. There are over 4,000 high schools in the Uk. So that's a lot of people if we can get into a lot of them. So this is where we are right now is is teasing the tech to just kind of get it to work properly, and we are still on that journey. But we are very close. So that's kind of where? How that started. That's the origin journey. And we're.

Jenn Wilson: So.

G Sabini-Roberts: To go live with it.

Jenn Wilson: Which is totally awesome. And I made the assumption, before we started this call, that you had set up a charity, or Cic, or something like that, because that is a huge amount of work. And until you get schools or some other funding funding body, you know the government as if to pay for it. That's vast amounts of work that you're doing for no money to get that out to schools. So I was like, Oh, right, G. Must have set up a separate charity for that then, and be getting some funding from somewhere. But you're not. And and and I'm really interested in that, because I think a lot of the people that I work with through irregular are people who are coming from a not-for-profit charitable sector background, and who are really struggling with getting funding for their work, because it's an increasingly competitive climate for that sort of thing. I've worked a lot in the Arts and Arts funding is a mess right now, and who are exploring whether business and actual sort of for profit models are an alternative way of making these things work. So I'm really interested in how the work you're doing around that work. Getting that amazing work out schools sits with your business.

G Sabini-Roberts: Yeah, well, it it does at the moment. But we've called it rainbow wise, because that just feels great. And we can say to people. Let us help make you more rainbow wise. And it's a nice little nice little. So yeah, so we've called it rainbow wise. But at the moment, officially, it is a product of the branding business, because, for all those reasons, I think if we knew more people or knew how to manage things as a charitable body better. Knowing what we know now, we may have done that slightly differently, and tried to access some funding to help with the R. And A. Here.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah, it was a kind of development the way you've described it. You were helping your sister, and it kind of oops.

G Sabini-Roberts: Yeah, yeah, we didn't plan this. But here we are. Yeah, we are very fortunate that we had really 2, 1 mainly, but also the the small business, the queer business as well. We had. We have a source of income, and we have a business that works, and I have to admit as a family. We've taken a big financial hit this year because I've only been working half time on the branding side of the business because I've needed to put so much into this. It has turned into something massive, and that has been hard. We are. We're okay. But we've eaten through all of our buffers, and we are needing to make a success of this very soon. But that's how we've done it. We have been able to self fund this as a product of our existing business, because we had a business, and I think this is one of the joys of being self employed. So within our business. My wife and I are co-directors of. Oh, this is really just the branding business these days, but we're co-directors in that business. None of it happens without both of us. I'm the only one that people ever see, because Ruth, my wife, doesn't want to be front and center at all. She's very happy being behind the scenes. But ultimately we run our business and our family life and our household collectively, collaboratively. That's just how it works. So this has been a choice we've been able to make, because I mean, we've got 4 neurodivergent children literally. The 4th one got a diagnosis yesterday. So we live all of the challenges that come with territory as well, but by having our own business and being able to be flexible with it, it does enable us to do the things that we are now doing.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

G Sabini-Roberts: So I think, for business as a tool or self-employment, or running your own business as a tool, to be able to build a life that fits your needs and your family needs that no job would ever flex enough to enable you to do as well generate an income. Once you've managed to get yourself established. I'm not saying it's an easy thing. It's work to get there, but once you get there. you then have the power to spend that income and direct those resources wherever you want.

Jenn Wilson: Hmm.

G Sabini-Roberts: Is what we have done here. and that as a tool for doing good in the world is a brilliant, brilliant thing.

Jenn Wilson: It is, and I am often talking to people who are making this shift across, who are feeling all kinds of guilt about being a profiteer and making money in their business, and it can be a real obstacle to getting that business off the ground because they really don't want to charge money for things because they're coming from this kind of Socialist anarchist, whatever you know. Kind of play, but actually, that's like the system, keeping them keeping us small and keeping us trapped in a please help us. We need some funding to do the good workplace when actually we can go. Look! We could just circumnavigate all of that and go. Yeah, our own money. Do.

G Sabini-Roberts: What do you think?

