Ep. 16 - Winning awards from Ron DeSantis and empowering differences with Ashley Brundage
#16 This episode’s guest is Ashley T. Brundage! Ashley (she/her) went from dealing with discrimination, harassment, and homelessness to becoming NVP of Diversity and Inclusion at PNC Bank in less than 5 years.
AND started a company and wrote a best-selling book.
AND won an award from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (!!).
AND is now running for the Florida State House of Representatives in District 65.
This conversation was full of wisdom and laughter - you don’t want to miss it!
Ashley’s campaign website is www.AshleyBrundage.com and her business site is www.EmpoweringDifferences.com. You can also find her on Instagram @ashleytbrundage and @brundageforfl
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Equality Florida
Palm Beach Post article about award from Ron DeSantis
Webster Barnaby’s 2023 remarks on Florida HB1421 (TW: transphobic language)
Voyage of Empowerment
Everyday Trans Activism is a production of Parents of Trans Youth, a social impact business providing learning, support, and community to parents and caregivers of transgender, nonbinary, and gender-diverse kids.
Host Mandy Giles (she/her) is the Texas parent of two transgender young adults and a fierce advocate for trans kids, their families, and the transgender community.
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FULL TRANSCRIPT
Mandy: Hey y'all and welcome to Everyday Trans Activism. I'm your host, Mandy Giles. My pronouns are she/her, and I'm the parent of two transgender young adults and the founder of Parents of Trans Youth.
Today's guest is Ashley T. Brundage. Ashley started her second career as a means of survival, fighting discrimination, harassment and homelessness. She found employment as a part-time associate at PNC Bank and then rose to National Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion in less than five years. She captured this process of career development in her award-winning book and online course, Empowering Differences. In 2022, she consulted for the White House and won an award from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis - yes, that Ron DeSantis - showcasing how empowerment applies to all people, regardless of our differences. And I can't wait to talk about that. And Ashley is also making history by running for the Florida State House of Representatives in District 65. Ashley, welcome. I'm so glad you're here to talk with me today.
Ashley: Thank you so much. I'm so honored to be here. It's really exciting. And thanks to you as well for listening because this is the moment where we can all draw something to impact other people who move in this world.
Mandy: Okay, first I have to ask about the award from our friend, Ron. So, speaking of friends, he is not a friend of the trans community or of DEI initiatives, and yet, he honored a transgender woman who is doing DEI work. So I want to hear how all that went down, how, what happened? You went viral. What I just want to hear how everything happened.
Ashley: It's like a triple-double entendre, right? Because first of all, he gave an award to a woman.
Mandy: Well, yeah, that's true. Like, Oh no.
Ashley: then he gave an award to a woman like me,
Mandy: Uh huh.
Ashley: then he gave an award to a woman like me who does diversity, equity, and inclusion work.
Mandy: Oh, Ron.
Ashley: So, yeah, I have been a staunch advocate for Florida and beyond for years. I started transitioning more than 15 years ago. I was a part of the committee that worked to change the driver's license policy across the whole state of Florida when Transaction Florida was operating as its own nonprofit organization. Since then, Equality Florida has brought them into the fold. They work to bring that organization forward.
I've built economic empowerment programs. I've advocated not just for LGBTQIA plus business owners, but I've advocated for women owned businesses and veteran owned businesses and people who have disabilities who own businesses. And I actually got the city of Tampa to add that to their procurement processes.
I've built mentorship programs for people regardless of their differences, but yes, especially also people who are navigating gender and, and the gender continuum as we know it. And so all of that was written in this nomination letter and the nomination.
And then I submitted, I answered some questions with the Florida Commission on the Status of Women. And then the Florida Commission on the Status of Women awarded their Community Spirit Awards. And I was one of the seven women who won the award at the luncheon during Pride month, ironically as well.
And it's interesting, ironically, you cannot spell ironic without Ron I'm gonna give you all a lot of
Mandy: as much as we would want to, we, we can't.
Ashley: So, um, yeah, so I, I, I won this award and you know, I got the recognition. I showed up at the luncheon. I think that they were expecting me not to come. They had sent the agenda and events and on the agenda, it of course shared that all the winners, me and the six other women, were going to get two minutes to give a speech at the luncheon, which I was like, wow, they're going to like, they're going to give me the microphone at this event. This is absolutely amazing.
Mandy: watch out.
Ashley: I prepared the most powerful two-minute speech that was ever going to be given in this construct. Because they were putting the event on their social media, and they had a live stream and it was all on the state of Florida's website.
