Hello and welcome to this new episode of a conversation with. Today we have a very special guest, actually a very dear friend of mine, somebody that I used to work with, and also we get to collaborate on projects together.
Now, Mario Bystriansky. Now, Mario has been working in the world of HR and people for a really long time, and he's also a massive advocate in the LGBTQ+ community as well, doing some really fantastic work inside of his career space, but also outside in the volunteer space and doing various different projects as well. But there's just some really great insight today.
I'm really looking forward to hearing you talk about what he's learned through his journey of supporting the community and really advocating and being an ally, not just for his own letter in that wonderful acronym, but all of the learning he's done around all of the rest of the LGBTQ acronym as well. Just some really great insights. He's given a couple of really good tips in there as well, just for people to get even more invested and just to be kind to yourself in those spaces as well.
We're really looking forward to hearing what you think about this one. So kick back, grab a cuppa and have a listen. Hello and welcome to this new episode of a conversation with. This time we are talking to the incredibly talented and real advocate in the LGBTQ+ space, Mario Bystryansky. Mario and I have known each other for some time. I'm not going to bore you with telling you about him. I'm just going to let him introduce himself.
Thank you and very excited to be with you here in zinc to record this podcast. What an introduction. So thank you for that. A little bit about me. I live in London, and I have been for the last 19 years. I grew up in small, little village in Slovakia. Only 600 people. I always say that because some villages can be quite large. And what a journey it has been since we are here talking about the LGBTQ community. What a place to live, to experience, you know, all the.
All the letters in the LGBT Alphabet and just to learn about the community every day. I love that. Thank you. Yeah. And actually, I'm really excited to get your thoughts on so much to do with this space because obviously you are. Well, not obviously to the listeners, but obviously to me, you are a member of the community. You're a very passionate member of the community. You are a big advocate for making sure there's awareness and education and understanding and all of those sorts.
And you've been doing some really cool work around it. So I do want to dig into that it'd be really interesting to just hear some of those contrasting experiences, which I know is probably quite difficult because you were so young when you left Slovakia. But I'd be really interested to hear your perception on how different your life could have been had you not come to London and been embraced into the community here.
Sometimes I do wonder what my life would have been and in a small community, and especially in Slovakia, can be very conservative and I would have moved out from the village, I suppose, because even though the issues around or education around lgbt community was just non existent when I was growing up, so there was no one really to learn from, get some insights on, you know, know, what is it to be like to be a gay man or part of their community.
So I would have potentially moved out and maybe come to a larger city, but I'm very glad that I ended up in London because of the opportunities we have here, just to meet other members of the community as well. And I suppose, again, thinking back to my life in Slovakia, if you will have any listeners that grew up or lived in small villages, they will know that everyone knows everyone, everyone talks about everyone. So that's just one another challenge of it.
And the second would be similar countries like Slovakia, where on one side you have the religion that you grew up with, that taught you a certain way how people should behave and who they should be with, versus once you start exploring who you really are, you start to realise, actually, this is who I am, and there is a whole new, very exciting part of world where you belong to and is there for you to experience.
So that transition, for me, going from that small village in Slovakia to London, it didn't happen instantly. I think many people that went through realisation or transition will find this familiar, that first you needed to understand who you really are, come to terms with it, because just 18 years, 19 years, growing up in certain way and just hearing one sort of rules that change doesn't happen overnight. So it took me few years to accept who I am before being able to really
immerse myself in the community and learn. Amazing. Thank you so much. I'm really interested to hear about your journey, obviously personally, but also really professionally, because I know you've done some really great work for LGBTQ+ advocacy. So can you tell me a little bit about the work you've done in your organisation as a volunteer? Some of the things that you've been involved in and obviously you do some events for us as well.
So I'm really just interested to hear a little bit about that. What's kind of inspired you to get involved in this work in general. Yes. And it might sound as a bit of a cliche, but I suppose there is certain time in your life and one might be thinking, you know what, it's time to give back to the community. Because many members of the community would have. Not all of them, unfortunately, but some would have some kind of a support to go through this phase in their life, if you like.
And not many of us had that. So I suppose once you are on the other side, then you have almost like. I had that feeling, you know what? I think I am very.
