Transcript: America’s LGBT S

pies – Secret Agents (of Change)

PANEL TRANSCRIPT

Recorded March 14, 2016

South by Southwest Interactive Festival

Austin, Texas

PARTICIPANTS

Tracey Ballard – CIA

Katrina Gossman – FBI / ODNI

Kris Gill – NGA

Rita Sampson - ODNI

Rita Sampson:

Good Afternoon. I’m Rita Sampson and

I’m the Chief of the Equal Employment

Opportunity and Diversity within the

Office of the Director of National

Intelligence and we want to welcome you

here today for the session on America’s

LGBT spies, secret agents of change.

I want to just let you know we are talking

about the entire Intelligence Community,

which is a collaboration of about 17

different intelligence agencies and today

we’re going to hear personal stories and

perspectives from three of those agencies.

But before we get going I also have the pleasure of introducing you to the number two person

in the United States Intelligence Community and that is Stephanie O’Sullivan who has joined us

here today from Washington DC to share some of her thoughts and perspectives. So if you will

help me welcome Ms. O’Sullivan with a round of applause.

Stephanie O’Sullivan:

I am glad everybody is here this

afternoon because I think we have

some really important things to talk

about. I asked Rita if I could say a few

words and I won’t take longer than

that because like you, I’m here to

listen and learn even though I’ve heard

some of these amazing stories before.

The intelligence professionals that are

going to be up here on the stage in a

few minutes are tremendous

advocates. It is an honor to be in the

same room with them, even for just a

couple of minutes.

Throughout my career I’ve been profoundly inspired by the service of our LGBT officers.

They’ve endured, and overcome, and continued to engage, not for personal gain, but just to be

able to serve their country. That is the very definition of selfless patriotism. I’m humbled by

their sacrifice and awed by their achievements. Because intelligence is about making sense of a

complex world that we live in… without diverse thinking and unique perspectives we will fail.

PDDNI Stephanie O’Sullivan introduces IC panelists at SXSW

IC EEOD Chief Rita Sampson welcomes audience members

to the “Secret Agents of Change” panel.

If you look back over the 70 years of the Intelligence Community whenever we have had an

intelligence failure, you can often look at things like the failure of being rooted and having

similar perspectives and experiences and not having diverse voices that spoke out and talked to

us about different ways of looking at a given problem.

So without that kind of diversity and different viewpoints, intelligence just doesn’t work. We

need every bit of the diversity of talent, skills and insight of the IC’s workforce, and every bit of

diversity this country has to bring. Not only because it’s imperative for our work, but because

it’s a reflection of who we are and we aren’t the only intelligence organization to figure this out.

In fact, just a few weeks ago MI5, the FBI counterpart in the UK, was awarded and named the

most LGBT friendly employer in that country. We were kind of hoping that we would make a

mark here today for the US government, you know as we looked at that mark that our MI5

compatriots made but it’s pretty hard to beat out our boss who made a statement by having a

rainbow over his plane as he went.

But if anyone could make a statement that matched what our boss had to say when he landed

here last week is the panel that you’re going to hear from today and the accomplishments they

have to talk to you about so with that I’ll get back to Rita and the group of folks that are going

to be talking to you. They are terrific representatives of our country.

Thank you.

Rita Sampson:

We want to make sure that you know that you can follow us on twitter and also we have a

Tumblr account as well. So this is a way that we believe the power of today’s session is to be

interactive and so we don’t want to sit here and lecture to you about how great the Intelligence

Community is or how inclusive we are as an environment, all of those things are true but we’re

not going to lecture about that.

What we want to do is to have a conversation and help you to see a rare glimpse into the

Intelligence Community. And to have that perspective we think its best that it comes from the

individual officers that make up the Intelligence Community. So I will introduce those officers:

We have Tracy and we’ll start with Tracy. Tracy Ballard from the CIA who we all know is the

agency that has all of the secret spies in it. Remember I said there were 17 elements of the IC so

we give a quick glimpse of what each one of them does. Katrina Gossman, she is from FBI and

they’re the ones that have the guns. And on the very end is Kris Gill, and Kris is from the

National-Geospatial Intelligence Agency, the agency that is mapping the world from outer

space.

Pictured left to right: Kris Gill, NGA; Katrina Gossman, FBI/ODNI; Tracey Ballard, CIA and Rita Sampson, ODNI

Without further ado, I just want to encourage everyone if you have a question just go up to the

mic and let’s just start talking about life in the Intelligence Community. What we want to do is

give just a couple of minutes to share introductory remarks and then we’ll just go straight into

Q&A.

Alright, so over to you Tracy.

Tracy Ballard:

Hi, good afternoon. My name is Tracy Ballard and I have been

with the Central Intelligence Agency for 30 years as a technical

intelligence officer within the Directorate of Science and

Technology.

In 1988, three years after I started working with the Central

Intelligence Agency, I came out to our security office because it

was so important to who I was as a person but I did that at great

risk because those that came before me were typically removed

from service, and lost their clearances.

To put that in perspective, this was 7 years prior to the signing of Executive Order 12968 which

took place by President Clinton in 1995, which effectively overturned the ban to access

classified information based solely on sexual orientation.

CIA’s Tracey Ballard

It was during this time with that executive order in hand that I stood out even more publicly in

our workplace and I founded our LGBT employee resource group, what we call Angle, agency

network of gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgender officers and our allies. And I did this for two

particular reasons.

