 Hello and welcome to New America for our second annual collaboration without national security to roll out and celebrate their leaders in new voices list. We're all hopeful that maybe this is the last time we have to do this only virtually, but nonetheless we're thrilled to welcome so many of you virtually as we celebrate honorees currently serving in government the military thanks tanks academia and non governmental organizations and celebrate a partnership and out in national securities leadership in making sure that those who lead the nation look like those they're sworn to serve. And that both the who and the what of national security policy expand to represent this whole great nation of ours. Here from today's honorees and our special guest representative Alyssa Slotkin, you might also like to check out on social media are looking like America campaign where you'll see some of this year's honorees last year's honorees, some of out in national securities founders, who have been called to serve in the new administration in various roles in a really unprecedented show of openness and progress on on exactly the issues that we're going to be talking about today. But first, before we hear from some of our honorees we will hear from representative slack and in a conversation moderated by one of this year's honorees, Laura Thomas representative slack and really needs no introduction, Laura is going to give her one but we are thrilled to have her here in her championship of American democracy sensible national security policy and diversity equity and inclusion. Laura Thomas is the senior director of national security solutions for cold quanta, and she's also a former Central Intelligence Agency case officer and chief of base, which for 16 years gave her service in national security and leadership roles across the US intelligence community, including the National Security Council, Department of State Department of Defense US Congress and foreign partners so I really couldn't ask for two better folks to kick off both the, the breadth and depth of how this community is really changing and opening up opportunities for what national security looks like and how we do it better. So Laura over to you. Thank you so much Heather for that introduction on behalf of New America. It's really my pleasure to be here today as your host to celebrate our 2021 out in national security list. In addition to our out leaders today we will have a discussion with someone who has had a number of national security career path changes, but certainly no change in mission. One is to ensure that the security of all Americans and that we all feel safe in our communities just as we are. I'm thrilled to introduce Michigan's eight congressional district representative Melissa Slotkin representative slot can I share common background at CIA, and she took that role to even more impactful levels. Now in Congress for a second term, she is the chairwoman of the intelligence and counterterrorism subcommittee within the House Committee on Homeland Security, and also sits on the House Armed Services and Veterans Affairs committees. Prior to representing Michigan's eighth district she served three tours in Iraq, and she's also held roles at the White House, VNI and Pentagon. Melissa Slotkin, thank you so much for being here with us today as a national security veteran and leader. We would love to hear what it means to you to speak to those of us out in national security. Absolutely, thank you Laura. And it is nice to be with my national security peeps. And I always enjoy talking with folks who are in the thick of it in the national security world because our work is so so important and I want to thank everyone who I know is somewhere in the audience there who co founded, you know, and is now president of out in national security there is, and, in particular for helping to get me here and reaching out happy to always do that. And then I will start by wishing everyone a happy pride. And the good news is COVID is like just getting to a place where we can actually start having some real pride events. I'm excited because this weekend. We're doing our first big pride event in the district that doesn't have to be virtual we can be out together. And it's just, that's how it should be so I'm glad we're getting back to that. I think you know one of the things that when I first started running for office, maybe a lot of my national security people that I've worked with for 15 years had never known was that I grew up in a gay home. My parents divorced in the 80s when I was a little girl and my mom. I don't see she came out in suburban Detroit in 1986. They divorced because she was gay and, frankly, it was a it was not a time that was hip to be gay in suburban Detroit so there wasn't like a big coming out party it was just something that was kind of whispered in the corners, quiet, and not something that was discussed. But because of her decision and my brother and I living with her. We ended up really just growing up in the gay community of suburban Detroit. And when you grew up in the gay community in the late 80s, then you were dealing with the HIV AIDS crisis. And you know when I get asked this question as an elected official now like, how did you become political when was the first time you thought about political things or we thought about running or those kinds of things. I never thought about those questions before and when I really look back on it. It was 100% the AIDS crisis, and the fact that at that time. My parent and my dad was a good Reagan Republican and I loved my dad. And so that's who I voted for in all my student elections. But I remember that Ronald Reagan would not say the word AIDS, and the protest movement all the awakening that was going on in the gay community around just trying to save their lives. It's something that I got swept up in as a middle schooler, you know, and I think that it has informed so much of how I think about, frankly, the government, which is, we have the capacity to do important critical things every single time we protect people, but it is not perfect. And it needs constant pushing and oversight in order to be the government that we all want. And I think you guys embody that, right, your, your, your people who have been either in, or in or out of government, and you care deeply about your country and you want it to be the place that we know it can be, which is accepting of all people. So that was my formative sort of moment where I really was like, wait a minute. My government isn't doing the right thing. And that's a