What Do You Do If Someone Tells You That You Can't Understand Their Concern Because of Your Own Immutable Characteristics?

Natalie Lynch is a credentialed investigator and licensed attorney [inaudible 00:00:04].

What do you do if someone tells you that you can't understand their concern because of your own immutable characteristics? 

So, maybe a woman tells a male investigator, "You can't understand my sexual harassment concerns because you're a man." 

My sort of snide answer is: Well, if you can't explain it to me, you're not going to be able to explain it to a judge either. But the more engaging or invested response would be: “I would like to try, and I've been able to successfully do that in other investigations. I think, if you give me a chance, that I can. But at the end of the day, we need to get to a place where this is explained to your employer, and so if that means working with me as an investigator, I really think we need to try. But I can't force you to talk about this.”

If they don't want to talk to you because of your immutable characteristics, it is what it is. You can't change your race. You can't change your gender, but you can just try to create a welcoming and inviting relationship. 

But sometimes people are just too traumatized to move forward at all, and sometimes they're too traumatized to move forward with most people. And sometimes you aren't one of the people they can move forward with, and that is outside of the things that you can control as an investigator.

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