Organisational workplace wellbeing and culture leader Rachael Haynes speaks to Health & Protection about becoming who she fully is, why effective psychological safety at work is essential and why the words of a close friend and business partner have always stayed with her.
What have been your own experiences with regard to attitudes towards LGBTQ+ communities in the sector?
When Health & Protection asked me to contribute to its Pride coverage, I found myself reflecting not only on my own experience as a transgender woman, but on what that experience has taught me about work, leadership and psychological safety.
Two-and-a-half years ago, I began my transition. Today, I live and work authentically as Rachael – but I don’t see my life as neatly divided into ‘before’ and ‘after’. I liked the man I was before – that life gave me the privilege of being married to an amazing woman, my best friend, and becoming a parent to our incredible 16-year-old. None of that would have been possible without the path I lived.
So for me, transition has not been about rejecting who I was. It has been about becoming more fully who I am.
How have attitudes evolved in the sector?
One question I am often asked is whether people treat me differently now. More respected as a man? Less respected as a woman? Treated differently because I am transgender? The honest answer is mostly, no.
Some people have become wonderful advocates, most have simply got on with it and continued to treat me as the same colleague, leader, friend or industry professional they always knew. There are a few people I no longer hear from, and I will never know for certain why. But overall, my experience has been far more positive than many might expect.
At the beginning of my transition, my closest friend and business partner said something I have never forgotten, ‘I don’t fully understand what you’re going through, but I’ll walk alongside you, learn with you, and support you’. To this day, it remains one of the most powerful things anyone has ever said to me. Not because they claimed to have all the answers, but because they didn’t. They chose curiosity over judgement, understanding over assumption, and connection over certainty.
That matters because the public conversation around gender can often make the world feel harsher, narrower and more divided than it really is. My lived experience has reminded me that most people are decent, curious and capable of adapting their perspective through learning, understanding and human connection.
History suggests that social progress is rarely a straight line. Every movement towards greater inclusion seems to be accompanied by voices arguing for a return to how things were before. Yet when we look back, we rarely remember the arguments. We remember the people whose lives improved because barriers were removed.
Whether the conversation was about race, disability, sexuality or gender, the underlying question has often been remarkably similar: who gets to participate fully, and on equal terms? For me, that is why these conversations matter.
What is the sector doing well and where does it need to up its game?
In the health and protection sector, I have seen genuine progress during my career. A decade or two ago, conversations about LGBTQ+ inclusion were often framed around policy, compliance and tolerance. Today, more organisations understand that inclusion is not simply about protecting minority groups from harm, but about creating the conditions in which people can thrive.
Policies are important – they provide structure, rights and safeguards – but policies alone don’t create belonging. Culture and leadership does – which then drive the everyday behaviours of managers and colleagues.
One of the things I’ve learned is that psychological safety exists both around us and within us. Even now, I sometimes notice my nervous system anticipating a threat before my rational mind has caught up. I wear headphones when walking alone, partly because I don’t particularly want to hear if someone has something unkind to say. I occasionally avoid eye contact with strangers. There are moments when I realise I am still scanning for risk.
That is learned behaviour. Our nervous systems carry memories, expectations and anticipatory fear. But learned behaviour can also be unlearned when the environment consistently proves safer than we expected – and yet, at exactly the same time, I feel more comfortable in my own skin than ever before.
That tension fascinates me – and why psychological safety matters so much. It is not simply about removing threat; it is about creating enough consistent safety that people can gradually stop bracing themselves for it.
For me, this is where psychological safety becomes essential. This is not simply about making people feel comfortable all the time, but creating an environment where people don’t have to spend half their energy calculating which parts of themselves are safe to bring into the room. That energy either goes into hiding, or it goes into contribution.
Anyone who has ever had to edit themselves at work will understand this. It may be because of gender identity, sexuality, neurodiversity, disability, caring responsibilities, mental health, social background, age, faith, accent, class or simply not fitting the expected mould of leadership. While the specifics differ, the human experience is often remarkably similar.
When people are managing concealment, they are not giving their full attention to customers, colleagues, problem solving, creativity or performance. Instead, their nervous system is busy assessing threats, they’re monitoring risk, scanning for judgement and deciding whether honesty will carry a cost.
Neuroscience tells us that when we perceive threat, our brains prioritise protection over exploration. We become more cautious, less creative and less willing to take interpersonal risks. That may have served us well when the threat was physical danger – but it’s pretty useless in workplaces that rely on innovation, collaboration and trust. This is why psychological safety is not simply a wellbeing issue, but a business performance issue.
Organisations spend enormous amounts of time and money trying to unlock engagement, innovation, discretionary effort and high performance. Yet all of those things become harder when people are operating from a state of self-protection. People do their best work when their nervous system is not preoccupied with survival.
Our sector exists to protect people’s health, wellbeing and financial security. We speak often about resilience, prevention, support and care – yet if we are serious about those things externally, we must also take them seriously internally.
The health and protection sector is doing many things well – there is greater visibility, more open conversation, stronger employee networks, better policies and a far more mature understanding of wellbeing than existed in the past. I have personally experienced significant kindness, respect and support.
We can always continue to improve – we need leaders who understand that psychological safety is not created by annual campaigns, but through daily choices, behaviours and actions. Who gets heard in meetings? Who gets interrupted? Who feels safe challenging a decision? Who has to justify their identity? Who is quietly withdrawing because the room no longer feels safe?
We also need to stop treating authenticity as a distraction from professionalism. Authenticity is not the opposite of performance – but a prerequisite for it.
My transition has not changed my professional expertise, my values or my commitment to helping organisations create healthier workplaces – what it has changed is my ability to bring all of myself to that work.
Do you feel encouraged and enabled to bring your whole self to work?
Absolutely – and I know what a privilege that is – but the real ambition should be that this becomes unremarkable.
Nobody should need courage simply to be themselves at work – no one should have to wait decades to feel safe enough to live truthfully and no one should have to choose between authenticity and opportunity.
As we mark Pride, I hope we continue broadening the conversation. LGBTQ+ inclusion matters deeply, but psychological safety is not only an LGBTQ+ issue, but a human one.
Every person deserves dignity and respect – and every person deserves the opportunity to contribute as their authentic self. That is not a political position but a baseline. When people no longer need to spend energy hiding who they are, they are finally free to spend that energy becoming who they might be.