Sustainable Business Practices, Trans Advocacy, and Capitalism

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Welcome to the Business Gay podcast where we talk about all things business, marketing and entrepreneurship. I’m your host Calan Breckon and on today’s episode I have founder of orchestra Origami Customs, Rae Hill. Origami Customs is a trans and gender diverse clothing brand and community program based in Montreal. The program operates with a network of over 100 other organizations and provides life changing items to people facing intersectional oppressions and financial barriers. Rae draws from their background in sociology, experience in the fashion industry and trans healthcare advocacy work that they’ve done over the past 15 years. Today we’re going to be talking about mutual aid, capitalism, and supporting trans businesses. So let’s jump in with Rae. But before we do that, I do need to mention that you’ll notice we had a little bit of technical difficulties in the episode. But if you stick with it, I promise you it will be worth it because it was so good. All right, let’s jump in.

Hey Rae, welcome to the podcast. We’re excited to have you. How are you doing?

[00:01:45] Rae Hill: Yeah, I’m doing so well. Thanks for having me here. It’s going to be great.

[00:01:49] Calan Breckon: Yeah. Okay, cool. So we actually had like little email back and forth kind of before we decided to do this. And you brought up this amazing idea around using mutual aid ideals within a capitalist framework. And I’m just so intrigued because I wanted to go down that rabbit hole. But then I was like, no, save it for the podcast. So how about we start there and can you explain, explain this idea and concept to us?

[00:02:15] Rae Hill: Yeah, absolutely.

So it’s a bit, it’s a bit nebulous, but it comes from like my experience in the queer and trans community and also my experience running the business and my background is in sociology and so I’m kind of. This is what I’m bringing to running a business under capitalism. Right. And when I Started employing people, I started to think about, like, well, what, what are the ways in which queer and trans people have done this? From more of a place of heart and, and also necessity, because queer trans people are really amazing at creating the systems that we’ve inherently, like, been left out of historically. Right. Like, we don’t have the same opportunities for, like, housing and credit and health care and, like, all of this stuff. And so I think over, over time, like, we’ve been really incredible at supporting one another and creating systems that work for us. And often that looks like mutual aid systems. You know, you see like, GoFundMes and you see meal trains, and we’ve been able to create these kind of, like, networks and systems of care. And so I started thinking about, like, how can we bring that into capitalism? Like, this is a trans business for trans people by trans people. Trans people make the product, trans people earn the money, trans people get the products. Like, we can’t take that and forget about the ways in which, like, we’ve been able to do things differently and just plug and play into, like, a normal business model that isn’t going to work. That’s not who we are.

Yeah. So I did a lot of research and I did a lot of thinking when I was starting to, to employ people. And then of course, all of the things that go with employing people, like getting healthcare and doing hr and then of course, like, the education that I do in, in teaching other people how to create these frameworks.

Yeah. So do you want me to talk a little bit about, like, the, the practicality of what that looks like?

[00:04:11] Calan Breckon: Yes, please. Because I’m still like. I’m like, keep coming. Because we’re, it’s no secret, we’re in a very weird space right now, just culturally, politically, community. And I think that a lot more people should and need to be looking at these kinds of things and different ways of doing business, especially moving into the future, we all know, is broken fundamentally at its core, like, it’s an Ouroboros. It’s just going to keep eating its own tail. And at the end of it, like, okay, you won, capitalism. But, like, the world is still here and people are still on the planet and we still need to function. So how does that next evolution look? And so I think exactly this is one of those pieces that, with many other pieces that can fit into it of, like, how can we, you know, evolve and continue to prosper and, and do well, especially in our communities? So, yes, please, keep diving.

[00:05:05] Rae Hill: Exactly. Okay, so, yeah, I like what you said. It’s like picking up the pieces of capitalism and going like, okay, what do we do with this? Like, how do we make it? And especially at this moment in time, right? Especially for trans people, this moment in time, like how do we make it sustainable? Because it has to look really different right now going forward too. So yeah, fundamentally I think from the beginning I was able to program the way that we hire and employ and work with our customers as well. I wouldn’t, I mean, I’d love to say that we could create something that’s non hierarchical, but it can’t be that to function as a business, it’s not a co op, it can’t quite work that way. But I feel like we’ve been able to pull in the principles and the ideals. And so that means like kind of foundationally seeing everyone who’s involved in the process from like manufacturing positions essentially as being like legitimate, like whole humans who are involved in like the concept and the creation of these like life changing garments. And that, that comes into play in lots of different ways. One of the ways that I see that is like the care and time that each person takes in creating the garments in terms of like imagining what this person is like that you’re sending off a garment to. Like, who is this person? What does their, what is it like to be in their body? How is it like to be in the world in their time and place? You know, we get a lot of information from the people who, who buy from us because it’s custom, not just about their body, but like, hey, this is what my life is like in like, I don’t know, like small town in Ohio, like where I am situated in my transness, how I need this product to enhance my life and, and hopefully help with the vulnerability that I experience. And so each person who’s creating a garment will kind of be able to think from their experience as well about how this needs to function, how they want to create it, how they connect across the globe with the people who are on the receiving end. So we’re creating these relationships, right? It’s not just about like a factory that makes a thousand thousands of something and then we package it and we send it out. It’s like there are these, these relationships that are being created.

And then I guess like the higher level of that is like the way in which like as a team we relate to one another. You know, there’s so much valuable knowledge and empathy and insight that comes from having people on my staff who, who wear gender affirming garments and then have been making them. You know, I’ve had the same staff for like six, seven, eight years. Like I’ve had the same group of people with me for a really long time now. We share experiences, we share, yeah, just like an understanding of what it’s like to wear the garments, to make the garments, to be in this particular moment. We talk about how we want to speak about the business and about the products that we’re making. You know, what’s the message that we want to be putting out there in the world. So I get a lot of feedback and I take, take a lot of that to heart as I’m like especially right now in a moment where I’m writing a lot of educational resources for the. That’s really been what’s sustaining us.

So yeah, I don’t do that in a bubble. Like we’re constantly kind of in this, in this feedback loop because I don’t really see a distinction between like me, the people who create the garments and then the people who are sending them out to like we’re all a community, we’re just at different points in that.

[00:08:37] Calan Breckon: Yeah, it’s, it’s, I love it. It’s beautiful. It’s bringing the humanity back to the reality of like, yes, we’re on this planet. Yes, people have needs and wants and things, but like you can still be humans with other humans doing this work and the pure capitalistic mentality of the. I’m going to use the United States specifically because they’re kind of like the poster child versus the different kind of ways of doing business that I’ve seen from all around the world. From my experience of, you know, living and traveling internationally of like, you know, doing business with a Japanese company in person is very different. Like they expect you to like, you know, fully come to their house with your whole family and like sit and have dinner and really be in community. Because they look at it as like this is a long term relationship. This is a long term, you know, not just business relationship but personal relationship that we are getting into.

[00:09:31] Rae Hill: It’s a type of partnership in a.

[00:09:32] Calan Breckon: Way, a hundred percent. And, and, and I also was listening to this business podcast recently based in Europe and they were talk the same thing about how they used to try and approach things with the US or like, you know, the not even hyper Western because Europe is very different business wise where they would be like, okay, let’s really treat them well and like humans and we want to, you know, do business with you and create these relationships. But then they would just like Be like, okay, and then in the future, they’ll come back. And they just never would come back because they’re all about the, like, onwards and upwards forever hockey stick in the US And. And we need to bring it back down to the. You can have growth, but, like, we need to create sustainable growth. And sometimes that means going slower. And going slower is okay because you get that good stuff. You get that, like, the juice is worth the squeeze when you get there. And, like, that’s what we need to, I think, come back to as humanity and back to as business folks. And I think that you’re definitely baking that into your business and how you are creating.

[00:10:33] Rae Hill: Yeah, it. It’s. It’s challenging, though. It’s something I really had to fight against is this idea of, like, of expansion and of growth. And like, we had this big boom during COVID where a lot of people were coming out as trans. A lot of people were out of their offices for the first time in a long time. They were dressing for themselves. Some of them had, like, a bit of extra money from government.

And so we. We increased everything. Like, we doubled over three years each year. And it was very unsustainable growth. We weren’t ready for it. I had to hire. I had to like, completely change my systems in a way that no one was ready for during COVID where we couldn’t even, like, work in the same room. We didn’t have a production studio. We were all working in our houses. And that was terrible. Like, I never want to scale in a way that’s not sustainable. And that’s going to, like, cut out on that beautiful thing that we’ve already created, which is the relationships. And now, like, we have a team of eight right now. And it’s working. It’s working really well in that, like, we. We share a lot together and we work in the same space.

And I can’t imagine it in that. In that mindset of, like, bigger is better. And, like, I did. I didn’t want to ever have to take that decision to, like, outsource or move to a factory overseas. That’s never going to be something. And when you’re like me, you hit this point where you’re like, well, how. How can I get bigger without going that route? Not a lot of people have done it, and I kind of have to figure it out for the first time. There’s not really a roadmap for any of this.

[00:12:16] Calan Breckon: Yeah, I can’t. Yeah, I was going to say, like, most people do go, okay, well, where abroad can I go to get these things made. But then you take away that piece of the importance of which is kind of my next question of like, what does it mean for trans people specifically to have access to goods and services that are created within the community, that gives back to the community and if you were to take it abroad, that you’re missing that piece? So can you speak to that piece of like, why and how that is so important to the journey?

[00:12:46] Rae Hill: Yeah, of course. I mean, it was just, it was just never an option for what we do. Like, once I started looking into factories and once I started learning like how many other gender affirming garments are made in factories overseas, I kind of started googling those factories and I was like, oh, like this isn’t really what the community thinks it’s buying into. And it’s like pretty opposed to what I think are the values of the community. Like things made in factories are often relying on like underpaid labor of women of color, which, you know, historically in our trans communities, it’s women of color who face the most backlash. And I was like, how can we, how can we reconcile those two ideas? And it wasn’t possible for me. Right. It’s really important that people know where they’re getting their garments, that they, that they know that the money that they’re spending, because I’m not the best on the market, you know, things ethically, it’s not that much more expensive. But you’re, it’s not like buying a binder off of Amazon, you know, but you know that, that money is going to like a livable wage and the, the gender affirmation health care of the people who are making it. You know, like people have gone through their, their medical transition within the company because we’ve been able to support that. Aside from like other things in their life which are non transition related, of course, but like people know what they’re, what they’re paying into and it, and it goes back to that circular economy, right? It’s like there’s a, it’s like there’s a GoFundMe and they’re like, hey, this person needs to get top surgery. I’m going to pitch in 20 bucks or 50 bucks so that they can get it. Essentially you’re doing the same thing in paying an extra 20 for a binder. For me, as opposed to one on Amazon, that $20 goes to the top surgery of the person who is making that binder. And in that way we’re still kind of like circulating this same money around and, and Another piece of it, I think that’s important is like, it’s through, it’s through the organizations that I work with, where we’re finding that, like, this is, how do I say it? Like, the most support is really right now that trans people like, are really struggling financially. In one aspect, of course, we’re relying on these non governmental organizations generally across the world. And I have about a hundred that I work with now. This network that I’ve built, they’re the ones who are then buying from us and then giving away these garments for free. So that’s supporting the community in another facet.

And even when people can’t afford to buy the garments, they know that on the other side of things, people are getting them for free who lack access in many different ways. So, so again, like you’re seeing these different. It’s almost like it’s essentially like a sliding scale system. People who can afford to pay the premium to get an ethically made, gender affirming garment pay into this program where then someone else is getting the same thing for free.

[00:15:48] Calan Breckon: I, I want to pick up a little bit of what you were talking about. Just kind of given the current, like, political climate that’s going on. Like, again, it’s no secret, what do you think the future holds for trans led businesses?

[00:16:01] Rae Hill: Oh my gosh.

[00:16:01] Calan Breckon: What does that look like? Because, you know, we could pretend it’s not happening, but it’s there, it’s happening.

[00:16:08] Rae Hill: Yeah, yeah, it’s, it’s a challenge. I, I honestly don’t know. I really thought that when this current stuff around tariffs came into play that we would take a total nosedive. About 80% of our customer base is in the States. And then of course, like I said, the NGOs that we work with, a lot of them are government funded and most of them are also in the States. And so I was really, really worried that those two different facets wouldn’t be able to sustain themselves. And of course, we’re seeing people struggling more.

It’s, it’s heartbreaking to see. And also I’m so glad that we have these systems in place because we’re able to provide more garments to the organizations who are giving them out for free. That’s really important. And, and as a, as a translate business, I think our goal right now, my goal, and I hope that other organizations and companies like mine are doing the same, is, is around resources and education. You know, about a year ago, I kind of started pivoting. I do speaking gigs now and I do a lot of free Resources for the community around like safety of these garments, but also like how to run a trans LED business. What does that mean? No one should have to reinvent the wheel. And I want this to be freely available. And so for myself and for other organizations, I really hope that we’re like giving back not just in like the physical product way or you know, like a percentage of sales go to blah blah, blah. Like that is really important. And also what people need is like the empathy of being like we’re in this together.

Here’s, here’s the resources that you need. Here are some links, here are the programs that are running that have nothing to do with gender firming garments but also everything to do with, with transition and, and transness where like you know, the mutual aid organizations where the housing resources, it’s, it’s all part of it. And, and we need to see like each individual person as, has their integrity, which I don’t think a lot of businesses are primed to do.

[00:18:06] Calan Breckon: How can a business owner help develop practices that center the well being of staff and clients? Because I know you’ve done a really good job of this and I want to just explore it a little bit.

[00:18:15] Rae Hill: Yeah, absolutely. I was actually really fortunate to do like the talk on this particular subject at a conference in, in Victoria at UV called Moving Trans Histories Forward just recently, which was, which was really, really incredible. And essentially what I like to talk about is it being the, the point is to have it be baked in from the beginning and not as an afterthought. And we see this kind of like in a lot of different spheres. But it’s really obvious when someone’s come in and be like, let’s make this business trans friendly or we see it all the time in, in like all sorts of DEI practices. Also like let’s, let’s do an add on. We see it in, in like disability accessibility. You know, like let’s add a ramp, let’s make this wheelchair accessible. Well, but are you thinking about all of the holistic, different aspects of that person’s needs from the beginning when you’re creating the space? Or did you just think about it afterwards and try to like add something on?

So for us obviously like it’s been, it’s been in trans integral since the beginning.

And I think what people don’t realize that there’s a lot more to that than just like healthcare benefits. Healthcare benefits are really important obviously.

But it’s also like all of these other things like flexibility and mental health and making sure that people have like Access and like HR policies that are flexible in terms of like, not just names and pronouns, but like the way that employees are going to like interface with customers if they’re in the middle of a transition. Like how and when that information gets shared is really, really important. Doing like check ins along the way and there’s, and there’s a lot of other ways as well that we can like create the frameworks around that. A lot of it has to do with like programming forms, which is kind of boring but, but yeah, essentially it’s, it’s kind of like what we were talking about at the beginning. Just seeing people as a, as a whole human with these sets of needs and, and having the empathy there to be like, what must this person be experiencing and facing and how can I support that? It’s a lot of listening, honestly. It’s just a lot of like listening to people and like what do you need? You know, we have really flexible hours. We have a lot of sick, extra sick days. We have stuff like that. We have like supports for mental health care because that was what, what it came down to. Like there’s a lot of different reasons why people need that flexibility and that extra support. Some of them have to do with being trans or queer and some don’t. Some of that is just like cost of living and being in this moment where everything is on fire and everyone needs a little bit more like just generosity. Generosity with time, generosity with, with support.

Yeah, I think that it’s just seeing people in their true humanity. Really.

[00:21:02] Calan Breckon: Yeah, it, it’s, it’s so wild that it’s such a simple concept of like just being human and treating people like humans that it, it’s wild that it gets lost in pure capitalism where it’s like, you know, at the end of the day you’d probably end up making more money if you just treated people well and like, yeah, did all of these things because I know for me when, yeah, not that a lot of companies did this but like when companies would go above and bey, not above and beyond, when they would just do right by you and like treat you like a person. And a lot of times it does come back to the people you hire to be those people. But when that happened, I was so much more willing to show up for that company after when like they made that exception or did that thing. And so it definitely plays into all of that. And I know that that’s a, just an important part of doing business. And so you would think that it would be straightforward, but apparently not. Let’s wrap up on this last question. Kind of to tie everything together. How can we move away from like this charity versus commerce model where it’s like, either it’s a charity or it’s like making money and kind of more into this holistic version of how you could set up a business?

[00:22:12] Rae Hill: Yeah, I mean that’s, it kind of goes back to the beginning and what we were talking about how like queer and trans people are amazing at setting up these systems of care and mutual aid. And mutual aid, I feel, is kind of that in between, you know, we have these charity models where there’s a lot of like looking down on people that happens in a charity model. You know, there’s like the people who can afford to buy your product and then will like, oh, toss, toss some money aside to these like poor unfortunate people who can’t. But, but a mutual aid framework is like really seeing people on, on the same level as you. And so intrinsically it’s quite concept and like, like we’re saying like, we still have to operate under capitalism, we still have to make money to pay people’s wages, and there’s no getting around that. And there’s no getting around like having a leader lead in certain ways, which essentially, you know, makes it non, makes it hierarchical. But, but like when it, when it comes down to it, like bringing in these practices that have supported our community, you know, I think about like even like the AIDS crisis, you know, how the, how the queer and trans community was able to like support one another through that outside of the medical system, which didn’t benefit anyone, and outside of government systems, you know, like just looking at like, who is falling through the cracks, who is not accessing what they need, who can’t buy what they need, and then finding other people who are doing the same. So all of these organizations around the globe, right, that I’m like making these connections with, like, how can we help people? What are like the intersecting oppressions that are affecting people?

This is another one that I, that I talk about a lot with folks are like, what are the reasons people can’t access the products that they need to access? And then like, yeah, it’s a lot.

[00:24:06] Calan Breckon: We could, we could go on forever and ever about it because I, I, I think we, I think it’s safe for me to say that I think we view the world similarly in just our approaches in humanity and people and how we’d like to see businesses set up. And I think we are moving towards that. And I think that that’s why we’re seeing such a. Things like fascism and other crazy things that we were like, how is this happening right now? And it’s because it’s the pushback to our advancements of like, oh, no, we’re caring about people at a base level. And, you know, the, the, the powers that be don’t like it.

[00:24:40] Rae Hill: Yeah. And it affects your bottom line too, as a business. You know, like, you have to be okay with like, we’re not going to make a lot of money and that has to be fine. But that’s not the point. It can’t be the point.

[00:24:51] Calan Breckon: Yeah, it’s. We’re going to make money, but we’re also going to make people’s lives really, really great. And I think that, that we need to human center things again. And it’s in a capitalistic world. We don’t. And I think that’s what we’re going back to. And I’m, I’m excited and both terrified and excited for it. Where can folks find out about you? More about you? Where can folks come and support Origami Customs? Tell us all the details.

[00:25:13] Rae Hill: Yeah, yeah. So we’re, we’re on pretty much all the platforms under Origami Customs. I do a lot of free educational stuff on YouTube. Like all of my presentations that I do, I make them free and accessible. So a lot of like, free binding and tucking guides and things like that, as well as other resources. And then we’re origami customs.com where you can buy products, but you can also donate to the programs. You can tell us about other organizations that are doing similar work where you live. So we can like network with them, any of that. And always feel free to shoot us a line if you need to find out more.

[00:25:47] Calan Breckon: Awesome. Magical. I’ll make sure to have all those links in the show notes and ones where people can reach out to you. Thank you so much, Rae, for being a guest on the podcast today.

[00:25:55] Rae Hill: Thank you for having me.

[00:25:56] Calan Breckon: The work you’re doing is phenomenal and we’re going to need it going into the future for sure.

[00:26:00] Rae Hill: Yeah, I hope more people can be inspired to do the same.

[00:26:04] Calan Breckon: Thanks for tuning in today. Don’t forget to hit that subscribe button. And if you really enjoyed today’s episode, I would love a star rating from you. The Business Gay podcast is written, produced and edited by me, Calan Breckon. That’s it for today. Peace, love, rainbows.