One, because I recognized that I had had a privilege over the 7 previous years of being out and

cleared in our organization so I had a responsibility to those who didn’t yet have a voice. And

two, there was no longer, I could no longer stand and have silence be the response to some of

our workplace environments. To me it was no longer acceptable to have that as our response.

So I have worked with our LGBT persons. We have had LGBT persons in our workplace for

decades. We have history of it, except they typically were removed or remained closeted and

they did that at great risk. However, they were dedicated and contributed to our mission

regardless of the oppression that existed for them and I think we have to understand that

history and understand the steps that they took to allow me to come out and I think that’s very

important to do.

For the last twenty years I have advocated for LGBT employees, not just our LGBT employees,

but all our employees and all the unique perspectives that our families bring to the table

because it’s important that we understand that our best resources are our individual officers.

And with those twenty years, we have, our organization has done an amazing about face of

how we used to treat our employees to where we are today. And I think that cultural change is

probably one of the biggest and greatest achievements that we have done in the last few years.

Rita Sampson:

Thank you. Katrina?

Katrina Gossman:

Hi. In 2004, I became the first FBI employee to marry my partner.

When Massachusetts opened its doors, to same sex marriages, we

were there, the very first week.

When I returned to the office, with the help from my HR

colleagues, I submitted my marriage certificate to FBI

headquarters. My wife received spousal benefits. The FBI, the

people of the FBI, wanted and tried to do the right thing.

About two months later I received an email that stated because of the Defense of Marriage Act,

all benefits extended to my wife were rescinded.

This made national news. And I became the most outed employee in the FBI. I also received

numerous emails from other FBI employees with their support.

Notably, one from the time… the top agent in the Washington field office… who with his wife

and two sons thanked me for not being a face in the crowd. And he said, I know you didn’t

intend to be the poster child of FBI LGBT issues and rights it is important and I thank you for

your support.

In the next year or two several of us changed internal FBI policy that didn’t fall under the

Defense of Marriage Act to allow partner benefits within the FBI. Today, we as members of the

Intelligence Community, continue to take a stand for those that will come behind us.

Kris Gill:

Hello. My name is Kris Gill. I work for National-Geospatial Intelligence Agency. I was able to

come in the door just as I am thanks to the work of those who came before me. And today I’m

pushing the boundaries on inclusion for our trans non-binary and queer intelligence officers

and making space for them to come as they are into our organization and give their fullest

selves to the mission.

FBI’s Katrina Gossman,

currently detailed to ODNI.

I wear two LGBT hats. I serve on IC Pride. IC Pride is an organization

that works at ODNI level, so at Rita’s level, to coordinate the efforts

of our employee resource groups across all 17 agencies and what

that does is it allows us to take a win in one agency and amplify that

up and across all of our agencies so that we’re not in a situation

where we’re reinventing that wheel or fighting that fight 17 times.

We can fight it once, learn the best practices, hone that for…to be

applied throughout the community and move on.

We throw a yearly LGBT summit, this year will be our 5th year doing it and we expect about 400

in person attendees as well as 300 virtual connections from across the world. So we’ve really,

really, really created a network and a space for individual employees regardless of where you’re

at within the Intelligence Community to connect and feel like they belong.

The other hat I wear is as chair of the IC Transgender working group. I moved to Washington a

few years back and when I did I got plugged into the beginnings of what became IC pride and I

was asked to work with my co-chair to stand up the Transgender Working Group that was

noted at that time, this was about 2012, that one was needed, that there was a bunch of issues

related to trans employees. Nobody really knew how to approach them and so the intent to

create this special working group was formed.

We provide consulting on a number of issues, down to individuals trying to navigate HR and

security processes, all the way up to programs and training that are being rolled out across the

Intelligence Community as a whole. For instance, we provided input on our No Fear Act

training. They were revising No Fear Act training and they wanted to be specific about including

an LGBT example in it and a trans example in it and so we got to consult on what does that look

like, is your language correct, you know, are you articulating and presenting the community

appropriately.

We also do lots of policy change. Anything that we can control or impact or influence from

where we sit within the Intelligence Community, if it affects our employees, we are going to be

right there trying to drive it. My to do list is, you know, 47 items long so there is some

prioritization that happens and we can’t change it all at once but you know we’re very actively

identifying where do we need to change, where are those biggest potential wins, and who do

we need to talk to, to make those things happen.

As a result of that, it’s creating changes for not only our civilian employees but our contractor

workforce and transgender military service members as well. We can’t change DOD policy but

we have a number of DOD personnel serving in our footprints. And where they serve in our

footprints, we control that culture and we control how those employees are treated.

In my day job, I’m basically the data and content provider for DOD’s version of google maps,

but its 30 year old technology based on a dead programming language and is in desperate need

NGA’s Kris Gill.

of being upgraded and modernized. Sorry, not upgraded, modernized. Billions and billions of

dollars of DOD equipment rely on it and it basically controls the navigation of all of our planes,

tanks, humvees, handhelds, ground stations, I can go on.

I’m helping define if not driving the strategy to create what that next thing is. You know, we

don’t have to bolt onto this 30 year old technology. In fact, it’s going to be more cost effective if

we just kind of draw a line in the sand and create something new and so I’m leading that

transformation and actively working to bring all the relevant stakeholders to the table to do

that. Not to be punny, but I really like charting change.

Rita Sampson:

That was good Kris.

Ok so, what I want to do is at any point in time if you have a question jump in because I think

you’ll get the most out of this if those burning questions that keep you up at night thinking

about the IC are raised here today.