Jenn Wilson: Worthwhile, and that have a value, and that can be charged money for. And when we've made enough surplus we can plow it back into what we want to.

G Sabini-Roberts: Completely, that.

Jenn Wilson: And we don't. Necessarily. You can have a Cic or a charity. But you don't necessarily need that mechanism to do that, do you?

G Sabini-Roberts: You don't at all, and I don't yet know what future revenue we will take with Rainbow wise in that regard. because, having this up doing it this way gives us that freedom. And I've lived with that discomfort for a long time branding. I'm not doing anything to support climate change. I'm not doing anything politically to do anything to support. I mean, I will be ethical. There are some businesses I will say no to, because I don't agree with their position on certain things. But really I'm creating branding. Yes, it might be a beautiful thing for an individual running a business to go on that journey. And I can. I can put some. Yeah, I can have a bit of a feel good factor for myself. There, I'm helping an individual. But I'm ultimately helping an individual to be a better part of a commercial corporate machine. Ultimately, I'm helping somebody to make more money, and that can so easily feel like this is a bit of a dirty thing that isn't ideal.

Jenn Wilson: Hmm.

G Sabini-Roberts: But the other joy of it is, we retain full control over what we do with that money. So yes, I charge a decent rate for my branding services, because I've been doing it for 30 years, and I'm really good. That means that I have a I have a number of free brands that I will do every year, usually for charities, or I make up my own structure of, is this something I really want to offer this person can I afford to offer it to them right now?

Jenn Wilson: Oh!

G Sabini-Roberts: Do some kind of skill swap. I'm always open to those conversations in order to make what I do more accessible. But actually the bulk of the work generating an income and a decent income enables me to do everything else.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah. And what people forget is that it's is that commerce is ethically putting neutral. It's it's the system. That's the problem, not the not the exchange of value that goes on when you offer a service and receive resources in exchange for that value. There's nothing wrong with that, ethically or morally, it's the systemic harm that we're trying to resist. And and we can do that. I mean, if we, if you wanted to sort of opt out of the system. I don't, you know you'd have to like go off grid completely and not participate in anything. We're kind of stuck in it, aren't we? So. you know, that is a dream. Let's be honest sometimes. But I really want to make change from within it. You know. I really do believe that. You know that if all of the all of the inverted commas good people, opt out, then what what mess are we abandoning? And actually we can be part of shifting and making change by being in it, and and pushing ourselves through the discomfort of being a bit weird in it, and finding our own way.

G Sabini-Roberts: But also providing that visibility, that that's possible.

G Sabini-Roberts: Yep.

Jenn Wilson: So you know you live in a household with 4 young people. I have kids, too. Well, one's a grown up, but I have a teenager, and I work in places where there are a lot of neurodivergent and or queer young people around, and people ask me questions about how to support them.

G Sabini-Roberts: Yep.

Jenn Wilson: And I know that's something that's happening for you.

G Sabini-Roberts: Happens. An awful lot. Yeah.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah, so.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

G Sabini-Roberts: That wonderful statistic about when we stopped penalizing people for being left handed suddenly. We had so many more left handed people, but it didn't end up that everybody became left handed. We stabilized it. What is probably the natural normal level for hand dominance in humans. And I think we're seeing the same happening right now, because, even though there is a lot of well, there's there's a lot of challenge in the world, and it's not easy. There is still that visibility. So there are people coming out and being able to be open about who they are, a lot of young people who are doing that, and then they are doing so in a world that feels more violent, more against them than it did say 10 years ago. So it's a very difficult, very uncomfortable place to exist in. And if you love a young person who has just come out and has basically said, Hey, this is who I am. And you're aware that they are walking out into a world with those identities. with a world that is actively fighting against them, or trying to deny their existence or deny their rights. It's absolutely freaking, terrifying. and that I think that is where both of us are, are seeing that pickup of.

Jenn Wilson: Absolutely.

G Sabini-Roberts: Fear and anxiety around. How do we keep these young people safe? How do we care for them in an environment, in a world that is actually against them. It's really challenging.

