Name: MPW Summit 2023: The Inclusion Imperative
Uploaded: 2023-10-12
Duration: 14 min 12 s
Description: Lt. Col Bree Fram, Chief, Acquisition Policies and Processes Division, United States Space Force Terri Burns, Investor; Board Member; Co-chair, Fortune Brainstorm Tech

Lt. Col Bree Fram, Chief, Acquisition Policies and Processes Division, United States Space Force Terri Burns, Investor; Board Member; Co-chair, Fortune Brainstorm Tech 

MPW Summit 2023: The Inclusion Imperative

Conferences

Today is national coming out day, an annual celebration of LGBT Q Plus identity and a reminder of the ongoing journey toward acceptance, inequality and the power of coming out. It's a day that is undoubtedly meaningful to our next guest. Lieutenant Colonel Bree Fram is the highest ranking out active duty transgender officer in the US Department of Defense. She's an astron engineer in the United States Space Force and currently works with the pen developing space acquisition policy. Bree also Coley is the Department of the Air Force LGBT Q Plus initiatives team which eliminates barriers to LGBT Q Plus Service. We're thrilled to have Bree join us today to talk about trans rights under attack across society and the importance of inclusion in the military, the business world and beyond. Bree joins Terry Burns, investor, board member and co-chair of fortunes brainstorm Tech. For today's conversation. Please welcome them to the stage. Alright, so, good morning. Good morning. What an honor to be here. Good. I love the energy. Good morning, everyone. Yeah, absolutely. Ok. So let's get into it. You are an active duty lieutenant colonel and astron engineer in the United States Space Force. What is the mission of the space force and why do we need defense and space? Well, the mission of the space force is to secure our nation's interests in from and to space. So in short, that means we need to be sure that we can access the space domain. We need to be able to protect, defend and know what's going on in space. And then we need to bring all those amazing capabilities that space delivers back down to earth, not just for our joint force and what we do to secure and defend the nation, but to everyone, you know, most people don't know that the space force runs, flies, designs, GPS. So anything that you do to navigate, anything that you do with a credit card or the timing signal that underpins every financial transaction in the world is supplied by the space force. So all of you probably touch us every day in a way you've never even conceive of calling on a military service and understanding the fact that we actually need to protect these capabilities is so important because there are threats out there. And we couldn't even imagine a day without space. Think of the capabilities it provides to just about every sector of the economy from telling farmers when to plant uh when to water, the sensing that we do the weather prediction capability. I mean, it is phenomenal what space brings and if we were to lose space capabilities, think of setting us back 70 or 100 years in where we are as a planet, it would be almost unsurvivable. So you served 18 years in the Air Force before recommissioning into, into the space force. Why do you serve? And what made moving to the space force so compelling? Well, I could easily tell a 30 minute story filled with family connections and events. That is a lot of emotions uh about why I serve and, and why the Space Force, but I'll sum it up in, in three ways. One, it is that ability to serve that ability to give back and protect and defend the things that I care about so much. Support and defend the constitution and the ideals of creating a better nation. It, it fuels my passion in space. I have always been a space nerd and I like to say if it's nerdy, I probably tried it and I almost certainly enjoyed it. Uh So being part of the space environment, being a technology developer that really excites me. But as for the space force being a new military service. Wow, talk about viewing my other passion of building a culture because we have this opportunity to develop a 21st century military culture. A new service does not come along very often. This is once in multiple generations and we through our founding documents and our core values, connection, commitment, courage, character are setting the foundation for a service that values all of us. Um In fact, I'd encourage you all if you actually have a few minutes, read a document called the Guardian Spirit. It is a short like 16 page document on leadership and what we believe in. And it is one of the best primers on leadership I have seen and it has words you wouldn't expect to see in a military leadership document. It talks about embracing diversity and engaging inclusively. It talks about the value of openness, openness, authenticity and vulnerability, I mean, vulnerability in a military leadership document that's wild to think of. But vulnerability, the ability to show ourselves we're human is that opening to connection and embracing that connection with our teams makes us all better. So I could not be more excited than to be part of the space force and the culture that we are building, that's awesome. And, and to that point in that spirit, vulnerability, openness, diversity, inclusion. Today's national coming out day, you have said before, quote, it took me a long time to get to the point of this is who I am. So I wanna ask you what gave you the courage to come out into your full self and tell the world who you are. My journey to authenticity was, was a long one. And for most of my military career, I was prohibited by policy from coming out from, in fact, even letting a word slip that might get to the wrong ear that I was trans because if it did, I could have lost my career for something that had absolutely nothing to do with my ability to serve. But still, when that moment came, when I could come out, I was afraid I didn't know what the reaction was going to be when that message got out into the world. And it, it took a lot because when the secretary of Defense in 2016 finished speaking to say, trans, people can now serve openly. I had a Facebook message ready to go to the world in a letter to go to my colleagues. And once I got up the courage to hit post to hit send, I ran away. I went and found the gym underneath the Pentagon got on the elliptical machine and I went nowhere faster than I'd ever gone anywhere in my life with all the nervous energy I had. But eventually I did have to go back to work and I sat down at my desk and one by one, my colleagues walked over to me, shook my hand and said, it's an honor to serve with you. And I was, I was floored. Um that I see that was a moment that will live with me forever because it was truly my honor to serve with them. And what we're trying to do trying to accomplish is so important. But still that, that