problem. Obviously, I was deeply affected by the loss of a lot of my mom's closest friends. And it's still my mom was very, very involved in a lot of AIDS organizations nonprofits so I just sort of grew up in that world. But to be honest, I think people are still surprised when they see, you know, someone who has a CIA and Defense Department background who obviously cares deeply about protecting the country, but also grew up in a, in a gay home. And the good news is, like, I'm not that abnormal anymore. Right. It's starting to not be an anomaly. And I'm sure many of you who are watching, you know, have children, and they're going to be able to say, you know, my parent was a LGBTQ national security person, it's going to become normal. And that's a great, great thing, because, especially as someone who was in the executive branch and now is in the legislative branch. And I think how easy it is for people working their careers in government to get siloed off from the sentiment of the people from the movement and development of social movements from the kind of latest thing that the American people are are focused on and worried about. And I think you all have a really important role to play in bringing the government along with the nation that they represent. And I'm thrilled to be speaking to you all and I'm thrilled to help in that mission. And lastly, I will just say, you know, there is, obviously, there are many aspects to our government and national security profession being inclusive to our country being inclusive. Some of it is the attitudes of our peers, and the relationship that we have with those who we serve alongside of, but some of it is just straight up laws and protections. And we need to make progress on both. And my mom passed away in 2011. And she never got to see marriage equality. You know, she she died of ovarian cancer and had a long term partner a six year partner who was by her side the entire time. And I always think about how the only reason that my mom's partner Annie was allowed to be in the room with her in the hospital to visit her in the ICU when she was her most sick to make decisions on her behalf on her care. Was be just out of the good graces of the nurses and doctors in that hospital, there was no protections, they were not legally married. And I think about what it would have been like if those people in that hospital had only gone by the letter of the law. So while we were thrilled that we had doctors and nurses who supported us and who were open minded enough to understand, we cannot rely on that that is not enough. We need legal protection under law, and I think the fight that is that we all want to sort of be a part of is on two tracks. And neither track can be ignored right it's it's talking to our peers and our kids and teachers and everybody to make sure there's acceptance but it's also getting things nailed down in law. And one of the things I'm thrilled to be able to do is now be on the legislative side where we can do that, where we can do that, especially in a place like the House Armed Services Committee that lays down all the rules for the US military. And we know when the military starts to make changes. That's when the rest of society sometimes catches up so in any case, I'm thrilled to be here. I'm happy to take your questions. Thank you for caring about this issue because it's for you but it's for so many other people so thanks so much. Thank you representative slacken for those very powerful comments culture doesn't necessarily change overnight but laws can. So we're very appreciative that that you're there representing us. I'd like to start off with one question and then we'll take some from the audience, you've said in past speeches that are single greatest national security threat is their own internal division here at home. We know foreign powers are trying to inflame culture wars and you know attempt to use support for the LGBTQ plus community as a point of division for Americans. How do you think we should tackle this as a nation. Yeah, you know it's interesting. Because definitely I mean I think. Yes, of course we have foreign actors exploiting these issues from abroad to divide Americans as a tactic to keep us busy so that we're not focused on places like Russia or China or anywhere else. But the truth is, lately, I mean, they're pushing on an open door for a lot of this stuff you know it's not like the foreign actors are the most concerning actors when it comes to things like culture war around LGBTQ issues. You watch you know certain TV stations or news outlets right now. It's like hours and hours and hours a day on kind of culture war issues that make people think that you know there's something scary coming for their kids or that you know that kind of thing. I think the most important thing because I come from a district that is that is often grappling with these issues. The most important thing that I've seen, and I guess I've just seen it also with my, my, my own family is the importance of visibility for the LGBTQ community in all aspects of life, so that people have a personal connection to someone who is gay, like it really is the best way to dispel this idea that it's, it's something other it's scary it's not me it's, it's, you know, it is, you know, and I think about it I have relatives who, you know, work homophobic until their best friend son came out and they were at the wedding, and they had to grapple with like how could I not go to the wedding of someone who I watched grow up, and they pushed through and you know I hear that same cousin bragging about how they went to a gay wedding and how I mean, great, you know what I mean if but it's personal connection we cannot forget that that's why being visible is so important that's why I know it's controversial but like gay pride flags in our shopping malls, it may be the commercialization of gay pride but it's also a way to have visibility in communities that would never otherwise have that visibility. So, I think that's number one, and then number two, we just have to be vigilant about and call a spade a spade if you see something that is homophobic, we need to call it out, we need to be vocal about it and not sweep it under the roof. And that includes in media and that includes from our local officials like we have to start demanding equality at every level, and you know we saw this with racism as well. A lot of people kind of pretended not to hear, you know allies pretended not to hear for many years when they were in line at the grocery store and now especially after the last summer. That's not okay to