Panelists prepare to take audience questions at SXSW.

Questions & Answers

Audience Member:

When Anderson Cooper first came out he sort of mentioned the reason he hadn’t done it

previously was because he was afraid of the impact of his war reporting in the Middle East and

non LGBT friendly communities. I was hoping anyone from the panel could share some stories

about positive work (wording unclear) since you’ve come out publically and negative things that

have come about since you’ve been out.

Rita Sampson:

Ok so let me rephrase as well as repeat that in case the rest have not heard. He asked about

Anderson Cooper as the ground example of someone who was afraid to initially come out

because of the fear that it might impact the work that was being done and then, the question

being, has the fact that you have now come out impact the work within the Intelligence

Community. So thank you for that question. Let’s see who gets the lucky person. You looked at

me. Ok, Tracy.

Tracy Ballard:

Ok well I’ll go ahead and start because I guess I‘ve been the one who’s been out the longest on

this panel. When I first came out, you know I came out three years into my career, and it was a

very difficult and tough decision to do because it was prior to, gay people in particular, to get

access to classified information and typically you were fired or walked out the door. You lost

your clearance which meant you lost every opportunity at least in the Intelligence Community.

There was a lot of fear that I would either lose my job and/or if I didn’t lose my job maybe I’d

lose a career trajectory that I had hoped for. I know that a number of my counterparts had that

same fear and it took many years for them to get past it because we did have an organizational

…a trust deficit… within our organization because of our past history which is based on the

Lavender scare and the 1950 McCarthy hearings and the executive order signed by Eisenhower.

So all of that kind of created our culture that said you know, I can’t be who I am, and so there

was some fear in that.

When I came out it was a very nerve-wracking time for me and that initial time was very

difficult because word of me coming out kind of spread around the building and I was

ostracized for some time by my straight counterparts and by the other few LGBTs that I

happened to know that worked there because that fear of association, that guilt, that if I

associated with them that perhaps they would lose their career or they would be investigated.

So there was a lot of that.

I have to say that most of my experience since doing that has been extremely positive because

it gave me the courage to speak my voice, to speak my truth, and speak for others. It gave me

the opportunity to become more of a leader that I had not necessarily intended but I was able

to stand up and because I’ve started working not only my typical job that I was hired for and

becoming a very good officer is that respect I’ve started working more corporate level

programs. You know to change our policies, to change that culture and because of that I got a

better understanding how the organization works and realizing that an organization is an

organism and there are multiple people involved and you know we have a negative view of

what an organism looks like, or an organization looks like, but once you start talking to the

individuals you can find very positive people to want to help.

So I think for me it’s been very positive. I have been able to expand my horizons within our

organizations because of the network you now have been able to take place.

Katrina Gossman:

So outside the response, let me ask you a question. So how many of you think that you can fully

do your job if you have to worry about your family? So that’s the deal…

I come from the operational world and I was, I worked the 9/11 investigation. I left my home

for 2 or 3 months. Then I went to New York to continue that in New York so it was another

couple months. Then I went to the Salt Lake City Olympics and I was gone for a couple of

months.

Now here you’re adding that up I’m gone for 6-7 months and if I know that my family is taken

care of and in the law enforcement community at the time something could happen to me, very

easily…

Is my spouse taken care of? Is my spouse notified that something has happened to me? Do I

have to worry about those things?

And so for me, if I didn’t have to worry about that because my job was to protect the American

people and so I’m out protecting them and hoping that because I’m who I am and I’m out and

the people around me can protect my family so I can do my job. So, and that did happen, that

did happen, with all of us.

The fact that we’re here today, talking to you, is great change. And we all went through

challenges and we might not necessarily have intended to be the people we are right now but

we realize that it’s important and we care about those that we protect and we care about those

that also do the same job that we do.

Kris Gill:

And to take it since we are kind of going from larger to smaller, to take it down to that final

personal level, you know there’s the organization, there’s your family, and then there’s you as

an individual.

As anybody who has gone out, or come out, gone through the coming out process would likely

tell you, living in the closet, or trying to hide who you are, or, not being able to come to work

and be your authentic self, takes a toll on your own personal energy and it becomes a

distraction at work.

And yeah we all bring our personal baggage to work and we have life events happen to us all

the time but why add one more to that pile.

So when we can remove the stress and the fear and the concern about who we are, whether

it’s our sexual orientation, or our gender identity, or any intersectionality of a number of

different diversity points and that’s no longer a piece that we have to worry about when we

come to work, then all of the sudden you can focus more on the mission and we get more out

of those employees.

As somebody who works hand in hand with individuals transitioning on the job, during that first

year that they’re really starting to come out to their management and their co-workers, a lot of

their mental energy is dedicated to “how do I move through this process correctly?”

But then watching what happens once their accepted and once managements behind them and

once that process is in full swing and they are starting to feel confident and they realize that

their friends and colleagues don’t necessarily care and they want to be supportive then all of

the sudden their productivity sky-rockets back up to the same level that it was at before they

found themselves in that conundrum.

So, helping guide our employees through those kinds of things, knowing that they have the

support along the way is dramatically important for both getting what we need from our

intelligence officers but also creating that safe environment for everybody to bring their full

selves to work and participate in the mission that we’re trying to run.

Audience Member:

In 1988, I came out of college and interviewed with the National Security Agency and ever since

then I wondered because during (words unclear) that interview process they asked if I was gay.

And they assured me it’s not a problem we just want to make sure that you’re open about it so

you can’t be blackmailed.