Well, I walk in and sure enough, the woman who was the organizer, she comes over to me and she says, so Ashley, um, we have a, uh, some extra speakers and the program is actually running over so we're going to have to cut the speeches. I was like, my speech or all the speeches? No, we're going to cut all the speeches. Um, and the speeches were supposed to be from 1:30 to 1:45 at the luncheon.
Mandy: mm-Hmm.
Ashley: And I’m like, okay. Well, guess what time the event ended? 1:30.
Mandy: Oh no. Oh. Uh oh.
Ashley: They ended the event early, earlier by cutting the speeches. And, uh, I did get to go up on stage. So for those of you that are wondering what that looked like, you can go on my social media and scroll back a little bit of time ago and you'll probably see me walking across the stage at the Manatee Lagoon Reception Hall. And somebody else was speaking to say that I won the award and the word transgender was actually mentioned in her speech, which was really also ironic, and, so I accepted the award.
And then, you know, and I kind of just went back to doing business, you know, when they go low, we go high and I just kind of followed that thing.
And then I guess like a year later, a year went by a year later, someone said, did you, cause I had shared it on social media. And, and I mean, I have a pretty decent following, but you know, somebody then was like, why is it like, nobody's run like a really big story about this. And I said, Oh, okay. Why don't you do what you want? Just make sure you block out my address on the letter. Because I don't need, I don't need that kind of drama.
Mandy: you don't need that.
Ashley: Well, my kids don't need that kind of drama really is really what it was. You, you, and I, you know, this is, and so I was like, go ahead, go for it. And then literally it was like the next week. And then this was in October, late October of last year. Politico decides to run a story called, and their story is DeSantisland. They have a DeSantisland story every week because there's plenty of them. It's just like finding a Florida man. You can find a Florida man really easily. You just type it, you know, the day and month that you were born and then Florida man.
Mandy: Oh yeah.
Ashley: and then yeah, it's really fun. Definitely do. It's a great party trick. And so they ran, Politico ran the story, and talked about me getting the award, and they shared the award, and then Politico National pulled it. And then, and then the next day Breitbart decided to run a hatchet job on me.
Mandy: Uh.
Ashley: And then 20 other conservative news organizations started running stories about me where they were picking photos of me, right? And then it's like, here she is advocating for, for boys to play sports with girls.
Mandy: oh. No.
Ashley: I'm like, I'm just like, just let kids play sports. Like, we'll just let them have a good time. Like literally your six-year-old is not going to win a scholarship at six years old.
Mandy: No,
Ashley: Like calm down for a second. And so then all of these conservative news organizations started running things. And then all of a sudden I got this moniker on Twitter that they started calling me “Ron's girl.”
Mandy: Oh, okay. Is oh,
Ashley: Right. And I'm like, wow.
Mandy: Thank you?
Ashley: Like, oh my gosh. Like I can't win an award right from someone without there being some kind of sexual connotation or something?
Mandy: Yeah.
Ashley: are you kidding me? Um, and so then I'm like, oh gosh. Like I really need to get my side of the story out on this. Because that none of these conservative news organizations are contacting me for my comment. And, you know, and that's good reporting. I mean, like, I just don't understand. Like, don't you always reach out to the source? Well, they all reached out to Ron DeSantis and they got no comment. Every single one of them. They also reached out to the DeSantis, uh, presidential run, no comment, but DeSantis appreciated no comment, right?
Mandy: Surprise.
Ashley: Surprise. Oh, wow. You know, you were running and now you, now you're not. RIP. Uh, so I'm like, wow. All right. So then the Palm Beach Post or Palm Beach, uh, newspaper decides they want to do a whole profile piece on me. And I said, okay, fine. I'll do it. And so they run it and, and the article is, “Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Awards Transgender Woman Who Leads Diversity Seminars.” News at 11, right? And I'm like, oh, this is going to be fun. And so then the next day on November 8th of last year, USA Today ran it as their top story of the whole United States of America.
Mandy: Oh my gosh.
Ashley: And then every
Mandy: buckle up buttercup.
Ashley: Yeah, yeah, and then every other news source runs it on their top stories. So like if you were happen to be typing in something on Google, or you, you know, you go on your phone and you swipe over for Apple News or whatever it was Yahoo News, MSN News, Microsoft Edge news.
I mean, like literally it was the top story on all of those. And like 180 people texted me the picture of them on their computer seeing my, my face, my beautiful face on their, on their, uh.
Mandy: There are worse things to see.
