“Lesbians Need to be Visible to Ensure We’re Not Forgotten”
Interview with Cynthia Fortlage, keynote speaker, award-winning leader in inclusive culture transformation, and founder and CEO of the Fortlage Collective, on the meaning of lesbian visibility in today’s world
As a woman with a trans history, Cynthia Fortlage’s gender journey was “actually very straightforward,” she says. “It was always very clear for me from the age of four to the point at age 48 where I had the language, but it took me to age of 50 to be able to actually say it, and that was as a C suite executive.”
By contrast, although she identifies sexually as a lesbian, her journey to get here was far from straightforward.
“When people accepted my identity as Cynthia, as a woman who has a trans history, which is how I describe myself these days, the reality is that I also immediately aligned my sexuality in a binary way,” she says. In other words, she started dating men.
“I’m no gold star lesbian!”
The challenge was that Cynthia had never had any sexual interest in men. Yet now she felt a kind of binary pressure to conform. As she says: “I’d never cheated on my wife of 32 years with a man. I had no sexual interest in men, but as Cynthia, I immediately started trying to date men.”
Specifically, Cynthia found she was particularly attractive to certain white, heterosexual, cisgendered men, “who wanted me to be their dirty little secret on the side.”
At first, this attention felt validating to her identity as a woman. Before long, however, it came to feel toxic and transactional. In the decade since, Cynthia – who describes herself as a “hopeful romantic” – has learned that she needs a level of emotional connection in a relationship that “I only get with other women.”
Or indeed, one other woman, since Cynthia is also monogamous. It’s been quite a journey and, as Cynthia says, “I’m no gold-star lesbian!” Yet her experience has also given her a range of insights into the nature of privilege and the struggles that women face – many of which heterosexual white men are simply unaware.
“If you’re going through life and you’re enjoying perceived white, masculine, heterosexual privilege – and I was in that space, I never knew that I had privilege. In other words, it was unconscious privilege that I was enjoying that created an unconscious bias.”
For Cynthia, the unconscious aspect is important to remember. For while she is clear that sexism and misogyny exist – and she has experienced them herself – unconscious bias is not something people should be blamed or shamed for.
“My first reaction was ‘Holy shit, is this the way the world really is?’”
“When I entered into my authentic self, my blinders disappeared,” she says. “Honestly, my first reaction was, ‘Holy shit, is this the way the world really is?’ Like, I had never seen it. I wasn’t ignoring it. I literally never saw it because my privilege meant I never had to see it.”
This then, is why lesbian visibility as a concept is important – it’s a stark reminder of the challenges that lesbians face, not to mention women more broadly. And privilege is best understood as a set of blinkers which blinds people to the isms of life they are not directly exposed to.
Indeed, Cynthia is keen to emphasize the many layers of oppression within society. Women face certain kinds of oppression – as do marginalized men. There are many levels of intersectionality which can compound this effect, such as having an LGBTQ+ identity, or being from a marginalized ethnicity.
This complexity of oppression is why Cynthia says that, in her work at the Fortlage Collective, she feels she must prioritize which groups she focuses on supporting. And her she is clear, that her focus is first women, then the LGBTQ+ community, and then trans people specifically.
“I’m all about inclusion, because diversity follows with it”
This complexity is also, in part, why she is clear that inclusion is her focus. “I’m all about inclusion, because diversity follows with it,” Cynthia says.
“Women already make up 50% of the workplace. What we’re not seeing is them being given the opportunities to be included and advanced. And so that’s why inclusion right now is the huge missing linchpin for so many women to advance. And for queer women, it affects them even more.”
This is one of the ideas that underpins the work of the Fortlage Collective, which works with companies in insurance and other sectors to mentor women, run educational sessions, and what Cynthia describes as “all of the traditional kind of consulting, advisory services within the diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging space, which I just refer to as inclusion.”
Teaching one billion people by 2025
In talking about her work, Cynthia is proud of having mentored over thirty women professionally, but her ambitions go way beyond this:
“I’m a very spiritual person. I’m very driven. I was given an amazing insight through my journey, and that was the phrase or philosophy of living your life through ‘acceptance without understanding’”.
And that’s not all. Through what she describes as a kind of meditative dialogue with her spirit, Cynthia came to believe she wasn’t yet doing enough to spread her message around the world.
“I have committed to teaching one billion people about acceptance without understanding by the year 2050, and that I know I can’t do myself, that I need many others who believe in the same philosophy. And so I want to create a global entity that will be responsible for taking this vision that I’m creating and driving and help in delivering it on a global basis.”
For Cynthia, this “acceptance without understanding” is the key to promoting inclusion, both at an organizational and individual level – as well as throughout society more broadly. But what does it mean?
“Acceptance without understanding” is the key to a more equitable society
“Because we’re all unique, individual human beings, we are beyond understanding. Most of us don’t even understand ourselves!” Cynthia says.