I’m fascinated that that’s the (words unclear). Clearly that wasn’t… I’ve always wondered if they

were telling the truth, but it sounds like they absolutely were not telling me the truth. Now I’m

curious with all those changes our hiring practices changes, are those questions still asked, are

there other blackamailable things that are still asked of people? (words unclear)

Rita Sampson:

Ok so, this kind of begs for us to talk about the evolution of history, evolution of culture, and of

course the evolution of government policy. Do you want to take that Tracy?

Tracy Ballard:

I can take a little bit of that. So you’re right, back in 1988 during the polygraph examination

typically you would be asked about your sexual orientation, and again that was all based on the

history that we brought forward from the Senate, the 1950s.

Depending on the organization you were interviewing for, you know, they might not have been

at the same space - I can’t necessarily speak to the National Security Agency.

I know that within our organization because I’ve been doing this for so many years, and I’ve

learned some of our history, I do know that during the 80s and the mid-80s, our organization,

the Central Intelligence Agency, had already been scoping out, “well maybe we should change

that, maybe we should kind of go to a don’t ask don’t tell type of thing, understanding if you’re

honest with us, we’ll let you keep, you know we’ll hire you.” But it was an implementation.

Did it get implemented across the board evenly?

Sometimes it did and sometimes it didn’t so, we have different stories from people who were

trying to come onboard during that time frame.

Officially, the rules didn’t change until 1995 with the Executive Order and that’s when each

organization, we could go with that executive order and ask our organizations to implement it

and implement change to security policies and that’s what we did at CIA.

We went with that executive order, we went to our security offices, and we went to our HR and

we talked to them and we asked them how are we going to implement this to ensure that these

questions are no longer asked and for us.

You know, a piece of paper is wonderful but to change our culture, that culture of what we

used to do, it takes time. And so it did take a few years to implement it through our practices

but we did stop asking the questions and we no longer ask those questions. Our officers come

on board now fully out if they so choose, to be themselves. But we do ask you always to be

honest.

Honesty is what we’re looking for because if you’re honest with who you are then we can trust

you, but if you’re trying to hide something, that’s always the thing that gets you in trouble,

regardless of whether its sexual orientation or some other issue that, you know, could cause an

adversary to target you.

Kris Gill:

And that said, I don’t think we’re done with that issue. Today, we still have a number of officers

who try, or potential applicants who reach in trying to ask, you know, “Is this an issue?”

The assumptions of how the Intelligence Community runs are still very much out there in our

culture, so we actually have a lot of work internally to make sure that our recruiting practices

and our hiring practices and even just how we put up our websites and how we attract people

to even put in that application to begin with are very clear in their communication of that broad

swath of diversity and our appreciation for it.

Trans issues today are kind of poking at the exact same buttons that we’ve been poking at for

the last 30 years because even once you come in, you have a 5 year review process, and every 5

years you kind of go through the polygraph, you fill out a form, they do a security investigation

and I have trans employees call me all the time saying, “What do I tell them? What do I put

down? Am I allowed to be trans and be here?”

And so one of the things that we’re very actively working on is, and this is kind of how IC pride

operates as a model, we have one agency who’s taken point on this, and we met with them

about a month ago, with their security team, both the polygraph side of the house as well as

the we call them the counterintelligence side of the house and talked about what those issues

look like and how does that relate to the issues that we’re facing today based on where we’ve

come from. And so, we still have a ways to go.

There are some things that we will be able to change specifically for trans employees and other

LGBT employees but then there are other issues like when you talk about intersectionality with

mental health illnesses and care. One of the questions that we have on our security forms asks

if you’ve seen a counselor for any reason and apparently for a number of years they’ve been

trying to change and alter that question because there’s a whole bunch of different

communities who touch that question. And it sounds like there’s a lot of equities in that fight

and so when we learned, ok that’s not something we’re going to be able to directly control but

we have compatriots across the community who are also trying to change that question.

Now we can partner outside of the LGBT community to really drive change for everyone and

break down some of the stereotypes of and stigmas associated with those different types of

mental and presentation diversity that we bring.

Rita Sampson:

Another Question...? (Because I have questions).

Audience Member:

I want to say thank you for breaking down the barrier. When question I have could you talk a

little bit about how important this is to the American taxpayers. That this is accepted, an

accepting community (words unclear).

Rita Sampson:

I think I can take that. So, within the Intelligence Community, what we have come to really

understand and what we’re really bringing to life is the importance of diversity to the mission.

And so looking at every aspect of diversity has to be driven into what we want as our core

outcomes because what we know is that if you are monolithic and not welcoming, then the

response, the answer, the perspectives you get will be from one voice.

Whereas what we’re trying to do is to hone many various pieces of information and to inform

our decision makers, to inform the President of the United States, about this is what we know,

or this is what we see, so that the policies that are made for this country to keep us safe are

reflecting the most diverse and most accurate information possible.

We’ve driven that down to define diversity very broadly within the IC and on the flip coin of

diversity that’s just the different perspectives, we really are also focusing on inclusion. So what

are those things? What is the climate that we have to create once we have a more diverse

workforce to unlock the potential and to unlock the voices of everyone who’s there.

So we get that as a core part of how we do our mission and I think it’s great that we’re here

today to celebrate that we’re making progress in each one of those areas. I hope that answers

your question.

Audience Member:

It’s a little bit too general. Do you have specific examples of how you have prejudice (words

unclear) in the service or some examples of how this acceptance as (words unclear) has worked

out?