Ashley: so I'm like, Wow, this is really fun. Okay, and so apparently 150 news organizations reached out to DeSantis and no comment for any of them.
No comment every time. Until, you know, after this whole thing happened, right? Everybody's like, wow, you got to do something with this. You got to turn this into like an engine or something. And I was like, I don't know. I mean, I'm just going to keep trying to do my job and help people.
And sure enough, right? I'm watching the state legislative process happen at the beginning of the year. Of, uh, the beginning of 2024. And when that happened, and I watched one of the state legislators talk about the transgender community by saying that - in fact, his name, in case anybody wants to know, and you want to maybe contribute to, someone that might be running against him, Webster Barnaby - okay, goes on, he goes on, from the committee floor, in the chamber, for the Florida State House of Representatives, he says that this is like the X-Men. And now, I didn't think X-Men was Like a derogatory statement, but he says it's like the X-Men, it's like there's mutants, and then, and he says that these people, these transgender people are mutants, demons, and imps. And he says that, and I'm like, I was like, wait a minute, and I went and googled what is an imp? Because I was like, I have a feeling it's probably not something very good.
Mandy: oh my gosh.
Ashley: I'm like, oh my gosh, this guy is saying this from the floor of the House of Representatives for the great state of Florida that is not seemingly so great. That has done a lot of things to scare a lot of people. I'm thinking, wow, that is ridiculous. Somebody needs to do something about this. And I'm like, and I, you know, I've been a staunch advocate. I've been a community organizer. I build an economic empowerment program. I build an economic empowerment program in Washington, DC. That got copied by five countries that then I advised five countries on how to build an economic empowerment program for entrepreneurs that grew entrepreneurship by more than 400%. So, obviously, economic empowerment in small businesses is my jam. Advocacy's been my jam. And I'm sitting here waiting, thinking that somebody else might show up and run for office, put Webster Barnaby in his place, and send an inclusive signal that Florida's open for business.
I mean, the only reason that Texas didn't have any anti LGBTQ bills this session is because they're not in session.
Mandy: Don't I know it?
Ashley: I'm thinking to myself, why isn't somebody running? Where is someone to run and win and go to Tallahassee and be in the room so we can stop being on the menu?
And sure enough, enough people started saying, Ashley, why is it that you're not running? Ashley, you have a lot of capabilities. You literally overcome harassment, discrimination, and a year and a half of homelessness. You know what it's like to access programs and fight for your right to exist and live off of scraps and, and be able to function.
And you've also worked in the corporate space. You've advised the PNC political action committee on how to be better. You've garnered donations to tons of nonprofit organizations in lots of cities around the country from your role of being connected to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Why is it that you don't run?
And I'm like, I don't know. I mean, make sure my kids are okay. I mean, literally that's option number one is take care of the kids. So obviously, that world has changed now,
Mandy: Yes.
Ashley: And I'm like an empty nester. I never thought I would be at this point. My kids are now 19 and 17. My 19-year-old's going to college. My 17-year-old has one year of high school left. and I'm in it. I'm in it. I'm in it. Because we have to have change. Representation equals change.
Mandy: Mm.
Ashley: And, uh, so yeah, I'm, I'm doing it. I'm, I'm going to continue to run my company that I built so I can take care of myself, minimalistically, and I'm going to run for office because it's necessary. Somebody has to do it.
Mandy: Wow. What a story to, to leverage just what, I mean, I get, yeah, I'm still trying to figure out, okay, was that a bad thing? Like, well, like going viral, it's no fun for anybody, especially anyone who is trans or connected to the trans community or anything, cause it usually doesn't end well. Yeah. But that you did leverage that experience and then hearing, what was going on, on the house floor and figuring, Oh, that person for the job might be me.
So I can relate to, oh, to hearing those kinds of words coming from people who were supposed to represent our states, like me being in Texas.
Ashley: All 22 million Floridians, when you, when sometimes a state legislator, it is their responsibility to represent everything. They, yes, they are only representing their district, ultimately, those are the voters, but they are the state rep for everyone. Their decision impacts everybody.
Mandy: They don't work in a bubble and working with other people and on committees and dah, dah, dah. And like for the whole state of Florida. And knowing that I've heard those things in Texas too. And just thinking where, uh, I mean, it's going to sound cliche, but like where it's like the, the human decency or respect of the process or of other human, yes, decorum, I mean, we don't need it, but we're seeing it everywhere.
Ashley: Decorum that should exist in this space.
Mandy: yes.