I feel very comfortable in my skin and I would like to give back to the community, and one way of being able to give back to the community, which I found very, very inspiring, and I really, really enjoy it as my current workplace, my company is very open to encouraging, actually, employees to create groups, various groups, employee resource groups.
And when I heard a couple of years ago that there was this initiative where the diversity and belonging programme was really kicking off, they, of course, wanted to create an LGBTQ+, group for employees as well. And I immediately put my hands up that I would like to be part of it. I wanted to not just give back to the community, but also to learn from the community, because there is so much I don't know.
And being part of an employee resource group really make you learn about other members of the group. And so, for example, we have, as one of the leaders, is organising lunch and learns and activities and different meetings where we educate our employees. I have learned so much about the other members of the group, and a couple of months ago, we have had a session on trans rights and that also included medical issues around being trans, because that's a huge part of it.
And I'll be very honest, I have not been exposed to that kind of information. I have not sought any information around these topics and this really helps me to do that. And this journey of discovering, exploring is really helping me to understand those other members of the community. So going back to your original question, it's almost like I view this journey twofold.
One is to give back to the community, and the second part is focusing on me, my learning, my understanding, and also being able to. When I engage more and more with your community, I can speak to these certain topics because if you want to be, I suppose, an advocate, you should not necessarily. You need to know everything because that's almost impossible.
But being able to talk to those members of the community and understand what they are going through, what their struggles are and I have also recently volunteered to become one of the lgbt charities where the trainers would go to mostly there would be healthcare providers or government organisations and educate the staff on the LGBT+ issues. And it's often.
Again, it will sound a bit of a cliche, but through that education, you get to know the group or the people of that community better because you will know what their struggles are. You will know what they are going through. So that's why the educational is a very important part of what people like me do, to share that knowledge, for people to be able to understand that actually part of the individuals, the lgbt community, are same people.
We have the same struggles in life, same issues like anyone else, and we're just part of the lgbt community. And I think if you are able to get that message across, I think people will find it much easier to understand that, yes, you are just. You are just like me. And when you see that coming through, you then have little bells ringing in your head, like a happy bell said, yes, you know, I have helped someone to learn a little bit more about the community. That's amazing.
And actually, yeah, you're so right. So, obviously, you know, people's experiences in the LGBTQ community are going to differ because of the systematic and the social challenges that exist in our societies across different parts of the world. But on this core level of our human nature and all of the other things, we are all the same. So that's a really interesting part.
And when I think when you can connect with the human in the room, like you say, that's when you see all those bells going off for people. And that's when you're like, this is why I do what I do. Because now you can see me as a human being and you can see other people in this community as a human being. Now, all of a sudden, it's much easier to have these much more constructive conversations. So I love that that's something that you get to see as well. It's really rewarding, definitely.
Like, this work isn't easy. It's really tough sometimes. A because you're having to do a lot of self reflection on yourself, right? So you're learning loads now about trans rights, about bi lives, all of this sort of stuff intersects, etcetera, all of these other wonderful things that make us so different. So you're having to reflect on your own prejudices and your own biases aligned to those groups of people, which is hard to do. But through that, you're learning.
Then how can I articulate this for other people? How can I then make this so that other people don't have to find it so difficult to learn? And how can I connect with these people? So I love that you've got that base level of we are all human, we are all the same. But actually some of these external societal factors are, meaning that some of our struggles and some of our challenges are different.
And I think that's a really amazing place to be when you do this sort of work, especially in the community as well, because there's so much anti trans rhetoric, especially when it comes to our governments. You know, we're about to go for a general election, the US are about to have an election. Those sorts of things always throw up loads of stuff about the community because they're having a bit of a culture war with each other because they're trying to win the most votes.
So it's really tough, this work, but those lovely light bulb moments are exactly why we do it, I think. Absolutely, 100% agree. So it sounds like you're getting lots out of this learning experience. It sounds like, you know, you're getting just as much as you're giving, which is an amazing experience. I think.
I'm really interested to know if the work that you're doing, the involvement in the initiatives for the community, has that influenced your own identity or even your own sense of belonging within the community, maybe even within work. Is there any way that that's influenced any of those things for you? Absolutely. I think so.