just pretend you didn't hear so I think a lot of it is personal on top of being vigilant in law and in legislation. Great, thank you. I certainly some of what you just said resonated with me with my own family and grappling with attending the wedding for me and my wife. I want to make sure the audience knows please if you have questions put them in the chat we're going to try to get through as many as we can. I'll move on to a second question. Yeah, you have spoken in the past about you know government can't solve all of our problems but it can provide clarity of vision and a roadmap for solutions. You know specifically on national security threats you know what do you think is the second threat that you would be looking at as a major priority and and how would you tackle it you know what's the roadmap. You said the second threat. Is that what you said. Yeah we've we've talked about internal divisions are being the first what would your second be so I got to tell you. I don't know if it's because of recent events on cyber attacks, but like it, the threat of on cybersecurity and cyber attacks has like seeped into the bloodstream and American society, because they went after a gas. They went after our hot dogs, they went after our video games like I was with the secretary of agriculture, and we did a open q amp a with a bunch of farmers in my district last week. And like, you know to see a family farmer, say like, okay open q amp a what are you worried about and he's like cyber security, I mean, it has gotten down into the meat of society, right. We don't have doctrine around cyber security, you know we don't have playbook the way we do on a traditional conventional military threat. And that is on display we saw yesterday with the summit right it's, what do we do when our pipelines are attacked what do we do if our electrical grid is attacked in Michigan in February, and 24 elderly people freeze to death in their homes. What's the proportionate response. When that happens, how do we hold people accountable and I think the younger national security people on professionals on this, you know, on the zoom, we're going to really need your help and understanding how to think about our doctrine. And because we don't have it, we don't have deterrence. It's literally like open season. Right. And I have little like town mayors coming to me being like, my town is 2000 people but I have all their personal data and I don't know the first person that's curing it. What should I do. So I think cyber security is way up there as not only a really serious threat, but also one we don't have a great answer for and the best I mean literally I was having substantive conversations today in terms of government trying to light the path. I think we need to start treating cyber security like arms control. We need to start having formalized carrots and sticks, you know, in a formal diplomatic process that holds countries accountable if bad actors are acting on their behalf or from their soil. So I would put cyber right up there at number two. Thank you. Thank you. Could you share maybe a story or something that you learned or experienced while serving overseas in Iraq that has really shaped your view of our government or things that you've sort of lessons that you go back to and it's giving you insight and principles into how you operate today. Well, listen, there are a lot of good examples and bad examples I learned from my three tours in Iraq. The, the, the positive, the thing that I felt most acutely when I was in Baghdad was all the government agencies were basically in one place right the green zone. And that was where my first tour was. And, man, when we work abroad, the US government can coordinate easily we are on the same page there's none of that bureaucratic infighting there's none of that like takes 12 weeks to get a memo signed, like, it works. And I would come back to Washington and like want to be pulling my hair out for how long things took right, and how, how political and controversial they got when you just weren't sitting in the same room with someone. So that lesson I brought with me a lot that like, you know, if my team here comes in and they're like well we're getting some weird vibes from another, you know, office on the hill or from I'm like you know what I'm just going to pick up the phone. I'm going to call the member and 99 times out of 100. It's just static. It's a game of telephone and static that's created when people get their backs up so that's a good, good lesson I learned from being under the same roof in Baghdad. Basically, I mean the most profound lesson I learned from Iraq was like, we had a failing strategy for many, many years, and we knew it, those of us on the ground knew it. And we couldn't break through for the decision makers in Washington to hear it, because they were invested in that strategy. And that's a lesson for all of us at every level. Right. If you double down on your strategy and you're unwilling to take feedback negative feedback on it and you're on and you're so dug in that you're blinded. It has significant consequences and that matters, of course, if you're going into a war but on a million other things that we all work on every single day. Thank you. All right, we have a question from the audience from Teresa. What appetite is there in the house to codify into law the protection of transgender individuals being able to serve in the military. So, that I don't think that would be a problem in the house. It's the Senate. I mean this is not this is not going to be new to anyone but you know, because of the 60 boat threshold in the Senate. Many many things that we have and will vote on in the house will never get an up or down vote in the Senate. Now, to be honest, I'm for putting it all up, and then having people be on record, right. I don't I don't love this idea that we only put boats up when they can pass. I want to know, I want to know who's going to vote against an all military force, having transgender folks serve their country. I want that I want to know, right don't let them hide by saying it never came up. In the house you that wouldn't that wouldn't be a problem that and many many other things I think the Senate is where it won't get the light of day. Okay, we have time for only one more question and this is from Nathan. What are your thoughts about how we think about LGBTQ rights abroad and our own foreign policy. Well, I know that we have certainly done some major pendulum swinging from the Obama administration to the Trump administration Trump administration and now the beginning