Thomas Ryan-Lawrence
In 2003, Thomas Ryan-Lawrence earned a B.B.A. in marketing from Georgia State’s Robinson College of Business, quickly landing a job offer from a mid-size marketing firm. But the offer came with strings attached: he’d have to “butch it up” when interacting with conservative clients. He declined the position. Despite his passion for numbers and heavy interest in statistical analysis, he joined the sales team at the Gay Yellow Pages—because he knew he would feel safe there. In 2009, he founded Gayborhood, the Gay Yellow Pages’ digital counterpart.
Two decades later, Ryan-Lawrence thought the landscape would have improved for diverse talent. A conversation with Georgia State’s vice president for student engagement made him realize the climate has actually gotten worse. Plus, through a six-year stint on the board of a K-8 public charter school, he witnessed middle schoolers struggling to come to terms with their sexual orientation and gender identity first-hand.
“When I graduated from college, people were either gay or straight, and masculine or feminine. But now there’s a wider spectrum of sexual orientation and gender identity,” Ryan-Lawrence said. “One in three Gen Z-ers consider themselves not straight or non-binary. And they’re interviewing with millennials, Gen X-ers, and in some cases Baby Boomers who don’t have a clue about gender fluidity. I had insulated myself within an LGBTQ+ bubble.”
Sparked by the wake-up call, Ryan-Lawrence established the Q+ Equality Foundation, a nonprofit that works with small and mid-size companies on fostering a welcoming environment and showcasing their dedication to inclusivity through a Q+ Workplace designation. More than 100 companies have earned the designation, available at the elite, gold elite, and platinum levels based on the achievement of sets of milestones. The foundation connects gender diverse talent with these employers through collaboration with 857 and counting colleges and universities nationwide.
The foundation’s lean staff comprises three full-time and two part-time employees with other professional commitments. (For example, Ryan-Lawrence is founder and vice president of boutique consulting firm ARK Leadership and founder of diversity and inclusion training platform Opinly. Though he stepped away from his operations role at Gayborhood, he still attends weekly all-hands meetings and supports the organization as needed.) However, the foundation is growing at an exponential pace. To fill the gap, almost 100 mid- and senior-level professionals volunteer as Equality Ambassadors. Ambassadors not only serve as initial points of contact with companies but also meet virtually with students in need of career coaching, resume reviews, and mock interviews.
Through his work with the foundation, Ryan-Lawrence has found that even simple changes can make an enormous impact on employee well-being. One example is an Indian restaurant in New York City’s Upper East Side with an unintentionally alienating dress code. Waitstaff were required to wear formal attire stereotypically prescribed to their sex, with only team captains donning suits. When a non-cisgender female expressed a preference to wear a suit, management approached Ryan-Lawrence, assuming the issue would take several days to resolve. Ryan-Lawrence responded within minutes: remove the “female” and “male” headers from the dress code, replace the gender-specific attire with a list of approved uniforms, and have floor captains start distinguishing themselves with lapel pins.
“It was a simple fix,” Ryan-Lawrence said. “Nowadays, it means so much to employees for leadership to listen and show they care. That’s worth more than a holiday bonus ever could be.”
The foundation also offers a program called “Ask Anything Q+” to employees of Q+ Workplaces. By submitting an email or calling an 800 number, they can anonymously submit pressing concerns of a professional or personal nature. Recently, a mother from a small Midwest town sent an email requesting guidance on how to support her son, a high school student who recently had come out and was in the process of applying to college. If he chose a more conservative school, she worried about his safety. Ryan-Lawrence not only connected the woman with local support resources but also made a personal phone call to her son.
“He wasn’t going to accept advice from his mother as well as he would from someone who’s been through what he’s about to experience. He didn’t want to live in the closet anymore, so I encouraged him to look at a more accepting school,” Ryan-Lawrence said. “The college years are so formidable. If he doesn’t feel comfortable being his authentic self, he’ll develop patterns of code switching that will be difficult to break down the line. It was great to be a resource to someone who didn’t know where else to find help.”
Ryan-Lawrence’s work requires a delicate balance. While his calling is to advocate for workplace inclusivity, he believes gender diverse talent should be polite and acknowledge when employers try.
Ryan-Lawrence with his son and husband at Center Parc Stadium
“Sometimes, we members of the Q+ community have a chip on our shoulder as a result of the baggage we carry—and that can influence how we interact with people,” Ryan-Lawrence said. “If an interviewer doesn’t use your preferred pronouns, don’t fly off the handle. If someone is making a genuine effort, give them some grace.”
Ironically, the discrimination Ryan-Lawrence faced early in his career steered him toward his calling. But even he felt self-conscious about his gender expression until he and his husband adopted a son. In fact, a babysitter who regularly painted his son’s nails encouraged Ryan-Lawrence to wear nail polish while speaking about inclusion at a conference.
“I’ve always been effeminate and felt self-conscious about it for a long time,” he said. “I give my son a lot of credit. I got some stares at the airport on the way to the conference, but becoming a father has helped me let go of my anxiety and self-doubt.”