Ashley: Another thing that you said that makes me think about this too is, is that there is no such thing as a bad publicity. There's publicity. It's how you take it and what you do with it as to whether it becomes good or bad.
If you let the stuff that you feel negatively, that you think is negative, if you let it affect you, then yes, it's bad for the theory because you've made it bad. Um, and then also the other thing that you said that really connected with me is you said the word leverage. And literally the tagline for my company is that we leverage differences to impact change.
That's what we teach people all day long.
Mandy: Mm
Ashley: And they're called empowering differences. I did an eight-year research project on how to drive empowerment faster for the differences that we have as a human. And what I can tell you, of course, especially in relation to the transgender community, that's only one of the 10 differences that I studied.
But it is one of the differences that requires lots of empowering actions. They all do, but they require different actions. If you want to empower someone's age, then mentorship is your top empowering action for age empowerment. If you want to empower someone's social economic class position as me, like I was homeless, well then investments is the top and making an investment.
And, and doing invest for people, the top empowering action. But if you want to empower gender differences, well, inclusion and educate are the top actions for gender empowerment. Um, and so that's all based on my research that I did for eight years for my company and I published a best-selling award-winning book on this topic - right? - called Empowering Differences. And it literally teaches people how to leverage their differences to impact change. That's, I'm going to bring that kind of leadership, educational priorities to Tallahassee.
Mandy: definitely. Now I'm going to buy that book, because it sounds fascinating. And I, I didn't know that you spent eight years researching this. that is fascinating. And so it's also, so I know it's, it's a book and bestselling book and then you have an online course and then your company is Empowering Differences.
Mandy: And I like, I didn't think about it being okay. It could be like a verb or an adjective and like, so, so I want to hear more about it, and because I've seen on your profile and stuff that like you have your conference on a cruise ship. Okay. That just sounds fun. So I want to hear, I have a feeling just from talking to you, you have a lot of joy and you have a lot of humor and fun.
And so. I mean, that's, we're talking about all sorts of different things, but so tell me about everything. Tell me about the, the company and how is that kind of in, in with your company? Is that one of your values in your, with your company in your life?
Ashley: Oh my gosh. Yes. Cause it's not fun. I don't do it. Same thing with running for office. I mean, everybody will say, Oh my God, that's gotta be horrible. You live in Florida. And I'm like, yeah, I just need lots of sunscreen and air conditioning. Okay. Those two things solve all ills. Trust me.
Um, uh, but yeah, so same thing for my company. So we do leadership training. We do leadership consulting. I have a proprietary technology. Thanks That measures how empowered people are live digitally as an employee engagement survey that takes 90 seconds.
Mandy: well I'm doing that.
Ashley: so much fun. And then we do that for individuals as well. And then I produce a conference every year.
This is our third year coming up in December of 2024. And the conference is called the Voyage of Empowerment.
Mandy: Ooh!
Ashley: The Voyage of Empowerment is an annual conference where about 20 percent of the attendees are transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming, so it's not like the normal conference.
Mandy: No, that's a huge percentage. Yeah, exactly. I mean, when you think about just, uh, what are those statistics now? Is it 5%? No, of, of adults naturally. Anyway, go ahead. 20 percent is a lot bigger. Okay.
Ashley: 20 percent is huge. Yeah. Um, and so then, but then about 30 or 40 percent of the attendees are people who run companies. It's like executives are people who are in executive leadership positions as well. So like the head of supplier diversity for, for Boston Scientific, and then there's like the EVP for Gallagher Insurance, and then there's like the Program Manager for Comcast. And then there's like the community leader for Western Union and then there's like, it's all of my clients and then they're sending their executives and leaders on the ship. So, we've combined people from so many differences to learn about how to drive empowerment through the four steps. So really the four steps is what drives my company.
So step one, if you're listening and you're wondering what is step one, if you go to empoweringdifferences.com and you click the Self Assessments tab, you can actually download the resource for step one, which is an emotional intelligence questionnaire. The emotional intelligence questionnaire is 21 questions that are mostly open-ended. Save it as a blank copy first on your computer. Then take the second copy that you saved and date it for the date that you're going to fill it out. It's a fillable PDF, you can utilize it and answer the questions and memorialize it to the date that you've done it. But save that blank one because in the future, I'm definitely going to ask you to go and answer the questions again and compare your answers, okay?
Because that's how you acquire self-actualization in relation to your own connection to your emotional intelligence. To acquire EQ, emotional quotient, or emotional intelligence, you have to really understand your existence in the world and how that interacts with people who are different. That's why empowering difference is so important.