of the Biden administration on on on basically it. I call the category, like how our internal debates in the United States play out in our foreign aid and foreign assistance packages. We see this on a ton of issues, LGBTQ issues, of course, issue the issue of abortion. A whole bunch of the issue of immigration plays out in our foreign policy, like all the internal fights that go on within the country play out in our foreign aid packages. I think that a lot of the Trump era changes are being examined in the departments of agency and departments and agencies and are being reversed if they were put in place and I know that Secretary Blinken over the State Department and over the USAID, they are looking pretty hard at what social issues affected the Trump administration aid packages, and making sure that we reverse all of those things again in the house and my peers who are on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. They are extremely supportive of making sure that that monies that we send abroad are are not discriminatory in a way that we just wouldn't accept on the domestic side. Great. Well, thank you Representative Slotkin. On behalf of all of us here today, your time, your support of our communities both LGBTQ plus communities and certainly national security community as well. Of course, happy to do it. Thank you for what you're doing for caring about our country for caring about bringing all voices to our national security. It's an awesome thing. And let me know how I can help. Okay, great. Have a good one. Bye guys. All right. I'd now like to call on Luke he's going to speak a bit more about out in national security and this year's honorees. Thank you so much Laura. Many of you have seen us on Twitter and we've been around for a couple years. My colleagues from the Obama administration Rusty Pickens and Sean Skelly set up out in national security shortly after the end of the administration because the US national security apparatus is the single largest employer of LGBTQ Americans and through the VA, one of the single largest benefits and medical providers to LGBTQ Americans. We took the view that even though it was less than 10 years after don't ask them to have been repealed in the trans man was being unrepealed and reimplemented by the Trump administration. That we needed to fill the gap and bridge between traditional LGBT advocacy and the national security apparatus which directly employs roughly a quarter million gay people in active garden reserve and beyond. We had hoped originally that we would be met with a friendly administration that would offer, you know, ways through and instead we spent a couple of years playing defense against the Trump administration. Our core goals have always been to recruit retain and promote more career people in the space to reach out and connect to the hundreds of the RG's and to make ourselves more visible and that means public education which is why I talked to the hill it's why I, you can make public articles, it's also why we do the list. We are just over a generation after the point at which it was illegal to be openly queer and hold a clearance. And there's work to do with going backwards, the love act and there's work to do going forwards about how we get to show up in the national security apparatus and that is persuading our many straight friends and allies to do the work institutionally and culturally to make the list for the community, we set up the list so people in our community and our allies could see us and understand that we're valuable professionals and so many of the young queer people who want to come into this space and serve their country could see us as well whether or not that is more senior than our friend Josh Black who's now advising Ambassador Linda Thomas Greenfield but began his career concealing his identity while serving as an FSO in Kosovo. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Jesse Salazar and Lindsay Church who founded Minority Veterans to make sure that minority vets get a seat at the table who's done remarkable work over the last couple of years. And I'm unbelievably excited to share with the world our new voices, including ROTC cadet James Wong, Leigh Swindon, who's an FSO, and Teresa Kennedy who is a US Navy civilian, each of whom demonstrate not only tremendous caliber and tremendous progress, but the breadth and depth of our community going forward. We thought it would be great to conclude the program by hearing from some of our honorees themselves and hear a bit about how they reflected on their applications so let me hand it back to you Laura. All right, thank you so much. I'm going to go through and ask a few different people on what it means to them to be out and also some advice that they have received from mentors. So we're going to kick it off with Alexandra McCargo, who is president and CEO of Precision Collective and a member of Women of Color Advancing Peace and Security. Alex, what does it mean for you to be out? Thank you everyone. So as an intersectional person, right, as a woman, as a black woman, as a queer black woman, being out has so many different layers, right? There are components of your life that are very obvious, right? I'm a woman, right? Obviously I am black and I'm a person of color. But to bring my full identity to work is something that can't be understated, right? To be able to participate in water cooler conversations or to interject all anecdotes and all parts of my personality, all parts of my personhood into my job with interactions with my colleagues and all of those pieces can't be There's no better feeling, right? To know that there's no part of you hiding, but conversely, as I do my job, everyone that is hiding a piece of their identity, that's an additional step that you're taking in order to really provide the best advice, provide the best services, whatever part that you play in this kind of grand scheme. And as long as we continue to have people unable to show their true selves, we're not getting everyone's best, right? So for me, to be out and to be out in this space is just that freedom. I mean I went back through and I saw some of the other folks that are here with me and their responses and I feel like that thread was really spun through all of our responses. It's the freedom. It's the ability to not be concerned, not be worried, not have that, you know, looming cloud over your shoulders. So to be out is freedom for me. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Alex. All right. Next up is Ari Shaw, who's the director of international programs at UCLA's Williams Institute. Ari, what does it mean to you to be out? Still muted. Sorry about that. Thanks, Laura. And thank you to ONS in New America for this really wonderful honor and the opportunity to join such incredible colleagues today. You know, I was really fortunate to come out to a family that was incredibly supportive and created a solid sort of personal foundation for coming out and my health and well-being. But professionally I didn't start my career with a highly visible set of out mentors who demonstrated that it was possible to be queer and successful in foreign policy and national security. And while I wasn't personally in the military, I feel like I still had a sense that the foreign policy in that set world was defined by Don't Ask Don't Tell and that my impression was that being gay was at best tolerated if unacknowledged. And at worst it was stigmatizing and even career ending. For me, being out means at a basic level that I'm visible to my colleagues, to family and friends, and even to people who I may never meet. It enables me to assert that queer people and queer experiences exist where I move through the world. And it also means that I can perhaps in a small way be a model for people who may still be closeted or at the beginning of their careers and show that it is possible to succeed and be true to yourself. And for me, being out also means that I am able to more fully integrate my commitment to LGBTQ rights into my professional life and work. I wish that I had known early on that focusing specifically on LGBTQ human rights wouldn't constrain me professionally or stifle opportunities, which really was a lot of the advice that I was given early on. And instead I've found that actually viewing the world through the experiences of marginalized groups has been an asset and enhances my ability to see complexity and intersections across global issues and really empathize with diverse communities. And I think that can add value to debates, not despite my queerness, but because of it. And so being out allows me to do that work that I'm currently engaged in, in an authentic way, without being afraid of stigma. So I'm really grateful to organizations like on SNU America that are that are leading the way in shaping this sort of inclusive work culture and creating communities and in the foreign policy and that set spaces for LGBTQ people. Great. Thank you so much Ari. Next we have Taylor Westball, a civil servant at the State Department, who has also worked tirelessly for Glipa, which represents and advocates for LGBTQ plus members of the State Department community. Taylor, what does it mean to you to be out. Thanks so much and thank you to Ari and Alex for your words too. When I first learned about out in national security, my boss now was on the first list and he encouraged me to apply and I think the first thing I felt was like insecurity about you know is that something that I'm even qualified for and I think when I thought about it what it means to be out it's just joy, you know, kind of as Alex was saying I've gone through periods of life where I've been more in a closet and more out and proud. And I think when I am reflecting back on my career. Being out has brought me incredible professional and personal success. I joined this job and speaking to Ari my my work completely intersects with this I work on human rights, covering the LGBT portfolio for State Department international organizations. What a beautiful marriage of things. I'm working on the first ever us sponsored side of it the Human Rights Council right now specifically around transgender rights. Being able to spend all day advocating for people in the LGBT community, while also feeling this like deep personal identity and sense of worth is so incredible. Within the last year I got engaged and married, my wife I think is listening in and being able to share that with colleagues and have their blessing, having some of them watch my zoom wedding and feeling that like love and support, has meant everything. And I think I wish I had also known earlier on that being your true self, bringing that it's really non negotiable as you continue, it takes so much energy to not be who you are. I wish you know as we talked to clip I have lots of, of young mentors I have college kids and, and they're like what is it like is it scary and I, and I constantly tell them I mean, right, there's so many different global contexts but on a day to day it's joyous. It's wonderful to be who you are and to be proud, and to, and to be that role model for other people. And I obviously want to thank my, my glypha colleagues for sort of shepherding me through this process over the last year in the affinity group. And thank the mentor West riser was on the first list and he's now my deputy director. So the leadership of those who come before us has made such a difference and thank you so much. I'm so honored to be to be on this list with so many of you. Thank you. Thank you, Taylor. Now I'm going to ask a bit about what folks have learned from mentors, because we know that mentorship is is so important to our community. And I'm going to start with Paul Angelo veteran who now is a Latin America expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. Paul, what's the best advice you ever received from a mentor and how have you incorporated it. I want to thank on SN New America for this distinction. I'm really touched and honored by my inclusion on this list with so many people that I admire and so many friends and I look forward to getting to know the rest of you that I don't know in the months and years to come. As for the piece of advice that has most influenced my professional trajectory. I think it is don't pack somebody into a corner without giving them a way out. Early in my career I possessed an extra healthy dose of confidence, and in many ways I suspect it was my way of compensating for my sexuality which at the time was a secret to everyone because of Don't ask don't tell. So, I think that that scenario made me fairly assertive when it came to defending my ideas and ways of doing things in the workplace. I was very much results oriented person but what I failed to recognize in being that way was that when you're working on a team the process is sometimes just as important as the result. And when you're working on a team the process itself should never alienate the people who make up the team. And as a young Navy lieutenant I was a liaison to the Colombian military and a mentor of mine at the time was an army. And he ingrained in me a real respect for the process