Kris Gill:

I mean one of the, so the model of IC pride, right, we do a lot of this diversity work on our own

time. We do it because we care about the mission but we have actual day jobs in addition to

this so we care so much about making this environment that we do it kind of above and

beyond. But what IC Pride does, as I was describing were we leverage one agency’s success and

put it out there, that’s directly saving the tax payer money because we’re not struggling with

those same problems over and over and over again and spending ample hours addressing

them.

You know, we’re kind of, honing in, hitting it once and moving on. And then I think your

question also directly relates to talent retention. You know when we talk about attracting the

best employees and retaining those employees, it’s very expensive for the Intelligence

Community to bring an employee in. It’s expensive to do the clearance process, it’s expensive

to go through the training, and we don’t want somebody walking out the door, having spent all

those taxpayer dollars, because they don’t feel like their included.

And so diversity is very, very important if only from the retention and attraction of talent

perspective. Today’s generation of employees expect that diversity is baked into your culture

now. It’s not well maybe I’ll take this job and I’m going to sacrifice that. It’s a forgone

conclusion. They expect that it’s there. And so when they show up at our door we need to be

ready for that, otherwise we will spend that money and it will walk right out.

Rita Sampson:

We’re in a competition for the best and the brightest talent. So what the studies have shown is

that those who have a diverse workforce will win the competition for talent because that’s

where people who are innovative and creative want to be. And so we realize we can’t afford to

stay the same Intelligence Community that many stereotypes have us being. We simply can’t

afford to be that.

I think another good example, Director Clapper tells the story of an officer whose file hit his

desk and he had to make a decision about that person, who at that time was, who is retired

now, but a gay officer, and he had to make a decision. This is an extremely valuable asset that

we have do I sign on this dotted line that the person can stay within the Intelligence Community

and continue to contribute or, because that was back in those days, do I sign and let the

government lose a very powerful person.

He made the courageous decision at the time and he did the thing that was best for the

American people, for the taxpayers, for that individual, who stayed on to retire to be an

extremely valuable member of our workforce, even to this day we reach back to him.

Audience Member:

I think my question is built on purely common sense. Specific to Ms. Gossman and Ms. Ballard,

the thing that makes this conversation most interesting is the fact (words unclear). Is there

something different than then the prejudice outside of agencies that was a liability (words

unclear)?

Tracy Ballard:

I’ll take that one. There was no real liability, it was just the prejudice of the times. During the

Cold War, 1950s, and then during the Cold War, it was all about the communists and that’s

what we were focused on and because of the Cold War and that fear that was taking place.

That kind of morphed into homosexuals being sexual deviants and because we were sexual

deviants and perverts we could not be trusted and that’s where the whole blackmail came into

thing because it really was a catch 22 for us.

Because if you were closeted you could be blackmailed but if you were out you could not. But

the way the government kind of formed itself it forced us for many many years to remain

closeted and it kind of left us in a bind. And so it really was just a broad swath of prejudice that

was taking place during the timeframe as opposed to anyone one thing. And it just took many

years for people to get past that and recognize we had talents.

We were more than just that one facet that they focused on. We had great talents that we

could bring to the table. Because if you think about some of the folks that had wonderful

talents in the Intelligence Community, was like Allen Turing right, without him there would be

no NSA and yet we lost some… the MI and NSA lost some great talent because of who he was.

So it really was just the timing that kind of forced us into this conundrum that we existed in.

Katrina Gossman:

I came in 96, and that was one year after FBI changed their policy to include sexual orientation

in their discrimination policy. Even though it was written, it was a gamble whether or not you

came out or not. It was. And in law enforcement, in the operations side, whether I was working

intelligence matters or criminal that I had to rely on my other co-workers sometimes for my

back, for my life.

If they could see me as an agent - as a brother sister, whatever - and not think of me as “Ooooh

she’s a lesbian. Is she good? Can she do her job?” and bring those stereotypes in, whatever they

may be. And sometimes, I don’t know, maybe it worked to my benefit… “She’s a lesbian she’d

probably kick my ass.”

That’s where it becomes important, it really does. That they see you and are not worried about

what your family life is…who you love… That you are there to do a job and you do it as best as

you can, and you can count on them to do the job the best they can do because they’re not

worried about who you are.

Audience Member:

I think earlier, you mentioned that the IC has been working with contractors as well to make

sure that they have this sort of inclusion for LGBT folks that the Intelligence Community does

themselves. I was wondering if you could talk a little more about what that looks like and how

you’re making those (word unclear) and impacting those other organizations.

Katrina Gossman:

I’ll take it just briefly and then I’ll pass. In one way because we have contractors, many

contractors who work in all our organizations. If our culture, if we’re trying to educate and do

awareness training within in our culture about this is what we expect in the workplace, and this

is how we expect people to treat each other, that does, you know, start to morph into our

contracting staff, so they understand what we’re expecting as well. So it kind of has, it works

kind of hand in hand.

We cannot necessarily change their policies but we can influence some of their policies because

we have so many of them working in our environments.

Kris Gill:

One of the Executive Orders addresses it. It extended, President Obama extended rights to

contractors and that kind of forced a lot of companies to kind of step up and clean up their

actions towards their employees.

One of the things that we’re doing by creating this change, and I think Tracy was hitting it right

on the head…when you start changing your culture and you start changing your people you also

set an example so other contractors that our in our workforce can see that and they are also

picking up those lessons learned and best practices.

