We spend so much time talking about privilege and bias, and the importance of breaking out of our bubbles and understanding more about the experiences of others. We're always super mindful that we have to do this in the right way. There's no way that any of us will be better LGBT+ allies by instructing our gay colleague to educate us in the entire gay experience (more common than you might think judging by what some of our pals have told us).
It's really important to understand the experiences of others in a way which doesn't place an unnecessary additional burden on those people. "But how???" we hear you cry. Well, here's our A New Normal watching and listening list. Lovingly curated for you by our wonderful team as a seasonal gift.
As you'd probably expect, our resident film buff (and co-host of our wonderful "Diversity on Screen" podcast, and professional Grinch) Ryan is recommending two of his favourite films of the year.
Ryan says: "This year has been a great year for D&I in film and TV. First off, two huge films, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and The Woman King, both of which feature strong female characters and showcase different cultures."
Our Trish describes herself as a "permanent late adopter"for everything, and has somehow managed to only just discover the amazing 'Sex Education' on Netflix. She loves it for its beautiful representation, as well as for the way it pivots between hilarious and heartbreaking, and is now absolutely obsessed with it.
Given that Trish's excuse for missing 'Sex Education' 'til now is that she has three young kids and is always asleep by 9, it's perhaps not surprising that she has some recommendations for our younger followers too: "'Encanto' is one of those joyful films where you can see the authenticity in casting even through the animation. 'Turning Red' does a cracking job of handling puberty for girls and everything that goes along with it. Best of all - both of these are films that I love watching as an adult which the small Drivers also love!"
Julie's current "go to" podcast is Megan Markle's 'Archetypes' - an exploration of gender and stereotypes, which Julie loves for its attention to detail when it comes to intersectionality.
Julie and her kids are also loving 'Strictly Come Dancing' for the way it smashes stereotypes and encourages amazing representation.
If you're up for something a bit more documentary-focussed, Julie also recommends 'Breaking the Class Ceiling', where Sathnam Sanghera asks if we should treat classism in the same way as racism and sexism, and make it illegal.
Our Kate is currently in love with the BBC show 'Ralph and Katie', a BBC television drama series, a spin-off of 'The A Word', about the lives of a couple with Down's syndrome. The six-part series was created by a writing team made up predominantly of people with disabilities. We especially love this for it's adherence to the idea "nothing about us without us" which is so important for great casting, storytelling and representation.
We hope you enjoy these snippets of our favourites - for more, you might want to subscribe to our newsletter, where we share the best of all things inclusion on a fortnightly basis.
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