Going back to that journey when the discovery journey, who I really am, and essentially then coming out to the world, if you like, because I was not necessarily part of the community. When I came to London, for example, I felt I definitely missed out a lot. And by learning and, you know, coming out and immersing myself in the community, I felt that. I think the community, I feel that they do really look after each other and they do stick with each other.
And sometimes I would say maybe it's not helpful, because then it's very hard to put your foot in your. In the door, right? Because you establish those communities and people know each other. I find it so amazing, like, how small the world can be, especially if I'm thinking just. Just gay world in even a big city like London. I'm not gonna necessarily go into the detail, but, you know, there are some safety concerns that the community has.
So that's why they're very careful, like, who they let in and who they go out with, where they go. By just learning about the struggles, you then understand why, because especially there were you know, if there are some new news articles or, you know, something bad happened to the community in the news, which a couple of months ago, you know, there were few reports in the news when the, you know, members of the community were attacked.
So then you understand why it's such a. Sometimes it can be such a closed community. And just going through that journey and learning about this issues, it made me understand why. And I give you also another example. I have joined a queer dancing club recently, which you will know, and one of the house mothers, as we were going to a social, after having a dance class, we always go to pub and socialise, chit chat, talk about our dancing routines.
And this house mother would always make sure that we are going together. We never leave anyone behind. If someone has not left the studio, for example, we always make sure that we wait for them and we go together. Before, I would not have thought about why this person is doing this, but knowing what the community sometimes is facing, again, helps you to understand why they behave in certain way.
So I'm not sure if I'm answering your question, but that learning was essential for me to understand why the community sometimes behaves the way they are. Yeah, I mean, listen, it hasn't answered my question at all, but it. But it's amazing because you've picked on something really important there and I think this is often forgotten.
So when people from the cisgender and heterosexual community look at the LGBTQ community, often they see celebrations like pride, they, you know, they see flamboyant behaviours and things like that and. And they think, well, this is all really lovely and really nice, but actually, the reality is those things are definitely amazing. And, you know, even just like the use of the word queer now is really celebrated where it used to be, be a slur.
So there's all of those things that are great, but there is this underlying safety concern and you see it in lots of different things now. You know, I'm very straight passing, so I can walk down the street and know that if I get attacked, it's not going to be anything to do with the fact that I'm bi or anything like that. It's literally just going to be because maybe I'm a woman, maybe that's one of my safety concerns or whatever else.
Whereas you've always got this underlying feeling, which, fortunately for you, you've never had to worry about and you've never really thought about until you started doing this learning and really immersing yourself into the community, which is wonderful for your experience. But the reality is this is always this underlying safety concern.
So I think that's something that is really important during pride month, when people are celebrating and, you know, saying all these wonderful things, actually consider the damage that's being done with, you know, the various policies that we're having to deal with in the government structure, all of the historical things that have forced us to this point where we've had to separate ourselves in these groups to be able to go, hey, I need the same rights as
my heterosexual friend who is having maternity or paternity or whatever. You know, there's so many different things, especially when it comes to employment. It's the idea that actually, it's not just a celebration. This is. Let's learn about the history. Let's understand how we've got to this point now and what the future looks like. And the future is extremely bright and amazing. But I do think it's really important to look at both sides of the coin.
And I think a lot of people don't necessarily think about that when it comes to things like pride. And this podcast is going out in Pride month, so, you know, we want to celebrate all of the amazing things the LGBTQ community contribute to the world, give to us in our organisations, and all of those wonderful things. But we can't forget about that other side of it. Even if, like yourself, people have been quite fortunate to not have to be in danger and have those safety concerns.
Personally, we all know somebody that has had that. And your dance academy is incredible. I do want to talk about it really quickly, just because we got to. A couple of us got to come and see you perform, and it was just this absolutely beautiful experience because obviously, we're very proud of you and your experience, but just being in this huge room, it was in Alexandra palace, it was in a beautiful theatre, and there were just hundreds of people there that were 100% safe. Right.
So not everybody's from the community. Lots of people in there would have been straight. Lots of people in there would have been Cisco. But actually, everybody there was an ally or from the community. And it felt like such a warm, safe space to be in that vicinity with other people that were just absolutely rooting for everybody on stage.