something that was later reiterated while I was working for the State Department for those of you who know the State Department well, you also recognize that it's a process oriented organization. So I had a particularly prickly relationship with my Colombian counterpart somebody that had to work with on a daily basis and even though we were working towards the same goals. There were times in which you would keep information from me to make me look bad in front of my boss, and in front of his boss. And so I consulted my mentor about how to deal with the situation and his message is the motto by which I have lived in the workplace ever since never back somebody into the corner without giving them away out. I wasn't afforded that same respect from my counterpart I was going to avoid the temptation to fight fire with fire. And so I would say, of course it's very satisfying to be right about something, but I would never let that kind of smugness smugness jeopardize the professional relationships that I depend on to accomplish a mission, and I've always looked for ways in the workplace to lower the temperature of disagreement by getting opportunities to save face when they're wrong. This helps preserve rapport, earn respect but also get the job done. People will always remember being embarrassed or feeling alienated by you, and that will come back to haunt you sooner or later so if it's avoidable and most of the time it is, it's best not to do it so never back somebody into the corner without giving great. Thank you Paul, wonderful advice. So, second is shiny Chanda, one of our new voices who works for the Bangladesh environment and Development Society. What's the best advice that you've received from a mentor and how have you incorporated it. Thank you Lauren again. Thank you to us and New America for having this event and for recognizing us it's really been an honor for me and I hope I look forward to meeting new friends as as Paula said for for me particularly what I put down during the application process was this idea that I had learned from actually my father and from certain mentors in my life about how you yourself are your own harshest critic. So you will judge yourself more than anyone else will ever judge you and I think this is some somewhat of a shared experience even for folks that have been in the closet because when you have that anxiety that people are going to catch you in a lie. It's like you believe that everything that you do is extra visible. Right so I know that when I first entered the workplace I was really nervous that because I didn't feel like I wanted to wear skirts or or high heels or really dress, sort of in the way that most women in the office were dressing that that would say something about me that everyone would know and therefore they would judge me. And that you know lended to a woman people judge my ideas or maybe they'll judge my work or just always sort of putting myself in this box. And I felt like I couldn't escape from and so it took, you know a few pushes for myself to think about it in the sense that when somebody else steps up if somebody else walks in in flats and and a pants suit, I am not going to think twice about that right like I wouldn't judge anyone because I lost for that and so there's no reason for me to believe that everybody in the world is watching me. And that's helped me I think become and be able to present my own ideas and really believe that they have merit in these kinds of situations and have faith in myself. And just know that you know at the end of the day, I am going to be the hardest on myself and if that's just the truth with them, maybe I should not be because there's no reason to be so. And that's something that yeah I definitely learned from my father, as well as different mentors in my life who just have pushed me to sort of embrace who I am and the ideas that I have. So, thank you. All right, thank you a shiny. Right next is Timmy, it's Gerald and active duty naval officer who is training to be a foreign area officer. Timmy, what's the best advice you received from a mentor and how have you incorporated it. Good morning everyone. I'm so excited to be here. I head to Saudi Arabia in the fall for my next assignment to work as a senior naval advisor for the US military training mission and sent com working with the eastern naval fleet of Saudi Arabia. It's been such a pleasure talking with many of you about the upcoming challenges I may face over there in this role. The leadership advice I received can be summed up into two words, people matter. In the Navy, we tend to forget that we tend to be consumed with our own achievements, our own issues, and we forget as leaders that we need to be supportive of the people we leave. So my anecdote starts while I was serving on board my first ship in the coast in Japan. I reported on board and we got underway for about a year without returning to your coast gap. In the middle of month eight, I would say I was getting a little worn down. I hardly slept. I felt like I was always on watch and I began to feel my bright shining attitude shifting into a darker ether, so to speak. I was lucky to serve with a phenomenal senior chief. He called it like it was. He and I did not see eye to eye all the time. And our first few months together were rather tumultuous kind of sounds like Paul, and probably say the same same stories. I'm your officer and thought I knew everything. So I remember one evening after a long watch on the bridge where we were playing the role of playing guard, which sounds cool but it's really not. This is where you trail a carrier by about 1000 yards and their aircraft use your ship as a vantage point to land on the carrier at night. And we are sometimes also the first to respond if a plane misses the carrier and lands in the water. It can be stressful because the carrier will give you their proposed position and your goal as the ship driver is to not cross the path of the carrier. So this particular night I remember I performed rather poorly where I almost got our ship to run by the carrier, but I digress and that is a much longer story. So I get off the bridge and I passed my senior chief in the P way. I was on edge and he said something to me as I was walking past about a weapon system I own that just went down. I was about to say something very smart algae, and he eggs me into one of the engineering rooms nearby, and he looked at me and he said, with many more expletives that I can say here fits, pick yourself up. Stop moping around looking all mad. Your sailors look at look up to you and when they