courage to come out is something that everyone has to face. And for anyone on national coming out day coming out is not a single event. It is a process. It is something people do over and over again with the picture that sits on their desk of their family or talking about the pronouns of their spouse. It is something that happens again and again and you always have to do that risk management to think through that process of. Am I going to be ok if I come out in this situation? So for me, a lot of it was if not me, then who, because there's almost a sense of duty, a sense of obligation to take care of the others that are going to follow me as one of the senior most trans folks in the military. You know, we embrace that leadership ethos of leave no one behind. How do we bring people along behind us? How do we make sure that they don't face the barriers that we had to face and that if we can do that by cutting down the trees and paving the road behind us so that the people joining the military today can get to the places that I've been to with the energy to go further. That's success, that's leadership building. That is what we need to do in the military to deliver capability far into the future. Absolutely. And, and your point around the act of coming out as a continual act throughout one's life really resonates with me, my partner is non binary. And I think a lot about when and how it is OK to sort of share that information. So that is really resonant in just a moment. I want to open up questions to the audience. But first, I want to lean a little bit more into some of the barriers and challenges that, that still remain today. What are some of the challenges that remain specifically for transgender service members in the military? I think one of the biggest barriers that is out there are the stereotypes of who trans people are and who trans people in the military are, is an even wilder and more outlandish stereotype. The concept of people like me is that we're weeping masses who could never return fire from our foxhole because we're too busy thinking about what we're going to wear that night or our gender identity or the transgender men are steroidal rage monsters. They're going to charge at the the hill at the wrong place and get everyone killed and nothing could be further from the truth. But even at a more mundane level, I had a boss who I worked for for a about six months after coming out and he retired. But before he did, he called me into his office and said that I broke his stereotype of who a trans person was just by showing up to work every day. I thought, whoa, that is a really low bar. Let let me just step right over that one. so, but it's, it's crazy that a lot of people think we have second heads growing out of our shoulders. I mean, we are a small portion of the population and, and too easily conceived of as this last boogeyman that's out there, the scary people that no one knows. So I take every day, every day as a gift to meet people, to interact and to show that we're not monsters. We're here. We're serving for the same reasons as anyone else. And it's just an amazing opportunity we have every day to change hearts and minds. Do you have any questions from the audience? Any questions? I'm curious to know a little bit more about, of course, inclusion in the military, which is super important and this is women. Fortune's most powerful women. So how do you think about the importance of inclusion, not just in the military but in business as well? So inclusion is a national security imperative. We fight today and we are going to fight in the future using brain power. And if that brain who's going to revolutionize the way we fight in space, we fight in Cyber just happens to be in a trans body. You should want them all serving alongside me and for your organizations. It's the same way, those perspectives that we get from a diverse set of individuals. It's been talked about on stage a lot regarding the science behind high performing teams, we need those perspectives. But it's inclusion that actually drives that because you can bring people in. And if they don't feel safe to speak up, if they don't feel safe to bring their full selves to work, you're not gonna get the value of the diversity. So for us, it is absolutely critical to drive our future success as an organization and potentially on the battlefield. And I think it's the same way for all of you because we can't leave that talent that is going to revolutionize the way we do business behind. I think we have a question right here. Hi, my name is Beth Depalo with Earth and scientific. I just want to say thank you for being you and for your role model model leadership and for your service. Uh What was the name of the document that you said we should all read? I apologize. It is the Guardian spirit, the guardian spirit. So it talks about our, our core values, what each of them mean, what team members should believe, what team leaders should believe and talks about all those amazing concepts that we are trying to do to build high performing teams because it's how do we connect with one another? How do we embody those values? And again, how do we build a culture? Which is such a cool opportunity. Thank you so much. I think we have one question over here and we're running a little low on time. So let's keep it a little. Thank you for your service. My name is Jiga Aaron. I'm a ciso at Octa. I wouldn't be a ciso without my friend Joan, whom I've shared this story with a little bit. My question to you is what can we do to help continue to push your message forward and support you while you are in service? So, one of the things I think all of us can do is tell stories, share stories, share with people that you know, LGBT Q individuals uh and highlight them in your companies in the work that you do. Because representation truly does matter. And that ability to see someone who's done something incredible and to see that from a young person's perspective and give them that opportunity to say I can do that. And it's, it's not a new concept. In fact, we can go all the way back to Frederick Douglass in 18 81 standing at the right hand of the president while serving as Marshal of DC. And he remarked about how valuable that was, how not even the hoary Locks of time could remove that image from people's minds and give something that people can strive to. So highlight us, tell our stories, show the achievement and watch possibility bloom in young people's imaginations. One of the most rewarding things I ever do is give speeches and I see a young individual come up after uh afterwards and speak with me and say, I never knew that was possible for me and that touches me because it's amazing to see that open up for someone. Lieutenant Colonel. Thank you so much for your service. It's been an absolute pleasure. It has been so much fun. Thanks for having me.