LONGMEADOW – Ellen ‘Ellie’ Krug (pronounced Kroog) is a writer, radio host, and public speaker, but the word she would likely use to describe herself is “human.”

Krug specializes in speeches and group training sessions on inclusivity, such as those she delivered at Bay Path University on Sept. 18. Krug conducted her “Gray Area Thinking” training with the staff and faculty at the school before giving a talk titled “The Voice of Inclusivity: Bridging Our Divides.”

“We are all surviving the human condition,” Krug told Reminder Publishing. “We, as a country, are receiving a message that we hate each other. Actually, we are desperately hungry to find ways to be good to one another.”

Inclusivity, which Krug defines as “the extent to which someone feels they matter,” is an area that she has first-hand experience navigating. Until 2009, Krug lived as a male lawyer in the midwest. After her transition, she presents as a woman, but has a distinctly male voice.

“I’m one of the relatively few people who have lived two different lives,” Krug told the audience during her speech.

Because of Krug’s first-hand experience, she believes she is in a position to help others. She included her contact information in a pamphlet that was handed out as people entered her presentation and gave those gathered a “standing offer.”

She told the audience, “Any human can contact me relative to gender or sexual identity or anything else related to surviving the human condition. I’m a good listener and willing to meet with anyone in a public place or speak on the telephone for up to an hour.”

Krug’s “Gray Area Thinking” explains that people are wired to group and label things and people in the world. The problem, as she explains it, is that this evolutionary tool leads to “us and them” thinking.

To change that thinking, Krug has people self-identify with traits and concepts – both positive and negative – in response to prompts, such as, “the identity I struggle with most is...” She said most people identify with feeling, “not good enough/ failure.” She pointed that out, she said, because “if you hate yourself, it is so much easier not to be good to others.”

Interestingly, when given the prompt, “the identity I want to be known for is..,” the vast majority of people choose “compassion.”

“In our country this is prevalent, but you would never know it,” Krug told the audience holding a sign that read “compassion.” Understanding, she said, is the key to eliminating the concepts of “us and them” and those who are “other.”

Krug said that progress has been made on removing the “other” from people who are transgender.

When Krug transitioned, she said, it was fairly rare to see stories on the news or social media about trans people. “Now we see it every day,” she said, pointing to that increased representation as a step in the direction of inclusivity.

Krug said society has been through “different throws” of rights movements, from civil rights to LGB rights.

“Each time, I think we got it wrong but learned. We want to get it right this time,” Krug said. She noted she is aware of the obstacles in the road to that goal, however.

“I fear the government will work to erase us,” Krug said, citing the “bathroom bills” passed in several southern states in the past few years that require people to use the public restroom that reflects the gender on their birth certificate. Krug said they aren’t about “fearing trans women will prey on little girls,” but about keeping trans people out of the public.

“If you can't use the bathroom, you can't go anywhere,” she said.

Speaking on the quality and prevalence of mental health care for trans people, she said that it’s geographical.

“In rural areas, it's a horrible quandary,” Krug said, adding that people sometimes have to travel a couple of hundred miles to receive services. Considering rates of attempted suicide in the trans community are 40 times greater than the country as a whole, Krug sees this as a crisis for rural communities.

She said it's exacerbated by the higher levels of poverty in the trans community. Discrimination, she said, leads to job insecurity.

“I only have legal rights [against workplace discrimination] in 22 states,” Krug said.

Krug stressed, however, that her presentation and the trainings she gives aren't necessarily focused on being transgender; they’re focused on humanity and treating each other well. She wants people to take a simple message away from her presentation.

“We all want the same things out of life. We want to be safe, we want to be happy, we want our children to do well. We even all just want 20 minutes of peace,” Krug said. “I want them to walk away thinking it just happened to be a trans woman named Ellie that delivered the message.”