As we’re changing our HR policies if I’m friends with a contractor and they’re saying “hey my

company is receptive to doing this what does the government policy look like”… there you go.

So that’s one of the direct ways. You know we’ve got a bunch of rules around contractor and

govie engagements in terms of whether or not they’re allowed to come to our employee

resource groups and stuff like that and each of the agencies has different rulings on that but by

and large we always welcome contractor presence because we know that for us to be

successful everybody working in the footprint regardless of the color of your badge, is

important.

We need everybody on the same page.

Rita Sampson:

Can I also add that contractors, they want

to do what the organization wants them to

do because that’s how they stay in

business? So for us it’s critical that, or just

one of the driving forces, is that our

leadership sets this tone of inclusion and

diversity.

So by having the Director of National

Intelligence, all other agency directors,

having the PDDNI fly all the way from

PDDNI Stephanie O’Sullivan at SXSW

Washington, DC to be here, it is setting a tone that within the Intelligence Community we’re

serious about diversity and inclusion. As the contractors go back they go, “Well, how do we

keep our job? We do what the organization wants us to do... Well, what kind of culture is this?

It’s a culture that values inclusion.”

So therefore, you know, we believe that all of this will come along on the same plane that we’ll

all be there regardless of contractor versus employee, “blue badge” vs. “green badge” - that it’s

an environmental thing and it’s from the top down.

Audience Member:

Hi, thank you. I was sort of wondering about the intersection of culture and policy in this. So I

work in a large public research university and I think a lot of people have the perception of

universities as very forward thinking. We have great student groups that doesn’t always filter

up and so I’m wondering you’ve been so effective at changing policy and transforming those

pieces. How do you make sure that that also filters up and what kind of training is available to

people. How are you helping change that culture in addition to policy?

Tracy Ballard:

You know you can change policy, and we’ve done a wonderful job changing a lot of our policies

to make it equitable across the boards regardless of your family structure, race, ethnicity, I

mean we’ve done that but policies are great, but it is the implementation of those policy and

that’s what changes your cultures. And so the way we’ve accomplished that is a number of

different ways.

Our employee resources groups… It’s done by employees we do that on our own time because

we believe in our organizations and the mission that we’re doing. And so by voicing our

thoughts and our concerns and solutions - providing solutions - not going to the table with

complaints about what’s not happening but here’s some solutions we think that would... By

voicing them up is one way.

Another way that we do is, at least in our organizations, we’ve been extremely effective in

gathering allies at all management levels. From our line management all the way up to our

Director. (CIA) Director Brennan is one of our biggest allies. He wears our rainbow lanyard on a

daily basis. He just went up to New York City and did the “Pride and Prejudice” event, talking

about diversity and inclusion, specifically about LGBTs inclusion.

So kind of sandwiching, getting those allies who can speak for us at different levels of the

organization, to understand why we want to do this and the importance of it. I think we’ve

been able to sandwich that and some of the programs that we’ve put in place our employee

resource groups have organized the training for that.

We do all these great educational awareness and it’s not EEO based and we go in there very

clearly that we’re not talking about (word unclear). We are talking about these are the

individuals who work in your environment. What do you need to do to ensure that their voices

are heard, that they feel included, that they can come and participate. And it really is almost

teaching “Respect 101.”

It is really kind of what you’re doing. And we offer this to everybody, and it’s amazing that

when I first started doing this we were kind of the pariahs of the organization, nobody really

wanted to deal with us. It’s gotten to the point where we are asked on a regular basis, can you

come provide this class to my particular staff meeting, will you do this at my offsite, because I

really think it’s important for our officers to hear that.

We’ve gotten to the point where individual employee resource groups, at least within our

organizations, they’ve started this on their own, it’s morphed up, now it’s become, it’s taken

our employee resource group training and we’ve made it a CIA agency wide training now,

because we’ve incorporated all those best practices that we got from our individual resource

groups and we’ve been able to incorporate that and we’re spreading that across the board and

it really is the top down and it’s the conversations.

It’s the one on one conversations where you tell your story and people understand the

importance of it. That’s how you change the culture.

IC panelists from NGA, FBI, CIA and ODNI address the SXSW audience.

Kris Gill:

If you want the “how to,” One: build a PowerPoint that’s about 10 slides long that sells the

business case for diversity. You don’t have to go into “Language 101.” You don’t have to go

down to what does transgender mean? You can just keep it at the level of “Why is diversity

important for our bottom line?” if you’re in the private world, or retaining employees, or what

have you.

So build that and then, as Tracy was highlighting, get your top leadership involved and then you

start educating on your parallels. Leadership at all levels is important to all the work and all the

accomplishments that we’ve been able to achieve and so keep in mind that at your peer level

you’re going to get one type of perspective and you’re going to be giving one kind of pitch.

At your supervisor level, they’re the ones for enforcing all the policies within your agency and

they’re the ones on the ground watching this happen and having those difficult conversations

with employees, so they’re going to get a slightly different variant of that same pitch.

And then you’ve got your senior levels. Your directors, your executives. They’re going to get a

totally different version again, because they’re the ones whose voice is actually setting the tone

and they need to hear what is it that I need to say, come in with some really practical examples

that teaches them how to use different language to set that tone because once they start using

that language it becomes automatic all the way down.

Audience:

I have a question about the current political environment (words unclear). How worried are you

about having a Commander in Chief who has shown hostility towards the LGBT community and

also towards (words unclear)?