Jenn Wilson: It is really challenging. And the work you're doing with rainbow wise is so urgent, you know, that that gets out into the world before any restrictions come into schools as well. And yeah, I've had parents talk to me about their young people coming out, and I and and I've had also. Like the town council I was working with last night going. How do we navigate this? How do we? How do we deal with the the violence and polarization of people in our community on this issue, and actually ended up suggesting that they give the guidance that I gave to someone who was doing a campaign for their local shops of like, what do the local shops say? If they've got a we're trans friendly sticker in their window, what do they say, if that issue then gets raised in their shop, and the list of things I gave them to say was things like. we don't judge people on appearances we welcome. We want everyone to feel welcome in our space. We don't tolerate hate in our space or violent behavior, and you don't even need to talk about the specifics of those identities, to talk about those values and those principles of how we want to be with each other as human beings. And I think that the hot potato of gender identity gets in the way of just some common sense. Thinking about your child is telling you something about themselves, and they just want you to accept and understand it and hold space for them, and you know, reassure them that you love them exactly as they are, and think that they're brilliant, that's all they really need from a parent, isn't it?

G Sabini-Roberts: It is, it is, and that's the challenge, because you have to deliver that, whilst also internally being terrified.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

G Sabini-Roberts: Or what the world might do to them. It is really hard, but that is exactly it. I'm sure we all remember what it was like to be a teenager, and how we knew we knew what was right. We knew ourselves, we were absolutely dead certain we knew who we were, and in retrospect, of course we were teenagers. We got. We got stuff wrong, but.

Jenn Wilson: Cool.

G Sabini-Roberts: If you say to a teenager what you're thinking might be wrong, don't do this because you might change your mind later. It's never going to land. Well. the only way we get to support our young people is by supporting them to be, whoever it is that they are, and knowing that you are always going to be a safe space for them, and then, when the world does what it does to them, you are their safe zone. You are the place they can come back to. That's the safe harbor. That's it. That's the job. That's your only job. The world is terrifying. Your job is to be the safe place they can retreat to when they need it without ever questioning it.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

G Sabini-Roberts: And yeah, yeah, there's a couple of statistics that I think are really important when it comes to thinking about young people, and they're one of the ones that we talk about a lot when we're introducing the work we're doing with rainbow wise. And so this is about suicide. So just to flag that in terms of a bit of a content warning. But we do know statistically that young Lgbtq. Plus people, are more than 4 times as likely to attempt suicide than their peers. But the counter figure for that is that if a young Lgbtq person has one single supportive adult in their life, they are 40% less likely to attempt suicide. So yes, it is terrifying. If a young person in your life comes out as Lgbtq plus. But you absolutely just you being that safe space can have such a radical difference on the potential outcomes for that young person. It's and that's scary in and of itself. It's a big deal right.

Jenn Wilson: Come on!

G Sabini-Roberts: It's also something that everybody can do, because just got to remember, your only job is to be their safe space.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah.

G Sabini-Roberts: Whatever that looks like.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah. And I think that's whilst it's a little bit intense. I think it's a really good place to wrap this up, because I think it's a nice reminder beyond that relationship with young people as well, that going back to the beginning of our conversation, that that being visible as an irregular human being also creates safe space for other irregular human beings to go. she's doing that. Jen's doing that. Maybe I can be a little bit weird, and it'll be all right.

G Sabini-Roberts: Really later.

Jenn Wilson: Yeah. Oh, gee, thanks! It's always such a great pleasure to talk to you, and if anyone's looking for you, for Rainbow, wise for branding work for any of the amazing things that you do. Where can they find you if they're not looking at show notes, but want to quickly Google you, or find you.

G Sabini-Roberts: Just look for my name on all of the channels. Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin Tiktok. I am G. Sabini Roberts. All one word, no hyphens. Just come find me.

Jenn Wilson: That's the letter G, in case.

G Sabini-Roberts: That's a letter G, yeah, g SABI, NIRO BERT s.

Jenn Wilson: Oh, awesome! Thank you so much. Gee! And I'll see you soon.

G Sabini-Roberts: Will do. Thank you.