Um, but beyond that, once you go through and go through this step one of Know Yourself, you'll realize step two is to Know Others. And this is where you learn about the differences that we have. So obviously the book that I published is a really good resource for that. Because it features, almost I think about 15 people, from our initial research group, and they share how they drove empowerment and which of the differences were impacted and which actions they focused on as a leader.
And then the fun thing that my company does is right, which then we try to get interactive with this stuff. So step three is to Develop Your Strategy. And the strategy is what I was saying earlier, that certain actions really are best for certain differences, right? Like I have three hidden disabilities and they don't always come up in every day or every conversation, but ultimately I have to be very mindful to know that they're always happening and every day.
And it's up to me to know that if I want to drive empowerment for certain of those. Then, then what I have access to is really the biggest resource for me. So access is the top action for differing abilities. And so each of the actions are certain actions that are top actions for differences. And it's like good leaders learn this. So, you know, the fourth and final step is the Empowering Actions, as we call them. And to make an action an empowering action means that people have to be able to communicate what is actually making it empowering. Can't just put a label and say, Oh, it's empowering and think that everybody's going to be all happy with that.
Empowerment is authority and power connected to people. Those three things have to be present based on the definition of empowerment. So what is it, right? Well,
Mandy: Mm hmm.
Ashley: Authority is the emotional side of the empowerment that's happening. It's how it made you feel and how, how you made the other person feel.
Okay. It's also compassion, love, a Free Mom Hug, telling people please and thank you. That was what we found out from our research study. 85% of all things that are empowerment to people are all emotionally charged in nature, like these things saying, I love you, right? I mean, like, literally, you can't get any better than that, you know, when you're thinking about how you want to drive empowerment for someone, but those things are very hard to track because we don't as humans really keep track of these kinds of things.
And then the other part, power, is very different because power is always intrinsically measured, right? You go on your iPhone, right? When it's like getting at 19%, it says, Hey, would you like to engage low power mode? And like, in the building you're in right now, there's a meter that's running, right? And it's counting kilowatts of power, right?
And they're wanting, they're going to charge you for it, right? They're always going to know the receipts don't lie. I mean, I worked in the banking industry and you know, the bank always knows exactly how much money you have in your account. The power could be out, but somehow they keep track of what's in the account.
Your available to balance your ledger balance. It's all tracked. Time is the most commonly answered item in relation to people who track their empowerment.
Mandy: Tell me more about that.
Ashley: So our survey around the world when I asked them, what is empowerment? 10 percent of the people told me time-related answers was empowerment to them.
They said, Oh, what is empowerment? More time with my family. What is empowerment? Oh, well, that's double the amount of vacation time. Uh, what does empowerment only having to work a four-day work week or a six-hour work day or, uh, empowerment is, uh, not having to work on the weekend anymore. Empowerment is right, literally people kept telling us that empowerment was so much tied to their calendar because of the emotional control it has over them.
Then 5 percent of the people told us that it was, the money was what had that emotional control over them. But money also is incredibly easy to track because like I said, the bank always knows. The receipts don't lie.
Uh, so when you think about like people wanting to track their own empowerment, this is where you realize that, Oh my gosh, if I want to actually use this word empowerment and I want to actually say that I'm doing an empowering action. You have to be able to say what, how is it emotionally addressing a person, could be you, but hopefully it's you and someone else.
And but people don't ever give the honest answer, right? You could be in the self checkout line and ask you, how was your experience? And you're like, yeah, I did a great job as the cashier, right?
Mandy: Ha ha
Ashley: Um, and then what is the power? So how much minutes, hours, seconds, how much money, what have you driven? What's the revenue for the organization, right?
These are always the secret sauce into how we can actually showcase our economic output as a community and then who the people are doing it. So I call that the app of empowerment: Authority, Power, People. If you focus on those things and you tie that to what you're doing to impact people, then you're going to obviously definitely connect empowerment to people.
So that's what we do, and it's super fun. We do this in, obviously on a cruise ship, we do this, we do this even with our new conversational cards that we just launched.
Mandy: I saw that. Okay. Tell me about those. How fun.
Ashley: these are so cool. So yeah, the cards just ultimately connect to things like our research, right? And so literally we'll have a question, like question two from my research is on this card, right?
Which was: what about you limits your ability to have more empowerment?
Mandy: Oh, oh, no.