“Your only real choice when you meet somebody who’s not like you is to accept without understanding. Because only when you do that do you have a chance to create a safe space, to have dialogue, to grow to acceptance with understanding.”
This does not mean everyone has to agree. In fact, we as individuals are so diverse in our attitudes and experiences that agreement is almost impossible. But we’re never going to get along unless we first accept people without judgement, Cynthia believes.
“When we encounter people who are not progressing through their life, they’re not progressing and growing as a human being,” she says. “This is where I like to apply my tool of looking at life like a clock. A clock is designed for one thing, to move forward through life. And that’s our job as human beings – to continue moving forward through life and to remain open to others.”
It is by accepting difference that we’re then able to seek to progress on contentious issues. “It allows us to enter a safe space where we can be curious and seek understanding in good faith.”
The need to reclaim lesbian identity
So why is it that lesbian identity can be so troubling for gay women? Two reasons, Cynthia believes.
One is the sexual fetishizing of lesbianism by many heterosexual men and mainstream culture more generally. The other is perhaps more difficult to discuss, and it’s the stigmatization of lesbians as the “purple menace” during the second wave of feminism.
“It wasn’t until the introduction of intersectionality within the third wave of feminism that lesbians began to find their place, which is why, when we talk of that era of feminism, it was very much related to the lesbians coming into power within the feminist movement, really owning their feminist identity as lesbians,” Cynthia explains.
“And so today, when we look at the idea of intersectionality and inclusion as defined in the fourth wave of feminism – the wave we’re in currently – that includes women like me.”
Gay women have had to reclaim the term “lesbian.” Once a slur, many now rightly see it as a badge of pride going back centuries to the early lesbian identities of the ancient world.
“Lesbians need to be visible to ensure that we’re not forgotten, not assumed, or dragged under the assumption of what gay men might need, or what the bisexual community might need. The individual and unique needs of lesbian women need to be heard and seen equally. If we can remove the stigma, there would be a lot more of us that would identify. But I think we’re still carrying some of the shame that began with the idea of the purple menace.”
Supporting lesbians in a world of multilayered challenges
In such a wide-ranging conversation, it’s impossible to cover everything. And with so much complexity, how can organisations respond? How do companies and leaders support and uplift their lesbian employees when there are so many biases – including those that exist between women and within the LGBTQ+ community against lesbians? Indeed, how can organisations judge merit when unconscious biases influence what “merit” even means?
“Meritocracy works great in a perfectly equitable world which recognizes the individual needs of diverse groups and different individuals. But the world today is not equitable. It’s more a steep slope than a level playing field for many,” Cynthia says.
“That’s why everything really begins with education. But more than that, we know that when inclusive behaviours are modelled, that permeates through an organisation and actually has positive business results.”
“Companies spend a lot more developing their leadership than their employees”
Yet one area where businesses could do more is developing their employees. As Cynthia says “What a lot of people don’t realize is companies spend a lot more developing their leadership than they do their employees. Which is crazy when you think about it, right?”
This is another example of unconscious bias – one that can have a stifling effect on the motivations of LGBTQ+ employees and women in particular.
This is another area where the idea of progressive openness can be helpful. Indeed, Cynthia has found many companies who are open to developing, training, and mentoring employees once they understand that they have this bias. When people remain open, they can become aware of and challenge their biases – which takes us back full circle to the idea of promoting “acceptance without understanding.”
“Corporates may be quiet on DEI, but many are still doing the work behind the scenes”
Although a clear-eyed realist, Cynthia is also an idealist in the best sense of the word. So, having come to the darker part of our conversation, it’s time to ask how lesbians and the LGBTQ+ community should respond to the challenging times we currently face.
“I’ll give you three quick things to work with,” Cynthia says.
“First, many of those in power are clear on their priorities. That means we can plan because we know what we’re dealing with.”
Second? “I have never seen so many conversations going on about the cohesiveness of the community and how we all come together, not just the LGBTQ community, but all oppressed peoples. We are talking and we are planning.”
And third? “The corporate space is very quiet right now intentionally. They’re not putting their heads above the parapet. But they are still doing the work behind the scenes. That probably means we won’t see them in Prides, and we won’t see flags flying. But you know what? I would rather see that money redirected into other efforts to help uplift the community, without them having to change their branding and simply rainbow washing their logo for a month.”
“Our relationships are valid; our identities are not made up”
Having covered so many wide-ranging points, what is the most important thing people should understand about the lesbian community right now?
Typically, given the breadth of her research and interests, Cynthia finds it hard to restrict herself to just one point. Instead, she leaves us with two.
The first is something we have yet to discuss, and that’s the support lesbians lack right now in most countries when it comes to having families. “IVF support is not oriented to help lesbians, and that’s something that governments really need to think more about.”
It’s a timely point, and one that Link is co-hosting an event in part to discuss on the 24th April.
Cynthia’s second point is perhaps more timeless: “We are here. Our relationships are valid, our identities are not made up, and love is love.”
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