Oct 2 • Khoa Tran, neurodivergent freelance writer

A not-so-awkward conversation about intersectional inclusion

Some awkward conversations are necessary. This is why Emery Fung set out to open up discussions about inclusivity with Hong Kong corporates and help them improve their work environments—much of which he shares in an upcoming Diverse Minds course.

"In the wider Asian culture, we are not taught to be loud, to be bold, to be who we are. So there’s a disconnect in the community where if we just ask people to be authentic, some people genuinely don’t know how to. You have to really break it all down and meet the audience where they are. That’s why intersectionality really helps."

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Emery Fung

Diverse Mind's Subject Matter Expert for Intersectionality! 
Workplace inclusion is more than just a buzzword. When you dig into it as deeply as Emery Fung has, inclusion is a broad principle stretching across different areas. As a transgender man and a neurodivergent individual, Fung sees and understands these overlaps which he refers to as “intersectional inclusion”.

“I never really saw inclusion as siloed groups, it’s always been quite blended in terms of the challenges and the barriers I’ve had,” he says. A leading voice in Hong Kong’s corporate Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) discourse, Fung now dedicates himself full-time to his consultancy Awkward Conversations, guiding local businesses towards more inclusive workspaces.

Telling his story

Fung, who worked as a recruiter, started his DE&I journey unexpectedly in 2019 with a fateful social media post. “When I came out [as a trans man] on LinkedIn, it was very well received and surprisingly very positive,” he recalls. Supporting messages from friends and strangers flooded his inbox and coworkers cheered him on for choosing to be who he was openly in the early and delicate stages of his transition.

Though he felt lucky to have been warmly welcomed to this new chapter, Fung soon faced many questions the corporate world was not ready to answer. “When it comes to the practicality of things—going through my transition on a day-to-day basis at the workplace—there were not much guidelines or any actual support,” he explains. “Even the head of [human resources] from our [London] headquarters asked me: ‘what do we do to support you?’.”

Compared to Asia, we often think of Western countries as more aware and open about DE&I at the workplace. What Fung realized is that when it comes to implementing solutions, everyone was still trying things and adjusting—and he felt motivated to add his own lived experiences to the discourse. “It wasn’t until I got invited to speak to corporates that I realized that there is huge power in terms of what my story can offer,” he says. “Even just sharing a story like mine and letting people know that I exist already brings in value.”

Inclusion needs to be intersectional

Of course, Fung’s story is much more than being a trans man: “I’m part of the LGBT community but I also have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and dyslexia. I’m from Hong Kong but I spent a long time in the UK, from boarding school [at nine] all the way up to university,” he explains. “So from my experiences, it’s always been quite blended in terms of the challenges and barriers I had. Was it purely because I am trans? Was it because of ADHD, dyslexia or being a minority abroad? For me, a lot of these things blend as one.” Inclusion has to be intersectional.

Gradually, Fung set up a side consultancy—which grew to become Awkward Conversations—to reflect his view that inclusion encompasses many interlinked aspects. “I’m always trying to speak about how ‘DE&I’ inclusion as a whole is inclusion at first.” In addition to speaking commitments, Fung also connected with mental health experts and discussed topics on inclusion which he recorded as podcast episodes.

Where east meets west

One important focus of Fung’s within intersectionality is to bridge the gap between East and West when it comes to DE&I strategies—translating not just into Cantonese but also with cultural sensibilities the existing Western concepts of DE&I to a Hong Kong audience. “In the wider Asian culture, we are not taught to be loud, to be bold, to be who we are,” he says. “So there’s a disconnect in the community where if we just ask people to be authentic, some people genuinely don’t know how to. You have to really break it all down and meet the audience where they are. That’s why intersectionality really helps.”

It’s perhaps no surprise then that Fung has seen a shift in the last year in demands for his services. Whereas he started out with professional services firms, such as consultancies, banks and law firms, more retail services are now reaching out to him to inquire about DE&I. “It’s been shifting a lot more to consumer-led businesses. So fashion and luxury retails have reached out. I’m talking to some gyms and hotels as well.” He believes such businesses have more of an incentive to invest in DE&I strategies because of their public-facing nature. “That’s where you get the mass communication with the community as well,” he adds.

Neurodiversity and mental health

Another focus area where intersectionality comes into play is within neurodiversity. Though Fung was diagnosed with ADHD at an early age, not much was available in terms of treatment in Hong Kong. “My parents suspected I had ADHD but back then, there wasn’t much information—there still isn’t a lot of information in Hong Kong,” he says. “They took me to see a doctor and I got the diagnosis but there wasn’t much in terms of advice or recommendations to help me with.” He was also mostly unaware about his dyslexia, thinking his shortcomings with reading was due to him reading in a second language when moving to the UK.
Later on, what pushed him to revisit ADHD was his depression and anxiety: “That was really the prompt for me to get some help and understand what [ADHD] is since my psychiatrist told me that a lot of the anxiety and depression I had stemmed from untreated ADHD.” After understanding that his ADHD affected his mental health, he began seeking treatment and his situation steadily improved. “The anxiety and some depression are still there but at least understanding their triggers and how to prevent them helps me manage all this in a way that works for me.”

“Hello Humans!”

At the end of the day, Fung’s emphasis on intersectional inclusion stems from from his desire to level the playing field for all, regardless of how their respective privileges and challenges—for all humans, as he commonly likes to greet his audience so. Broadening our sensibilities to be more inclusive at the workplace and beyond can foster in marginalized communities a sense of confidence which is, as he best put it at his 2021 Tedx talk, “not the kind of confidence you put on because the world tells you you should be confident, but the kind of confidence you have because you want to use your voice.”

Emery Fung is the Diverse Minds subject matter expert for an upcoming e-learning course on intersectionality.

Join the waitlist below for Diverse Minds Collective to access the course. 
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