“From Darkness to Light and Beyond”

Joanne is a multi award winner, receiving a Chief Constables Commendation for support and dedication to Sussex Police and also a certificate of Recognition, Winner in the Diversity category of WATC Top 100 Rising Star Awards in 2020 and the recipient of an OBE for Services to Transgender Equality as a Global LGBT Advocate and Independent Advisor, in our late Queens 2021 New Year Honours list.

Through her business, she gives talks to National and International Organisations, Universities and Schools on Transgender Awareness, (by sharing her life story), LGBTQI Inclusion in the workplace, Allyship, Intersectionality and Unconscious Bias.

She is a passionate Diversity Advocate, supporting all minority and under represented communities and has an NCFE qualification in Equality, Diversity and Inclusion . Her experience and knowledge of the issues faced by minority communities in society and the workplace has been accumulated over the last 12 years. She is also passionate about gender equality and is an active participant in ITV Meridian News equality and inclusion group.

She is an Independent Advisor to Sussex Police and gives training to Sussex Police officers and staff on transgender awareness.

She is a member of the NHS Foundation Trust and the patient experience panel and strategic planning advisory group for South East Coast Ambulance Service. She is a member of the East Sussex Fire and Rescue Services Compass Inclusion group. She is a volunteer for the Kent Surrey Sussex Air Ambulance Service and is currently going through the application process to become a patient safety partner.

She is an Ambassador for 3 national organisations and a global Pride Inclusion Advocate. She has made guest appearances on Television and was one of the first Community Champions For ITV Meridian. She has spoken at CIPD conferences and been one of the Keynote Speakers at a conference for over 500 South-East Regional Organised Crime Unit staff at Farnborough International Conference and Exhibition Centre.

She has recently become an Insights speaker for CarnivalUk cruise group, enabling her to talk on the Cunard cruise ships about her life, enabling her to reach a demographic of the population she would not otherwise be able to educate on Transgender matters. The average audience being 800 people.

David ( my birth name) was born in 1955. He had an enemy inside him that he would fight for 58 years. That enemy was Joanne. He knew at about the age of 5 that he was different to other boys. He desperately wanted to be a girl. In those days, there was little understanding of what it meant to be transgender. His mother had a dressing up box of her old clothes, that he would spend hours putting on. All his friends were girls. He didn’t like doing things that other boys did. He was a very lonely child. Over the course of years he was bullied at school. He dressed in private and no-one knew his secret. He had a nervous breakdown in his early 20’s. He fought to do the macho things expected of him including getting married and having children. His second wife died in the year 2000. However, it would take another 14 years and contemplating suicide, before he understood finally what he had to do. He released Joanne from the prison she was incarcerated in. The journey wasn’t easy. I found my rainbow . There was no pot of gold at the end of it though. Just sack fulls of happiness.

LinkedIn