It was just a really beautiful experience, and I think that's what happens when people start to become more knowledgeable and more aware of the things that have happened before that weren't so great, but also some of the really good things as well. So just keeping that balance, I think, is really, really useful. Yes. So I'm going to come back to the question. Yes. Okay, let's try again. Let's try again, just because I'm really interested to hear. So, obviously, I've known you for a long time.
We used to work together, we collaborate on projects together. Now, we obviously know each other personally as well, but I'm really interested about how the work that you've been doing with the volunteer company, but also with your. Within your organisation and your own learning, do you think that's influenced any aspects of your own identity or even sense of belonging in the community? Definitely. And like often in this case also, this is.
It's part of the journey, and I'm still on the journey and still the very beginning. I feel I'm on this journey because there's still so much to learn. And the more I learn, the more I realise how much more there is to learn, which is, on one side, scary. But they say I'm super excited that, oh, my God, I still don't know about this. I still don't know why I should research about this in terms of belonging to. And I think just reflecting on this, I think belonging to the community.
I think me personally, whilst I feel that I have, you know, I'm on a good journey and it's an exciting journey, and the start of the journey, I feel I need to do more to reach out to the other groups within the lgbt community, because just because I'm a gay man, it doesn't stop me to learn and be part and experience other members of the community. So, for example, with a very good friend of mine, we went to a comedy event. It was a lesbian comedy event. And you can say that that was us.
I was like, okay, it's not taboo to say that we went to a lesbian comedy because it was amazing. It was so good. And the thing is, so I. For me, obviously, we had such a great time and the acts were very, very good. But again, just to see and be part of the lesbian community, which doesn't really happen very often for. Can I generalise? Maybe. But how I feel that I think all these groups can intermingle and there's opportunities for us to mix a little bit more, if you like. So being.
Instead of always just going to the gay clubs, going to a lesbian comedy night, it was such a. It was such a good fun and. And that sense of belonging in that venue with those people. It was, I think, for me, a little bit on another level, because you can go to lots of gay clubs and gay venues and so on. But this was specifically, obviously, it was open to anyone, but it was very, really geared towards the lesbian community.
And just being there, feeling the energy, being amongst those people was just very amazing. And I did felt at that point that I reached out from my gay world, if you like, to lesbian world, which was very uplifting. So these experiences of me really pushing myself to learn about the other communities helped me to then reach out to those communities. I love this. Like, I had no idea that this is how you felt about. Obviously, we both really enjoyed it.
It was incredible comedy, and considering it wasn't like a big professional one, the comedians were just top notch. They were so, so good. But, yeah, you're right. There was just such a buzz in the room and such a feeling of supporting. And you weren't the only man there. There were a couple of other men that were there, but it was actually really nice as a woman, you know, who's by just to be in that space, but with my friend who is an ally to it as well.
And I think I know you've done a lot of learning in this space as well, since you and I have been talking about these sorts of things, but I had no idea it had such an impact on you. So I'm. I'm really happy to hear that because it was a wonderful experience for me as well. We have to go back. We should shout about it because it's such a good comedy. I agree. I'm really interested then. So it. All of this learning is amazing.
There must have been one thing or something in particular, whether it was in a project within your. The work that you're doing in the space, whether it's a personal, significant thing that happened, but is there something that's just really kind of clicked for you and gone, wow, this is really important work? Definitely. When it was part of the lgbt group that I co facilitate Koran in my company with my other colleagues when we had our first lunch and learn on the LGBTQ history month.
And I have not really done any research into, you know, how it all started. I mean, we stonewall riots, very famous, so I would have heard of about them, but I never really explored, if you like, the history of how it all started and once. So I would advise anyone who is not necessarily knowledgeable around how the pride marches or the Pride month celebration started. Pride protest. When you have pride protests. Exactly.
So if you have, especially as we're celebrating Pride month, I would encourage you, if you have 510 minutes on the train, on the tube, just search. There's lots of articles and learn about why and how it all started. So once you dig into the history a little bit more, you see how life was before. Now, to your point exactly. In many parts of the world, pride celebrations, a big, big party, everyone is having a good time and we love it, but it wasn't always the same way.