Tracy Ballard:

Our organizations are not political entities. We don’t talk about, we are unbiased political

entities. That’s what we do, that’s the only way we can do our jobs. To provide the proper

information to our seniors and our policy makers. So we don’t really incorporate politics into

our workplace.

Because our culture has changed and we have things in place, and that we have leaders and

allies that are already understanding the importance of this, if we happen to get a president

that probably doesn’t necessarily agree with some of the things we’re talking about here today,

our organizations are already there.

We are going to continue to do what we do, because we understand that our people are our

best resources, so I don’t really see it as an issue for our organizations.

Katrina Gossman:

I agree. And with any fight, I don’t know about you, but I don’t think it ever goes like this. I think

it goes like this, and as long as we continue to move forward. We have some opposition but we

are “leading in place” no matter where we are and that we have zero tolerance for whatever

discrimination, etc. So if our Commander in Chief, whatever their viewpoints are, I still have a

job to do, and I still really care about my job. So it doesn’t matter.

Audience Member:

Well first of all thank you so much for doing this here at SXSW. To me personally it means a lot.

I actually went to school in Washington DC. I went to American University and I was very much

on the trajectory to join to the IC, as was my wife, who’s here. But I did meet my wife in

university and this was 2004 and the climate in DC at the time made both of us really change

our entire career trajectory once we met each other because I think both of us felt that, it

seemed like a choice at the time for us.

And to see this today it makes me very hopeful that somebody in that position now will not see

that as a choice. I think that whether or not in 2004 that was really the reality, that was the

perception to us and we were very concerned that we had to choose between having a family

and having this career.

And now I work for the Los Angeles LGBT center, and we actually spent 40 days in China

running a LGBT organization. So I’m very happy with the way things ended up working out.

Rita Sampson:

You know we’re hiring right?

Audience Member:

We’ve already had this conversation. I do have a question because we do have friends that are

in the Intelligence Community, also friends that are in the diplomatic community and in

particular we have one of our very very best friends, who is a German diplomat and he was just

recently placed in Nigeria and he’s a gay man. He married his husband right before, we actually

had kind of a last minute wedding in New York for him. His husband is Mexican, and you know,

there was a lot of concern with them being placed in Nigeria with the climate vs LGBT people.

I was just wondering, from your perspectives and I’m not sure that you have necessarily a good

perspective on this but how does the IC really address concerns with sending LGBT agents to

places where it is dangerous and in some instances to be an LGBT person. How do you address

those issues within how you plan and how you work within the agencies?

Tracy Ballard:

I’ll touch on that briefly. One, it’s a shame you didn’t apply for us in 2004. I think you would’ve

been very happy with us and I’ll touch on that very briefly. That is the misconception we have

within the Intelligence Community because all our baggage is carried forward and so we spent

the last few years to kind of reach out to our LGBT community to kind of de-mystify who we are

because I mean that baggage keeps going and unfortunately we lose people that way.

When it comes to our officers serving overseas I mean it’s like any, all our officers have to make

choices when they choose a posting. Because you do have to apply for your postings for the

most part, where you’re going to go. And you really have to kind of look at the climate and

what makes sense. Some of our heterosexual counterparts, they have their own struggles and

what is the best environment for them and their family and who they are and how they are

going to fit in. So one, you as an officer have to figure out where that is.

Our organizations are very security conscious. So we are going to have conversations with you…

Is this an environment where you can do your job? Is this an environment that we think you are

going to be targeted? If we think you are going to be too heavily targeted, or it’s going to

possible criminal and lethal actions, we might ask you, maybe consider another posting, not as

a detriment to your choice but let’s weigh the security concerns that are coming at you.

So we do take that very, very seriously because we do want to protect our people. But we all

have choices in those as well.

Katrina Gossman:

And the same goes with the FBI. We have 63 legates (legal attaches) around the world and it is

by choice and you do have to put in for them and all of that, and there are some very

dangerous ones regardless of who you are so you have to make those choices based on how

you live your life and all the information available. And just because we are out and open

doesn’t mean that we go around work screaming “hey we’re LGBT”. I don’t do that, but I’m not

afraid to mention my partner. And I’m not afraid to mention them and get a comeback of like

“oh really” no, it’s like “oh cool me too” type of thing. So it’s how you live your life, who you are

and everyone as an individual and they make those decisions.

Audience Member:

I’ve covered intelligence for about 25 years and I have to say this is the nicest bunch of spooks.

Now for the other part, and I know you’re all lovely people and I know there’s lots of great

people in the intelligence organizations and I know we need them. We need good intell. I know

we even need the covert ops sites to some extent. But having covered the ugly side of the intell

community, which is considerable, in which I believe is still going on today, meddling in other

countries, overthrowing governments and (word unclear) the American people.

I’m just wondering since you seem to be good people, how do you juxtapose the fact that

you’re really out here, essentially doing a PR job, selling us on a very problematical institution.

Rita Sampson:

Our objective here is, thank you for the question, not to be doing a PR job, but to really give you

a unique perspective from each of the officers that are sitting here. It’s about sharing our

stories so that those people who have certain views of the Intelligence Community can broaden

those views, not necessarily change the heart and minds of everyone.

This is a unique perspective that we bring and we wouldn’t - history has shown that the

Intelligence Community has not always hit the mark perfectly - but I think that kind of leads into

one of the questions that I want to ask of the panel, and that is to tell us about what is most

satisfying within your jobs.

I’m sorry I should start all over again.

I understand - and we understand as an Intelligence Community - that we have a perception,

sometimes good, sometimes bad - sometimes ugly. And so it is in that truth of our mission that

we want to share with you.

