Imposter Syndrome is complicated - if I had cis white straight man confidence I would..

We talk about the impact of imposter syndrome on queers. The extra layers that we deal with at times - when you’ve been told by a culture that you’re not good enough, that you’re somewhat suspect - how do we start to enter more normative spaces?

We give examples of how we overcome this when we face it - and how we fail to overcome it on our own - how we can get ourselves into establishment spaces. We talk about how it is something that we can bring Allies/Accomplices along to help us with.

Even when we are the experts in the room, we fear so much being seen as arrogant when we are assertive, when we state our reality, when we challenge the status quo, that we doubt if we should be there. That self doubt means we reduce ourselves, we apologise, and mask our efforts. 

You can listen to Josephine try and get Dr J to have confidence in real time, and reflect how messed up the world is that we struggle to have confidence.  How can we develop that “This is me, and that’s OK” confidence?

For the record:

Josephine Baird is a PhD applicant, and a lecturer in Game Design at the University of Uppsala - and is an expert on Trans representation and story telling in games. 

Dr J has a PhD in Immunology, works as a Service Designer/Business Analyst at ThoughtWorks, is a TEDx speaker, and is an expert on building inclusive teams that deliver.

We have a transcript for this episode - IIC Episode 41 Transcript

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Give us feedback - we’re on twitter - https://twitter.com/ItIsComplicatd - we’d love to connect with you about what you would do if you had cis white straight man confidence.

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