And when you read about how the community was hiding in underground spaces or hidden spaces just to be able to be themselves among the, their people and then you hear how police went to arrest them, then you realise, oh, okay, it's not just about the whole big party, it's still, you have that element, that protest element, how it all started. And we must not forget about that.
And I think when I started learning more about the history, it really made me almost like not almost definitely be thankful for all those people that actually started it because it's not easy, you know, imagine being a lesbian, gay, trans person in, in New York, for example, all those years back and your family doesn't know about you. You're hiding from your family, hiding from your friends. And then now suddenly you are with your people and
police comes in and they arrest you for what? Right. So. And then they took that courage to actually say no to this. I'm not going to put up this with this anymore and I'm going to go out to the streets and I'm going to go and protest. And thanks to them, many of, we have many of the rights we have thanks to them. So I think that was one realisation where it really clicked.
If you like, like you said in my head is, you know, what you want to be part of spreading the news, spreading the love and, you know, be part of the movement. Maybe that's not the right word. You know, think about all those people that have started it all those years ago and you are almost like continuing that word. And actually with one of our very good friends, you will know.
So we are both from Slovakia and what we said that this year we will go together to Bratislava pride to support the local community. And I'm not familiar the scene in Slovakia, but I know there are still loads to do for the community to be accepted in Slovakia. So we are both prepared, having experienced pride in the UK, for example, where we go out, have a good time, celebrate, dance, just have an amazing time.
We know that that will not necessarily be replicated in Bratislava where it's still a proper protest. And that's. I think this will be an interesting experience for both of us experiencing that other part of celebrating pride, which is so important. Yeah. And the counter protests that go with that as well, which you don't really see in Brighton, in Manchester, in London. All of the ones, the New York, the Copenhagen, like all of the ones that we've been to or about to go to.
Then actually you don't see the counter protests, and that's going to be, I think, quite eye opening for you there. So I think that there's a couple of things that you've just said that were really interesting because I think something you said earlier that has just come back to me where you were talking about how great it is that the community is so close knit. But sometimes that can be quite a challenge because sometimes it can be a little bit clicky.
And it's really interesting because there's been a lot more in the news lately about algae baby, the group that's LGB. So they're excluding, purposefully excluding trans. So there's a whole different aspect around how people are separating themselves in the group as well. So I love that you're noticing groups coming together and you're learning about the different parts of the LGBTQ acronym, because I think that's more of what we need to do rather than this separating and pulling apart.
And then obviously also we need to think about the fact that Jericho in the UK, we're quite progressive in our. I'm going to use the word acceptance. I don't like that really, when I'm talking about this type of work, but I think it makes sense in this bit. We are much more progressive in our acceptance of people from the LGBTQ community. I would probably say LGB more likely, but actually, that's not the case in a lot of other countries.
Plus, we are a hell of a long way to go in the UK to get everything up to equality, but that's something that you're going to experience, I think when you go to Bratislava and it's a city that you know really well, you know, I know you fly to there when you go see your family, and so does the person you're talking about. But it's probably going to have a very different feeling and a very different meaning for you when you go and experience that.
I'm sure there'll be some really wonderful things with it as well, but it's really good that you're putting yourself in those uncomfortable positions to help yourself grow and learn a lot more. I think we do our best learning when we're uncomfortable, hence why we do this work in the first place, I think to really help people safely get into uncomfortable spaces.
I'm really interested to know as someone that's very personally, deeply committed to the work that you do, what piece of advice or couple of pieces of advice would you give to individuals that maybe are struggling to figure out how they are part of the community or how they can even do this sort of work in general within their own organisations? I think definitely small chunks, taking everything in small chunks, I guess, is a very universal rule with anything you do.
So definitely the learning part is crucial to be able to understand what other members going through, what their challenges are. The other part then will be also it's okay to make mistakes as well as you get along the journey of discovering or wanting to be more involved. And I give you an example where I'm glad how we are bracing using pronouns more and more in, at work, in our friends, amongst our friends as well. Few times I made a mistake when I did not use the correct pronouns.
I always used to feel so bad about myself, oh my God, I used the wrong pronouns. But then we had a chat about in general, about using pronouns with my co leaders that we run this group. And actually what we discussed was that, you know what, it doesn't matter if you make a mistake, if you misgender someone or you don't use the correct pronouns.