Ashley: Answer this and discuss as a group. Track what percent of the group mentions “I” statements. Because my research, I found that 63 percent of the people around the world owned the limiting for their own empowerment. It may have been different things about them, but they owned it either way. So for some people, they said that it was that they didn't go through enough education. They didn't get a good enough grades in school. They haven't earned enough money. They're, they're not old enough, right? I mean, like literally you have to be 35 to be the President of the United States of America. Right? So if that's somebody's goal to be empowered, then, you know, they might not be able to do that.
Right. You know, so just thinking about all these things that can navigate towards limiting people. And sometimes we as people are the most limiting of what we want to accomplish. And this is a big thing that I've noticed in my years of being a transgender advocate. Obviously, I'm an advocate in general for all people.
And I'm an advocate even for white, hetero, cisgender people. I'm a big advocate for them too.
Mandy: Do they really need more? Do they need more advocacy?
Ashley: They definitely need more advocacy to see the other side of the coin.
Mandy: Okay.
Ashley: Right. Like literally, um, you know, I was the DEI person when George Floyd was murdered.
Mandy: Oh, wow.
Ashley: But I was a DEI person responsible for 60,000 employees.
Mandy: Wow.
Ashley: How many phone calls do you think I got? Okay. From people. And do you know who I got the phone calls from? It was the white cisgender straight guys who were calling me trying to figure out what they had to do. Obviously, they asked the right question, but were they asking the right person that question?
Mandy: Yeah. Cause they.
Ashley: Cause my boss was a black woman,
Mandy: Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.
Ashley: But, but when it comes to race, right, people are afraid to ask questions, uh, you know, cause they are so fearful of asking the wrong question. It's the same thing about people having questions about the transgender community.
Mandy: Yeah.
Ashley: You know, they're afraid to ask. So then, you know, and they, this is why what you do is so important because right, you're the mom and everybody's comfortable coming to talk to mom. Right? I mean, it's like you're at the dining room table. I mean, the mom's going to be there. Mom's you regardless. You know this.
Mandy: Oh, yeah. We would hope so.
Ashley: I mean, my, my kids know this, so, you know, but, but yeah, I mean, this is why it's so important. So yeah, I know that I have like a, I was telling like 18 stories here at once.
Mandy: No, it's great that I, I, oh, you've given me so much to think about and I, I can't wait, I can't wait to get your book because I want to, I want to read more about it and thinking like, cause also, I, yeah, I've got 18 stories in my head too, like what are, how do I limit myself and just think, so, so I'm going to have to go and like lock myself away and do some thinking today.
Um, but okay. So going back to your transgender advocacy, I'm wondering what advice you might have for people who want to kind of dip their toe in, get started with advocating for trans rights, trans equality, maybe they're not ready to run for office yet. But a lot of people ask me that, like, how do I, how do I even get started?
Whether it's, you know, cishet people or just anybody in the community. Like, what do I even do?
Ashley: Raise money.
Mandy: Yeah. Okay.
Ashley: Raise money, raise money for the candidates that are running and if raising money isn't your jam, host an event, a volunteer phone bank, text bank, because the only way to actually literally make the changes is to have a seat at the table. We have to have a seat at the table.
I mean, there are almost 200 state legislators in the state of Florida between the House and the Senate, almost 200. And so by law of averages and statistical average, right, if we're less than half of what a little bit more than less than half of 1 percent of the population, which I think it's way higher, right, right?
So if it's, you know, if it's 1%, right, then we should have 1 to 2 state legislators. Okay, out of that many people, you know, so this is a perfect example of saying, okay, wait a minute. You know, have we been focusing so much effort on a community that's real small and, and not talking about the real issues.
So I think the other thing that you can do, if raising money isn't your jam, then think about, and, and if you don't want to get involved in politics from a volunteer some standpoint, do the regular shit every day, right? Like literally
Mandy: Like what?
Ashley: be the barista, be the teller, be the regular, do the regular shit, do the regular shit every single day, because you doing the regular shit will literally present the scenario that we're doing right where we don't have to be like, literally, I'm just thinking about this.
I'm going
Mandy: No, wait, when you're saying, when you're saying you, do you mean transgender people or who, who's doing the regular stuff? Regular shit.
Ashley: Yeah, just, yeah, do the regular things like literally, be the banker, be the mortgage loan officer, be the broker, be the stock person, be the, the server, be the manager, be the, be all of these things. But be you being there, right?
Mandy: hmm. Mm hmm.
Ashley: it's like, what Harvey Milk said so long ago, right?
