Belonging Through The Lens Of Exclusion

What a transgender woman can teach us about building inclusive workplaces.

At the close of Women’s History Month, we often hear familiar names. But in this moment, I want to share the voice of someone who is carving out space in systems not built with her in mind—Ginger Chien, a patent engineer at AT&T, a musician, a storyteller, and a transgender woman.

“My recent success is because I’m trans,” Ginger told me. It wasn’t a declaration of struggle but of evolution. Coming out didn’t close doors for her—it blew them open.

After nearly three decades with AT&T, Ginger has done everything from babysitting servers to building the early cellular infrastructure that brought connectivity to rural areas. Today, she works in AT&T’s patent organization, guiding engineers through the process of nurturing, crafting, and positioning their innovations for long-term impact.

And yet, when Ginger talks about what has made her thrive in that work, she doesn’t start with her engineering degree. She starts with fear.

“I was closeted for a very long time because of fear. It is my one job. It is the one thing that keeps my roof over my head,” she said. Coming out as transgender while working in defense and nuclear systems decades ago was not an option. That fear—of losing everything for simply being who you are—shaped her.

What Ginger teaches us is that belonging isn’t built through mission statements or employee resource groups alone. It comes through an organization’s ability to recognize the lived experiences of exclusion. Ginger now lectures regularly on inclusive leadership and DEI, including sessions for a DEI master class at the University of Amsterdam. Her message is consistent: we need to examine belonging not just as a warm, welcoming concept, but through the gritty lens of what it means to be left out.

There is an emotional cost to code-switching, to masking, to showing up half-authentically. Transgender women, especially those in male-dominated fields like systems engineering or the IT channel, know this burden intimately. “There’s a lot of silencing and a lot of covering that comes from the fear of a singular employer,” she said. “What would it be like if we could fractionalize how we get paid, diversify our income like we do our investments?” Ginger's imagination isn't just technical—it's visionary.

We can’t talk about women in the workforce and exclude trans women. We can’t talk about inclusion without hearing from those who’ve been pushed to the margins. Ginger doesn’t just make the case for inclusion—she is the case. Her presence in the tech industry, her deep expertise, and her willingness to share hard truths challenge us to think beyond DEI performativity and toward structural, systemic safety and creativity.

As Women’s History Month wraps up, let’s be clear: Transgender women, like all women, belong in tech, in the IT channel, in cybersecurity, and in every room where decisions are made. Ginger’s story isn’t a sidebar to the story of women in tech. It’s central.

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Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash