A Black Queer Scholar Analyzes Her Experience Volunteering at a Houston Animal Shelter
When people make the decision to volunteer their time and resources at an animal shelter, they certainly don’t anticipate that they could incur harm in the process. However, for Black queer animal lovers, the potential harm upon entering the animal welfare world whether as volunteers, adopters, or even vet clinic patients can be devastating. The mistreatment often enacted upon Black people with intersecting marginalized identities has the power to steal a person’s personal joy, derail their career path, and undeniably contributes to the lack of diversity in the animal welfare field. The lack of diversity and equity in animal welfare is not only detrimental to animals but also to other humans who could benefit from representation outside of the 84% white women who currently dominate the field.
During summer 2023, I decided to give back and improve my dog handling and dog training skills through volunteering at a popular shelter in Houston, Texas known for their dog behavior training program. While there, I experienced mistreatment and dehumanization due to the intersections between my race, sexual orientation, and gender expression before I could even begin my first volunteering shift after training. Upon bringing it to the attention of leadership, in hopes of a teachable moment, I was surprised to find the response from the Executive Director to be even more horrific than the original interaction itself. In this piece I analyze my experience and identify the harm caused and where a more inclusive, more equitable, and more compassionate response could’ve changed the outcome.
it’s not he or him. it’s dr.
Social media has documented the tendency for certain identity groups to be kind and courteous to pets while dehumanizing the Black human holding the leash or accompanying the pet. One Sunday during summer 2023, I drove over 30 minutes to volunteer at the Houston shelter, making the tough decision to opt out of some plans with friends to fulfill my commitment to the shelter. Upon arriving, and patiently waiting to be acknowledged by the shelter staff member at the front desk, I was surprised to find I was completely ignored as if I weren’t standing there while about four other employees crowded behind the desk pointing and laughing. Several minutes passed before I was acknowledged long enough to even make eye contact with one of the employees behind the desk. When I did, she gruffly asked me if I was just looking at the display in the lobby in lieu of simply asking how she could help or another greeting that would open the floor for dialogue between two humans. I informed her I was there to volunteer at which point she motioned for me to follow her without ever really addressing me at all. When I followed, she led me up a hall and to a room. When we reached the door, she stated to a man in the room, “He’s here for his shift.”
I was surprised to hear this as I’m a woman, do not identify as a man, and, while I have a masculine presentation would not say that I present myself as a man. If she had bothered to greet me or even ask me my name, she might’ve received clues to my identity or she would’ve had the opportunity to use my name when facilitating the handoff instead of referring solely to her perception of my gender identity. My name is Megan. Dr. Megan actually and I’m much more than a he, she, they, his, hers, or theirs. Normally, the misgendering wouldn’t have been a big deal but experiencing it after being so rudely ignored and then greeted in such an unkind manner by so many people representing this organization was enough for me to decide it’d likely be better for me to spend my Sunday another way. I first informed the employee that I was a woman and then let the team know I preferred to leave as a result of the treatment.
The shelter employee apologized with embarrassed tears in her eyes and informed me that she would let her supervisor know what happened. These tears would later be used weapons of mass destruction.
What the shelter employee wasn’t able to tell about me due to her failure to see me as human or engage me was that I am a scholar activist who problematizes the ways Black people and other marginalized communities are dehumanized when engaging with animal welfare facilities and professionals. Upon leaving I wrote an email to the volunteer coordinator expressing my disappointment in the experience and pointing out the need for sensitivity training for their public-facing employees. As a Black queer woman who’s often misgendered around Houston by white people and Mexicans but hardly by people of my own race, I preferred not to dedicate my time for free to such easily avoidable treatment. Again, it was neither the ignoring nor the misgendering as isolated incidents but rather the combination of the two that let me know that this particular shelter was too unfriendly a place for me to dedicate my time, expertise, and effort.
Upon receiving a response from the Executive Director of the shelter, we’ll call her Director, I knew that this shelter not only wasn’t the place for me but leadership’s decision to double down in their hostility towards Black queer people makes this shelter a hostile place for all Black queer people in the city. I didn’t so much as receive an apology sincere or otherwise for the poor experience I encountered nor did this Executive Director engage the possibility that perhaps they had fallen short in their training when it comes to identities outside of the typical young white women who volunteer and work at the shelter. Rather, she immediately pitted me against her staff member, informing me that she “supported [the employee] 100%.” In the subsequent paragraphs I analyze the Executive Director’s response and highlight how and why this response and behavior at public animal shelters is detrimental to the people who experience them, the animals who they serve, and the employees and volunteers who work there. Further, this behavior collectively is a key reason for the lack of diversity in the animal welfare field.
Hello Meagan,
Thanks for your email.
We never want anyone at our shelter to feel "less than" or disrespected. Moving here from Atlanta, you might not know that we have a sizeable number of LGBT staff, including myself. We have a float in the Pride parade every year and that each of our senior leads is trained in Non Violent Communication. Our staff name badges have our chosen pronouns on them.
None of that is said to diminish the way that you feel about your experience. I applaud your being able to check in on your own feelings and discern what felt acceptable to you and what didn't.
While I am not a trans person, I have been misgendered. I find that it is very clearly and immediately apparent whether the mistake is a good faith error or whether the misgendering is a reckless or purposeful attempt to shame or diminish me. If I discern it is a good faith mistake and the person responds immediately when I correct them, I have grace about it. It often provides a great launching point of a deeper and more meaningful conversation.
[Staff Member] meets hundreds of volunteers and sells hundreds of shirts. She does this while answering the phone, dealing with people who walk in in crisis, managing foster, clinic and adoption appointments and doing hands on animal care. She is a compassionate person and I fully support her in this matter. Had you introduced yourself as "Meagan" that would have given her the cue she needed. As it happened, you corrected her and her immediate response was "Oh, I'm so sorry." After you left, [Staff Member] came to her manager upset about the incident. She was upset because she made you feel bad. She will now ask the name of any blueshirt she doesn't know before walking them to a shift in hopes of gaining an important clue. Far from "despicable," which is a word I reserve for purposeful or reckless cruelty, [Staff Member] acted reasonably and with kindness. You had a whole array of options from which to choose in your response. "Thank you for your apology. I need you to know that is embarrassing and very uncomfortable for me. I'd like to talk about how we make certain that experience never happens to me again here" is just one possibility.
I think you will have a difficult time finding an animal shelter in Houston as inclusive as [Shelter Name] but for your sake, I truly hope that you do.
#1 “we’re lgbt friendly we have a pride parade float ”
“Hello Meagan,
Thanks for your email.
We never want anyone at our shelter to feel "less than" or disrespected. Moving here from Atlanta, you might not know that we have a sizeable number of LGBT staff, including myself. We have a float in the Pride parade every year and that each of our senior leads is trained in Non Violent Communication. Our staff name badges have our chosen pronouns on them. . .”
First, my name is spelled incorrectly even though my name was listed on my email account, in the database where I signed up to be a volunteer, in my email signature, and several other places. If the intention was to communicate a desire not to disrespect or belittle, a few additional seconds to check spelling could’ve supported this person in living that out. However, as shown in the email, this person’s intention was to defend their staff member and organization and to avoid accountability not to rectify harm.
Next, the Director stated they never want anyone to feel less than or disrespected, and proceeded to justify the behavior by asserting that they have a float in the Pride parade, have a sizeable number of LGBT staff, are trained in Non Violent communication, and use preferred pronouns of name tags. Each of these are quite effortless (in my opinion, performative) actions and don’t communicate a commitment to the LGBTQ+ community necessarily. Furthermore, I never doubted that they were LGBT+ friendly. Instead, my concern was that they may not friendly towards people whose identities span beyond just their queer identity into more complex intersections such as my being a Black woman raised and nurtured in America who identifies as queer has a masculine presentation.
Ever wondered why most metro cities like Houston and Atlanta have separate Pride celebrations? In Atlanta, there’s Pride which usually occurs in June during Pride month and October and then there’s Black Pride which occurs in September during Labor Day weekend. The white LGBT+ community has not been known to be very kind to Black queer people which necessitates that Black people create their own spaces to be safe. Still, Director’s assertion was intended to say “We’re not prejudice against the LGBTQ+ community because we have a float in the Pride parade and have LGBT staff members.” This statement is the exact same as saying “I’m not racist. I have a Black friend.” Also, note, of the entire staff, there are no Black employees and very few non-white women staff members. Lastly, if there was an organization-wide sanctioning of respecting pronouns, then why wasn’t I prompted to indicate my preferred pronouns earlier in the process? And considering that the incident occurred before I could even start volunteering but after the training, it indicates there may be a need to provide name tags and the opportunity to communicate pronouns earlier in the process. What about having a list of new volunteers scheduled for a shift so that the person at the front desk could greet them by their name and not their gender? There are many easy solutions to the problem but unfortunately, Director decided to take a defensive stance instead of taking the feedback into consideration.
#2 I respect what you saying but here’s what you should’ve done
“. . . None of that is said to diminish the way that you feel about your experience. I applaud your being able to check in on your own feelings and discern what felt acceptable to you and what didn't.”
This is an example of a performative statement. Certainly informing me of their Pride float, Non-violent communication training, LGBT staff makeup, and use of preferred pronouns on name tags was intended to diminish the way I felt. Additionally, if Director really applauded my ability to check in on my feelings and discern what felt acceptable to me, then why didn’t her email end here?
Instead, she continued:
#3- You should’ve done what I’d do… even though I have no experience with this
The Director wrote:
“While I am not a trans person, I have been misgendered. I find that it is very clearly and immediately apparent whether the mistake is a good faith error or whether the misgendering is a reckless or purposeful attempt to shame or diminish me. If I discern it is a good faith mistake and the person responds immediately when I correct them, I have grace about it. It often provides a great launching point of a deeper and more meaningful conversation.”
Here was another opportunity to fact check before responding. By stating, “while I am not a trans person” and launching into how she normally handles things, Director assumes that I am trans and speaking from a trans experience when I am not. The failure to check into the details or verify how I actually identify indicates to me that Director’s response was emotionally charged and prioritized defending instead of understanding. This response alone let me know that Director didn’t have the capacity to actually understand my feedback or the actions I problematized.
Next, anyone who has sat in any diversity training knows it’s important for people from privileged identities not to project onto others of marginalized experiences what they would, should, or could do in a situation or how they would handle it. Simply put, Director has never experienced this before while I experience it daily. I am an expert on this experience and she is not. There’s no way for her to know how she would handle it because she does not have the experience and if she did, she would have a different identity and social experience which means she likely would not handle it the way she imagines she would in her current life. The experience had very little to do with my gender presentation or sexual orientation and more to do with my gender presentation and sexual orientation as a result of my race. Clearly, Director does not understand this.
“[Staff Member] meets hundreds of volunteers and sells hundreds of shirts. She does this while answering the phone, dealing with people who walk in in crisis, managing foster, clinic and adoption appointments and doing hands on animal care. She is a compassionate person and I fully support her in this matter. Had you introduced yourself as "Meagan" that would have given her the cue she needed. As it happened, you corrected her and her immediate response was "Oh, I'm so sorry." After you left, [Staff Member] came to her manager upset about the incident. She was upset because she made you feel bad. She will now ask the name of any blueshirt she doesn't know before walking them to a shift in hopes of gaining an important clue. . . ”
Next, Director spends a significant amount of time justifying the position of the staff member and defending her. By stating she meets hundreds of volunteers and detailing Staff Member’s daily tasks, Director attempts to reduce my humanity down to being one of hundreds of people to justify the mistreatment. She even stated what happened following the incident even though she was not there and did not have a firsthand account of what occurred. (This is surprising primarily because this person holds a law degree.)
In stating “Had you introduced yourself as Meagan that would have given her the cue she needed” places blame and the responsibility on me (as a volunteer) to anticipate the (paid) staff member’s lack of experience with Black queer people like myself and to engage the emotional labor to prevent her from making an offensive mistake. Engaging in emotional labor so that I can safely volunteer my time at an animal shelter is not my responsibility. It is the responsibility of the person facing the public and their employer who is responsible for training them to ensure they have the skills and knowledge to interact with the public as a public animal shelter. That is, if said shelter claims to be accessible to everyone.
In stating “[Staff Member] came to her manager upset about the incident. She was upset because she made you feel bad” centers the staff member’s emotions over mine when I was the one who was harmed by Staff Member not the other way around. Still, Director uses this as a way of making it seem as if Staff Member was harmed to position her as a damsel in distress. While Director doesn’t explicitly reference white woman tears, her choice of word directly aligns with the white fragility and white women tears documented in the literature.
Director states, “She will now ask the name of any [volunteer] she doesn't know before walking them to a shift in hopes of gaining an important clue.” This is the only part of the entire paragraph that should’ve been said. Staff Member made a harmful and offensive mistake. If the goal is to not make that same mistake to another person, then reflecting on the offense and determining a solution to avoid future errors was all that was needed. However, it’s important to note that it isn’t the job of a person who is seeking to dedicate their time to an organization to introduce themselves or to do anything to interrupt someone from treating them poorly whether intentionally or unintentionally due to inexperience and lack of training. If an organization claims to be open to everyone then everyone should be able to conduct business there without worrying about being mistreated for any reason. Based on the response of the Founder and Director, this shelter is not open to everyone. I was not someone they considered valuable and because of that, there was no interest in addressing the education and knowledge gaps that led to the offensive experience I identified.
“Far from "despicable," which is a word I reserve for purposeful or reckless cruelty, [Staff Member] acted reasonably and with kindness. You had a whole array of options from which to choose in your response. "Thank you for your apology. I need you to know that is embarrassing and very uncomfortable for me. I'd like to talk about how we make certain that experience never happens to me again here" is just one possibility.”
Again, Director informs me of what she does by telling me how she usually uses the word “despicable,” which has no relevance. She continues to position Staff Member as kind, reasonable, and harmless while implying that I was hostile and unreasonable even though she was not there and I did nothing hostile. I politely informed the team I didn’t plan to stay and I left, which I am well within my rights to do.
Director even goes on to place the emotional labor and responsibility on me again detailing a sample sentence I could’ve said to the offending staff member. As Director is technically this employee’s manager and is responsible for her professional development, the proper response should’ve been to identify how Staff Member could’ve responded differently leading to a different outcome. However, Director expected me to volunteer my time for free to teach this staff member how to interact with me ignoring the fact that if she had treated me humanely from the beginning, this would’ve never happened. She would’ve known my name if nothing else if only she asked and she would’ve avoided misgendering me by simply introducing me by my name. “Megan’s here for Megan’s shift.” Go figure, it’s the same amount of words as what she actually did say. My decision to remove myself from the setting was the most safe and logical decision considering the setting and especially considering this response. There’s nothing I should’ve or could’ve done differently to avoid being dehumanized and ultimately misgendered by the white staff member. If there were, this would’ve never happened in the first place.
I think you will have a difficult time finding an animal shelter in Houston as inclusive as FFL but for your sake, I truly hope that you do.
Director concludes by suggesting that her organization is the most inclusive in the city despite my pointing out a glaring example of how they are not inclusive. The statement “but for your sake, I truly hope you do” comes across as threatening and equally as hostile as this incident itself. The hostility I experienced from the misgendering and dehumanization incident and then the Director’s decision to blame me for the mistreatment and point out how I should’ve showed up different while defending the employee who committed the offense is indicative of the exclusive, cult-like organizational culture which led to this offense in the first place. Further, other non-white potential adopters and volunteers have identified similar issues via their reviews.
Conclusion
This Director’s response said in many words that they don’t care about how their staff make people feel whether they’re volunteers or potential adopters and especially if their identities are different from the majority of the staff at the shelter. According to Director, because I was not deemed worthy of respect or humane treatment because of the staff member’s perception of me, it was my job to be sure to introduce myself quickly so that the staff member didn’t mistake my gender because of my race. It was also my responsibility upon being ignored and mistreated to be grateful for the mistreatment by thanking the person and taking the time to say way more words than this person could be bothered to mutter to me, providing detailed instructions about what should’ve happened. Of course this was the desired response from shelter leadership as it allows the staff member and entire organization to avoid the accountability and responsibility to treat everyone who enters their doors with respect and courtesy whether they understand or respect them and their identity or not.
This is one of many examples of the hostility marginalized people experience when attempting to volunteer or adopt from shelters and it may explain the lack of diversity among staff and low adoption and engagement rates with shelters. As an organization that would fail if not for volunteers, I found this response equally as shocking and disappointing. Yet, taking a step back from it, its indicative of a common issue present within shelters which leads to the lack of diversity in the pet world broadly. I chose to volunteer because I love dogs and wanted to strengthen my handling skills and knowledge as a dog trainer; however, upon entering the building I was treated with such hostility that I didn’t have the same access to the education and hands-on experience I desired as a volunteer that another white volunteer would have.
This was my last time attempting to volunteer at a shelter. While I’ve wanted to find other shelters to volunteer my time, this experience haunts me and sticks at the forefront of my mind. I find it too complicated and disgusting to feel like I must take on more emotional labor than I already do in my life to ensure I’m not mistreated by staff or gaslit by those in leadership when I call for accountability for the lack of education and training of the staff. Instead, I’ve found other areas in my animal handling to develop as the likelihood of another encounter such as this is a bit too much for me. Sadly, this shelter successfully evaded accountability for their exclusive, discriminatory behavior and have, according to their reviews continued treated many other people they deem less than and unworthy similarly. After all, they can’t possibly be prejudice because they have a float in the Pride parade ;)
Dr. Megan Covington is a public scholar and the Founder and CEO of The Pit Bull Doctor LLC (formerly Atlanta Pit Bull Training). The Pit Bull Doctor provides solutions to specific social problems pit bull parents and owners encounter through training and behavior consulting, housing discrimination, and public access advocacy for individuals and corporate training and consulting for businesses and organizations. Click here to contact Dr. Megan or partner with The Pit Bull Doctor.