We're your postal workers, we’re your teachers, we're your grocery clerk, we're your meat person, we do all these positions already anyways, we've been in society doing them. Do that, just do what you do. but do it as you, and be you. I think that that, that's pretty powerful.
And then, and also that's probably not for everyone either.
Mandy: Yeah. Yeah.
Ashley: I get asked this too, another thing I see a lot is that people want to be an advocate in the trans community and, don't also at the same time don't be the professional transgender person either. I think there's a fine line.
Mandy: Ooh. Okay, tell me about that.
Ashley: Well, so basically, you're going to get pigeonholed as the trans person.
Mandy: Ah.
Ashley: It's going to happen at some point, just know that. And every time that it happens, pivot back to your talking points, pivot back to what it is that you do and how you do what you do and you're the best at what you do.
Mandy: Mm
Ashley: right? Cause somebody's going to want to, they're going to want you to do the Trans 101.
Mandy: Oh, yeah.
Ashley: going to want you to, you know, share your story. They're going to want you to do those things. And I'm going to challenge you to say, well, I can tell you the story about being a broker. I can tell you the story about being the bartender. I can tell you that story. If you want someone to teach you about trans inclusion, here are the 10 organizations that I would hire to do that.
Mandy: Yeah. Yeah. So like, yeah. Unless you're gonna pay me, then don't don't treat me like google or the consultant.
Ashley: Well, right. But that's what I've seen. Like literally that's like, if you're going to be the speaker and the educator or the expert, don't be the trans speaker.
Mandy: Mm
Ashley: Be the leadership speaker like Ashley or be the environmental speaker or be the social governance speaker be that right? Everybody wants to be a speaker these days, right?
They see someone like me getting paid to go and show up at a company, right, right? And yeah, I'm trans, but I'm not doing a Trans 101, right.
Mandy: Yeah. Yeah.
Ashley: I’m really presenting leadership and resources and tools that help all people. All people part. Have to make sure that the message works for all people.
So many other trans people also come to me and they say, actually, I want to write a book. Well, Empowering Differences started as a much different book, actually. It started out just as a story about how I overcame harassment, discrimination, and homelessness and became the National Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion in four and a half years.
Mandy: Which is a great story.
Ashley: It’s a fantastic story, but who's the market audience for that story?
Mandy: Mm
Ashley: Know your audience.
Mandy: hmm. Mm
Ashley: So, if I'm going to sell that story, just that story, the audience then is half of 1 percent of the entire population of the United States of America. Don't write a book and make a strategic investment in something that has such a small market cap.
Mandy: hmm.
Ashley: Broaden out, zoom out on what the actual message is. So the message was empowering differences. Everyone has the differences. Everyone could be doing empowerment and that's applicable to all people. So the white cisgender straight guy could pick up my book and get something out of it. And yeah, of course, I tell some stories in the book about what I had to go through or I had a door slammed in my face while trying to find employment. Yeah, he's going to read that, but he picked up my book because it's a leadership book and something that's relevant to all people potentially.
Mandy: Mm hmm.
Ashley: That's the secret sauce in advocacy work. The real change happens when we can reach the mass market communities. The real change happens when someone sees the value in what we do broader.
Mandy: So it sounds like that your experience and your lived experience informs what you are doing now and like with the message that you have, but not necessarily the center, like you're not the professional transgender person, but say if you're the best barista ever. Yeah. Who knows, maybe your life experience as a trans person might inform that work, but with this kind of outlook and philosophy that your story is more about being the barista because it's more, applicable, more relatable, I guess, to more people.
Is that kind of how we're going? Yeah. Okay.
Ashley: We're never going to get someone to pick up a transgender book that is anti-trans,
Mandy: Oh no,
Ashley: right? But we can focus our efforts in the middle.
Mandy: The movable middle.
Ashley: By literally doing all the things that we can do in the regular spaces. And then getting to know us as real people every day who all have our own commitment and who all can bring something to the economic output of your city, your state, your county, wherever it is that you live.
Mandy: hmm.
Ashley: Know what that is. And that is where you want to live in that space. There's a lot, I've listed a lot of different ways to get involved and it's going to look differently based on whether you're an introvert or extrovert, right? And all those things are going to have an impact on that.
Mandy: Mhm.
Ashley: But you really have to be super purposeful in this mission to understand that if you're not able to make this make sense for the movable middle, then you need to send me an email. Send me an email and I'll tell you. Okay. Send me an email. Send me a note. Okay. Send me a message and I'll promise I'll do my best to get back to you as fast as seemingly possible. Okay. But this is, this is what we have to be able to figure out to make our content or whatever it is that we're talking about mass market approval situation.