I think part of being the Intelligence Community is that we operate to a great degree in secrecy.

And it’s not because we’re doing bad things, it’s because that is what is required for us to

accomplish our mission.

There are secrets, but on the balance of secrets is our effort to be more transparent. And this is

just a step in the direction of transparency. Because there will always be things that will remain

secret.

Rita Sampson:

So the question is, what is the most satisfying thing about your job?

Besides being able to work with us?

Kris Gill:

I mean this has been a great experience to hear the stories and learn from everything that came

before. As you’re kind of navigating a new organization, it’s not new to me anymore, I’ve been

around here for about 7 years, you hear rumors through the story and getting connected to

those communities is really important and I think a lot of the work that I’ve been doing

individually and through IC Pride has been connecting employees and even though were

connecting specifically around LGBT issues what it does is it connects us across our mission and

our job responsibilities as well.

So, even if I’m working on something that has nothing to do with a counterparts project or

what they do, if they are in another agency I can reach out to them and say, “Hey, who can I

talk to about X?” and really get some direct guidance on that. I think one of my favorite things

about working within the government of all things, I was in the corporate world for 10 years

before I joined up, my parents were govies and so growing up I was like “No government!”

I kind of came full circle, had a layoff, had an opportunity to apply to NGA and I did, I got in, and

as somebody who kind of thought I’d be going from company to company to company to

company throughout my entire career, I looked at the vast expanse of problems and highly

complex issues within my own individual agency let alone within the Intelligence Community or

the broader government and I thought “Wow!” as a problem solver I can be here for a long

time.

Connecting to those other problem solvers and those other highly intelligent people who are

trying to tackle some of these most difficult problems and being able to bridge outside of

government into academia, into our international partners, into non-profits, others who are

working on these same issues, you know.

It goes back for me to that idea of where do you have control to change something and where

can you influence something and sometimes as an insider you have more control to change

something but sometimes you rely on an outside organization like a non-profit to really drive

that change publically but you’re supporting in the background with, for example, letters from

various directors saying we want health benefits for our trans employees.

So if you want to have some really highly complex problems that are in fact setting the stage for

where we’re moving as an American culture but also as a world there’s a lot of things to play

with here.

Katrina Gossman:

I say the most rewarding thing for me is catching the bad guys.

I’ve had a 20 year career and it has been about catching the bad guys and stopping terrorist

activities. I’ve been working in the Intelligence Community full time for the last two years, and

the people that I work with are tremendous. They care so much about what they do and the

true mission of protecting United States citizens and our interests and that is really taken to

heart across the board.

You take political viewpoints out of this, you take any of that stuff that you’re seeing blast on

the news and you really look at the people and what they’re doing, and what they care about,

and it’s about their job. And they work endless hours to do what they need to do.

Tracy Ballard:

I think for me it’s just being part of something that’s greater than myself. For me that’s the

biggest satisfaction I get. That I am a small part of this organizations that are protecting our

nation but I understand where I fit and I understand that whatever I’m doing is helping the next

person succeed. So being part of something that is so much larger than me brings me great

satisfaction, and is probably the one thing that has kept me within these organizations for so

many years.

Rita Sampson:

Ok we’re almost at that one minute mark so I am going to turn to each of the panelists and

have them give me a couple words that describe how do you know we’ve come a long way, that

we are the secret agents of change and what do we have on the future as our biggest

challenge?

Tracy Ballard:

I think knowing that we’ve made successes is the fact that one we’re here today. I mean that to

me that is the bar that we set. We are here today, we are telling our stories, we are out in the

open talking to our LGBT communities as well as the larger community to say we are not the

organization of your grandfathers.

We are not that anymore and this is who we are and this is what we do and I think that is a

measure of success when it comes to our organizations. The fact that we have our directors, all

our directors, that go out to the public and talk about the importance of diversity and inclusion,

that is a huge measure of success the fact that we’ve gone from a very dark closed environment

to a very welcoming and open environment.

Katrina Gossman: I second that.

Kris Gill:

I think for me the highlight was when Director Clapper, and it’s out on our Tumblr, referred to

himself as “cis gender.” I mean he’s the Director of National Intelligence and he’s referring to

himself as cis gender?

He’s paying attention to the issues of his employees and then in that same speech he praised

the efforts of the LGBT community and their fight for making space for those employees and to

me to have your “number one” see that work and acknowledge that work, and praise that

work, that was a huge sign of “ok I belong here and we’re actually driving change.”

I think the next steps in terms of where it could go is you know we need to raise all boats, and

even though we’ve been making tremendous progress on the LGBT front, there is a lot of other

diversity groups who need that support and, so, starting to share our best practices and our

model for how we’ve been achieving so much with the other groups is really important. I

actually just met with the Deaf and Hard of Hearing group two weeks ago because they want to

start their version of IC Pride.

So I think that as we see those diversity goals get implemented into actions within the agencies

and then we see the agencies actually planning for diversity in their mission and being mindful

of that diversity of thought, diversity of experience, diversity of perspective. And as their

working their mission that’s when we’re going to really achieve success.

Rita Sampson:

Thank you, we are out of time but I do want to thank SXSW for having us here. I want to thank

Stephanie O’Sullivan for joining us, the panelists, and most of all thank you and feel free to talk

to us afterwards.

Thank you very much.

IC panelists Kris Gill, Katrina Gossman, Tracey Ballard and Rita Sampson at the conclusion of the SXSW panel.