Wade Davis, former NFL player and thought leader on gender, racial, and LGBTQ+ equality joined us to share his expertise and journey navigating his own intersectionality. Coined by Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, the term “intersectionality” captures the interlocking and overlapping identities of a given person or group.
As an advocate for bringing one’s full self to the workplace, Davis shared his own lived experience, including publicly coming out as gay after his time as a professional football player. He spoke about the notion of “owning who you are” and urged the audience to challenge their definition of “masculinity” to allow space for the complexities of our own identities. Davis reflected on the dichotomy between tenderness and masculinity that existed for him and emphasized that both can be true within one person. He encouraged attendees to thoughtfully engage with all aspects of identity by making deliberate choices to ask better questions and letting go of the need to be “right” or “good.” The conversation led to a deeper understanding and examination of our interconnected dimensions of difference, better enabling these aspects of oneself to be fully realized. Listen to a clip from the talk above.