As long as you can reflect and just understand that, you know, sometimes you make that mistake and you know, there is way around it, you can just quickly just pause and say to that person, oh, I'm good, I'm so sorry, I used the wrong pronoun and there's nothing wrong with that because I think most of the people, they will appreciate you trying to use the correct pronouns. And if you make a mistake, that's fine, as long as you are not doing it deliberately.
So I think that's another, another part, or I guess another advice I might be able to give out is that don't be too harsh with yourself. As you learn about, for example, the pronouns, it's fine to make mistakes as long as you want to learn. And next time use the correct pronouns. As long as you know that's in your head, that's fine.
So definitely don't beat up yourself too harshly because like going back to what you said about this social constructs and the society, it was drilled into our heads that, you know, he needs to use he or she. So it's very difficult to then differently or think the other way because for, well, I don't know, don't want to give away my age, but if it was drilled into your head for almost 40 years, then it's very hard to your brain then accept or learn about something new and different. Yeah.
And I think that's a really important message. It's definitely a message that we work really hard to get out in our training sessions, in coaching sessions, in conversations that we're having with people. It's okay to get it wrong. It's totally okay to get it wrong. Like you say, don't beat yourself up. I think that there's intention is fine as long as we also consider impact. So I've definitely done it.
I've got trans friends that I've misgendered use their previous name sometimes, you know, their dead name, which is how it's referred to all of those sorts of things. And it's okay because I didn't mean to do it, and I'm working to correct it, and I think that's all that you can do. But like you said, it's been drummed into us for so long that we have to refer to people in a certain way that, yeah, it takes a while to undo that stuff.
So being kind to yourself while you're learning, I also would just add a quick one, which is just a bit of a caveat that I think people could give when they're talking to people. You know, if it's me and I'm talking to someone from a different identity to me, I'm gonna be like, look, I'm learning more about the gay community, for example, the gay men community. And while I'm learning, can you just, like, call me out on things?
Like, if I say something wrong, just tell me, like, I'm not gonna be precious about it. I just need to learn. And I think if you can let go of the ego a little bit with this stuff, it can be really helpful in creating those really safe spaces and opening up those conversations. And then you get to learn so much, and you get to immerse yourself in so many different parts of life in the world. Like, you got to go to a lesbian comedy show. You never would have done that in a million years before.
But because you're learning and growing and all of those sorts of things, and I've got to experience so much through you and the way that you live and all of the wonderful experiences that you've had as well. So I think that's kind of a nice way to wrap up the session. Just the idea that, like you said, be patient with yourself, be kind to yourself while you're learning, but also just know that you will get it wrong. It's totally.
Okay. Just keep learning, keep striving, keep having good intentions, and then your impact hopefully matches up at some point and you start to do things really, really well. Sadly, that's all the time we've got together today. I know we'll probably chat for hours later anyway, but I'm sure we could. Yes.
I want to thank you so much for being here, because I know the work that you do is really important to you, and I know that talking about this stuff is really helpful for people to hear, to know that it's okay that they don't know all the answers. You know, you're from the community, I'm from the community. There's so many people around us from the community. We don't know everything. There's no possible way, like you said, that you can know absolutely everything.
So it's really, really important that you're able to get heard. And I'm really glad that we were able to this conversation today. No, thank you for having me. It was. It was a pleasure. Lovely. Thanks, Mario. Speak to you soon. Speak to you soon. Bye. Of course, I'm going to be biassed and say I absolutely loved recording that podcast. But just fantastic insights from Mario.
Definitely some new information from me that I didn't know about him, but also about the learning and the journey that people go on, even if they are in the LGBTQ community as well. Just some brilliant insights there. I think that idea of just being really kind to yourself and acknowledging that you're learning is a really, really good way to help people to understand how to support you on your learning, but also how you can encourage people to do the same as well. Just fantastic.
Absolutely love spending that time with Mario there. We hope you enjoyed it just as much as we did. We hope you got something useful out of it, whether it's for your employer, whether it's for yourself, whether it's for a friend, and we can't wait to see you on the next one.