see you like this you begin to lose their respect. And I was thinking senior is to am in the morning. No one will see me but I was wrong about a couple seconds later I ran into one of my sailors who was also having terrible night. I was rushing past them angrily I was able to put aside my own emotions, took that sailor to the galley and sat and talked with her for about an hour, but what was causing stress in her life. She had no idea what my night had been like because I was able to take a deep breath and remember my position on this ship, and I was able to step up and be a leader when needed. Maybe indignantly marching down the P way she would never have stopped me, and I would never realize that she needed someone to talk to you. So from that day on I always remembered that my exterior attitude attitude at my exterior attitude matters. Life will throw you curveballs and sometimes you just need to take a deep breath to keep moving forward in a positive direction, and always remember that people matter. So thank you so much for this opportunity and I truly feel so grateful to be among such phenomenal human beings on this list. Thank you so much to me, or maybe we should call you fits from now on after that story. Finally, Heather Regan long time State Department hand, who is currently a program examiner will be. What's the best advice you've ever received from a mentor and how have you incorporated it. Thanks Laura. And this is all really excellent advice. I am honored to be among all of you. I think, really the best advice that I got earlier on in my career came as as a surprise. Thank you for the time and have the joy to work with outright action international in 2018. They are an international NGO that works on lgbtq issues globally, and I was working under United Nations program director Siri may at the time. I was really doing functional work that I loved at outright I was convening with diplomats writing policy strategy. And in a way that felt very freeing because it was in the NGO space we were able to push in a way that often you can't push as a US delegate and able to kind of work for more progressive ideas there. And at the end of my time with outright I told Siri, just how much I was enjoying my time in the advocacy and NGO space, and that I was thinking of pivoting my career because of her mentorship and her work and my time with everyone at outright. And that was actually the first and the only place so far in my career that I was working with entirely queer and trans people. And it was really an incredible comfort because we could get to the work without explaining anything about ourselves and really without explaining why this was important to each other, right and so it felt like we could really get into it. I assumed that Siri would encourage me to continue down this path to join international advocacy efforts, and she surprised me by really working hard to dissuade me. She joined outright knowing that I, you know was was hoping to continue my passion within the US government, and she, she urged me to follow that passion by saying really that meaningful change, you know, can be made from the outside of government and that's what I was was saying in the NGO space, but that sometimes even greater impact can happen when you, when you bring your entire self to established policy spaces. And I am really thankful for representative slot can for speaking to us and, you know, and saying that the United States government is not perfect but this is why we need to be here and we need to be able to push the inside and to be our full selves from the inside so I've been, you know, really honored to be able to work, you know, in the White House Office of Management and Budget I have been able to have the pen on and give edits to really meaningful and impactful administrative orders and do policy work that I might not have been able to do from the advocacy space. Siri outright was was really the first queer fem role model that I had so I took her words to heart. And, you know, it's this importance of figuring out where the intersection of your identity, your abilities, and also the methods for affecting and enacting change all align so if you are a person who has the aptitude and ability and desire to work from within the space you really should because we need each other. And, and, you know, it can be hard to work in established policy spaces. I am not working amongst all queer and trans people at OMB and at state, but the more that we have forums like this and we can work together the more that we can support each other. Great, thank you so much Heather. Well, this has been a fantastic panel it's been wonderful to be a part of this group and, and to be able to moderate this event. So I'm going to turn it over to Heather or vote again, and she can close for us. Thank you so much Laura, you know, this is normally the part of the event where I say thank you to the attendees and panelists for coming. But that that doesn't really feel like quite enough for the depth of the conversation we've just had and the extremely high quality of the real talk and life advice that's just been dished out. So I think what I actually want to do instead is to take about five more minutes and see if we can get some cross talk among any of our honorees. So if anybody heard something from another honoree that you really want to jump in on or that reminded you of something else you want to offer to the folks who are listening. Please put your video back on and we'll just pop around and get, get a couple more nuggets of wisdom from from each of you on the way out I know some of you all have got more to say. Someone doesn't pop their video on I might start asking questions. Okay, so now I'm going to make good on that threat. You know both Heather. Okay, Alex Chandler, would you like to come on video and say. Well, okay so I was going to ask Alex McCargo and Heather to come back on comments that you made sort of at the start and the end of this. I think that's just the idea that of this connection between the, the, the who and the what, which is something we talk about in a more academic way here at New America how, how bringing more identities and more full and open identities into the space can help us to understand what our country does. So can I ask each of you maybe from your different perspectives to say a couple more words about about what how we how we get from the changing the who to changing the what. And please feel free to just unmute yourself and go. So I think as far as the, the, how and the ways to kind of see that is people I