T-Mobile Pride Spotlight: I Have Community
Brantley Clark (He/Him) says he is many things: A partner. A girl dad. A trans man. A black man. A trans black man. And he is crystal clear how to encapsulate all that succinctly if you ask what Pride means to him.
“Progressive Individualism,” he will tell you. “Those are two words that I hold during Pride.”
They are two words that the global care business support manager from the T-Mobile Wichita Customer Experience Center says not only give space for the many layers of his own unique identity, but also helps to invite others who perhaps, like him, did not always feel represented under the Pride umbrella.
“There’s this epiphanic moment in June that everyone gets from a societal perspective,” says Brantley, “but I walk this journey every day, not just in June. And it’s an every day progression into the right direction as an individual.”
Brantley says when he began his transition at T-Mobile it was abundantly clear that despite the lack of support from family members, he could safely be in what he called “a long-term relationship” with T-Mobile.
“When I stepped into global care as B, as Brantley, I didn’t have to bring on that past history with me,” he explains. “Being in a spot where I had the financial means, the benefits, the insurance and many other supporting factors, is when it really hit home for me, and I realized that T-Mobile is a place that I could commit myself to. T-Mobile gave me the ability to control what I look like and what I presented to the world, and it really helped me to align my internal with my external, and I don’t compromise that for anything.”
This Pride, Brantley says he is hyper-focused on trans visibility within T-Mobile and beyond.
“I have a seat on this plane called Pride,” he says. “But are we always doing the seatbelt checks to make sure everybody’s buckled in? Are we making sure everybody on the manifesto is actually on the plane?”
A leader in his local Pride ERG chapter, he says he was the first trans person on the advisory council and as such feels a sense of responsibility to create a path that others can follow and join him.
“From a LGBTQIA+ perspective, there’s not many examples of leaders who looks like me,” he says. “Which is why my mantra this year has been we're going to do the work to get it done, even if it means that I have to be the face for people to see. What we really need to do is create equality and equity across Pride.”
Hear from several transgender T‑Mobile employees as they discuss what Pride Month means to them.