Mandy: Okay. So I might have to rethink some of my messages, just thinking of, I mean, there are a lot of people who I'm sure see what I do and, uh, well, you know, judging by all the trolls I get, they are not interested in what I have to say.
Ashley: Right. Well,
Mandy: and they are not the movable middle. But, you know, if I ever had, say, a book in there somewhere, then, I can see the value, definitely, of making it, like you were saying, more relatable so more people can learn from it and, and find value in it instead of like, here is the story of being a mom of a trans kid. And yes, that's great. And like you said, that's going to be a really limited market or limited impact.
Ashley: It's, right, it's here's the story of being an amazing mom to kids that are different.
Mandy: There you go.
Ashley: Right? I mean, that's simple zoom out.
Mandy: Yeah. Kind of like
Ashley: level above, right?
Mandy: yeah, yeah. It's almost like putting more layers on the onion rather than taking them off in a way.
Ashley: 100 percent yes, and I know that that stuff may seem like, oh, are we covering? But while we're not really covering, we're just covering enough to get someone to open up.
Mandy: Yeah.
Ashley: And then we can hit them with all the stories, all the same content that you were gonna have before. We're just putting it in a different wrapper, and let me give you a really good example of what this looks like.
Does Coca Cola sell Coke one way, the same way around the country and around the world. No, they do not. Right? You can literally go around the world and Coke tastes different. It looks different. It's bottled different. It's advertised different. It's marketed differently, as you move around the world. In some places, even around the country here in the United States. Right?
Mandy: huh.
Ashley: Coke Classic. Literally. One product, right. But ultimately Mexican Coke, people buy Mexican Coke everywhere, right?
Mandy: Oh yeah.
Ashley: and then like I had the Coke from Thailand. Okay? and then you, you see Coke in the UK and it looks different. And then you, and then you see the polar bear comes out and it's like, wow, Coca-Cola is marketing Coke so many different ways. Why the hell do we not market the transgender community in so many different ways also?
Mandy: Yeah, that makes sense. Again. Yeah. To be relatable and to reach more people and gosh. I mean, you could think about it like a ripple effect or, getting more people to dig into their empathy and, kind of having that relatability, move into empathy and understanding and moving all that way, definitely.
Well, thank you so much for your time. This has been so much fun. I have learned so much and now I have my reading that I'll need to go do, so okay. So how can people find you? Where do you want them to go? What do you want them to do? Tell me all the things. Hmm.
Ashley: First things, first, well, I, I don't know, they're both equally important. I mean, one can change your world and then one changes the world.
Mandy: Let's see.
Ashley: Okay. Um,
Mandy: They’re both good.
Ashley: So if you want to help us in our campaign, we'll start there. Okay. All right. AshleyBrundage.com and on AshleyBrundage.com. you can support our campaign, get involved. We have a primary right around the corner on August 20th. We're running against another Democrat, which is not ideal. But we have a budget of $25,000 for the primary for all of our communication for the primary, all the other things that we're doing surrounding the primary.
So obviously we need to fundraise for that. Uh, so if anybody wants to, to support, then definitely, if you want to invite me to come to your house, to your city, and you're going to introduce me to all of your friends and families and relatives, and then their friends and families and relatives, I will get on a plane. I have airline miles. I will show up in any city and literally tell them about how we can send Ron DeSantis a message. By electing me, by sending me to Tallahassee, okay, we can literally send Ron a message. So that's one. And then the other
Mandy: Yeah. Okay.
Ashley: is Empowering Differences is your home for all things fun and engaging for my empowerment research, my organization, our speaker partners that we have. We have a litany of people that we work with. This is where you can get copies of the book where I'll sign them. You can get your cards. They're available only online in stores on my site or on the Society for Human Resources Management is our partner on this item
Mandy: Oh, okay.
Ashley: Where we sell them through their store online, SHERM, if anybody knows who SHERM is.
People can buy the books. Don't go to Amazon cause then you're empowering Jeff Bezos. Think that guy's got enough money.
Mandy: Probably so. Yeah. We don't need to empower Okay. So listener, if you want to support Ashley and her work and the many, many things that she does, please do all the things, support, donate to her campaign and buy her book, buy the cards, do the things. and I've just enjoyed this so much. Thank you. And I can't wait to meet you in person someday.
Ashley: Oh my gosh. We're totally doing that.
Mandy: All right. Thank you for your time. Bye.