am looking for jobs or opportunities or anything else. People do that by looking to see if they see themselves in an organization. And that's part of what I think then allows people to feel comfortable, and even, you know, applying or any other part of that. So I think there is a continuation of forms like that. I think the more others are able to see themselves in organizations, right. And that's part of what I think then allows people to feel comfortable and even, you know, applying or any other part of that. So I think there, it's a continuation of forms like this and spaces like this, I think the more others are able to see themselves in organizations and spaces, the more people feel comfortable to really interject their personalities in spaces. And then subsequently right that's the snowball effect because we get more diversity because they're bringing equally intersectional personalities are equally, you know, unique people to the to the table so that's, I mean, love to hear what you have to say Heather but that's from from my perspective I think that the most immediate way to address it recognizing there's also systemic things that need to change as well. I definitely agree with that Alex, and I think what you said in terms of snowball is really important right because it picks up momentum, especially if we see each other and and we're present in these spaces. You know, I think what's really important to is that visibility is obviously vital and does start that momentum but it's not just important to have greater LGBTQI representation in these spaces it's also really important and this is kind of part of intersectionality and bringing our values here, but to bring queer lenses to our work right so this is kind of bringing the who to the how you don't just bring yourself as a person but you're also bringing those your values with you. And what does that mean it might mean kind of disrupting the status quo a little bit where where you can. It might be bringing values of community that look different than than what's historically been in government. I think I see this a little bit with with my work. Currently I'm working as an economic policy advisor and the Secretary's Office of of global women's issues as a detailing there. We're working a lot on how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected women globally economically and you know if we had been thinking before it shouldn't have been a pandemic for us to realize that our family systems impact our economy, and the way that we balance life and work, you know impacts people's ability to to affect policy and to be in these spaces. And if we had, you know, kind of brought a more feminist lens or a queer lens to what families look like how women work how people with marginalized marginalized identities work. We might have kind of superseded this before a pandemic forced our hands to address the issue. And just to add briefly, if you start the thought right. It's, it's showing that those clear voices have value, particularly ones that have layers right I mean oftentimes a clear lens is seen as being of white men white queer men. But when I look at diversity, it's not just race gender, you know, sexual orientation, it's socioeconomic background educational background those all those other pieces of perspectives that when put together and I like to say that national security is one that is diverse and changing right, the folks on the other side of the fence also don't look like us. So it takes a diverse population of national security executives and people in this space to be able to accurately respond and know the cultural paradigm, all of those differences and it's no different in the LGBTQI plus community it's no different than it takes more than just a homogenous homogenous view of queer identities and national security as well I think that's that's the beauty and and and this new leadership right is what we all encompass and embody so many different checks of the box or whatever the case may be but we represent the, the larger queer community because it isn't Paul. I just actually wanted to express my, my support for the new voices list as well because we've talked, some of us have talked individually about advice that mentors have given us that have helped us navigate tricky situations in our careers but I have also been with somebody who's benefited from leadership from people who are younger and more junior to me throughout my career. And one of those people I was actually on this new voices list Theresa kind of when I was an instructor at the US Naval Academy. It was just after the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell and I had spent most of my I had spent all of my naval career at that point in the closet. As a student at the Naval Academy as well, a decade prior, I was certainly in the closet, but it was actually seeing students of mine who were very comfortable with their sexuality and it's, you know, these are the first students entering the service academies after Don't Ask Don't Tell. They were sort of, they created an environment which I felt more comfortable to come out and come to terms with myself in a professional space and so I just wanted to call attention to sort of the lessons that can be learned from people who are even junior to us. And I think that some of us who may have haven't been necessarily comfortable with our sexuality for as long as younger generations we have a lot to learn from from the new voices on this list so thank you for, for including me. Well as someone who's been in national security so long that when I started in this field that was really only one identity you could have in the field and all the rest of us were just frantically trying to squeeze into it. This has certainly been a fabulous opportunity for me personally and New America institutionally to learn from younger generations, multiple younger generations so again I want to congratulate all of you. Thank you for sharing so generously with us. Thank our audience which has been very lively throughout this. As Luke Schlesner notes in the chat. Congratulations to his co-founders and out, and special good luck to Sean Skelly and Gina Ortiz Jones as they continue to make history through the confirmation process. And thank you to all of our viewers. And I hope that you will keep track of these fabulous folks and their doings as well as all the winners on this year's list and the previous list. You can do that by following out and following us over over at New America and we look forward to doing this again and we hope to do it in person.