Pride Month Spotlight Series: Selena Drobnick

As part of our Pride Month celebration, we’ve asked our colleagues to reflect on the significance of this month.

Cleary Gottlieb senior professional staff learning and development manager Selena Drobnick shares some of her thoughts below.

Tell us a bit about yourself and your role at Cleary.

My name is Selena Drobnick. I am the senior professional staff learning and development manager. I’ve been at Cleary for a little over five years and had the pleasure of building out the Professional Staff Learning and Development branch of the Learning and Development team. Our core function is to provide professional staff at Cleary the resources, training, and support they need to be successful in their roles and grow professionally. We do that in a variety of ways: All-Hands programs for all professional staff (such as Make It Happen and our Coffee Chats), department-specific trainings, cohort-based curriculums (such as Management@Cleary), and individualized coaching and resource identification.

What does Pride Month mean to you?

We have so much at our fingertips in New York, yet it’s so easy to get stuck in our routines—seeing the same people, visiting the same places, experiencing the same things. I like to use Pride Month to expand. I make it a mission to be active, educate myself, invest in the community that has provided me safety, and gather my people. I believe when we celebrate and gather, the energy it creates has the potential to change the way we connect, understand ourselves, and understand others.

Pride is also a time when the whole city can turn into a space that welcomes queer interests and oddities. As a part of an underrepresented community, you are always a little “different.” Pride, to me, is a time to celebrate the fact that I am different and celebrate my culture. Pride Month gives us an opportunity to meet new people, explore new places, and even travel to new cities! In 2019, my now-wife came from Boston to New York for World Pride. That trip changed the course of our lives, so Pride Month, and all it represents to so many people, will always hold a really meaningful place in my life!

Has your identity impacted how you approach your work and career?

Cleary was the first workplace I joined and had to decide if I was going to “come out.” I had to decide if I would be truthful, if I would lie, or land somewhere in between. I didn’t want anyone to use my sexuality as a data point in their judgement of my work. And while I consciously know those two things should never be conflated, I was nervous they could be. After about a month of side-stepping some questions and avoiding a couple of conversation, I found a co-worker I felt safe enough to mention my girlfriend to. I cannot describe how meaningful her nonreaction was to me.

Coming out at work has made me think more about the assumptions we make about people and their stories. In many arenas of my life, people have assumed I was straight, and correcting them about their incorrect assumption has felt like a frustrating, and unnecessary, challenge to face. Working in Learning and Development, it is my job to assess what learning solutions could help a department, team or person excel at work. A practice of riding myself of assumptions and remaining curious as someone’s story unfolds has impacted the way I approach my work. I think it makes me a better professional and better able to create solutions that meet the true needs of whoever I am working with!

Are there any leaders, activists, writers/artists, professionals, or family members who have inspired you?

I remember one of the first times I heard a female artist singing a love song about a girl (It may have been She by Dodie). I felt so happy and so proud. I was finally listening to a song that I didn’t have to translate. I heard my own lived experiences represented, with no reinterpretation. I’ve recently felt so inspired and grateful for the young queer artists making music that celebrates queer culture and stories. But I also find myself inspired by that fact that many of the biggest gay icons are not queer people! Instead, these artists celebrate queer culture in a way that brings our community visibility and acceptance. They both create and uphold the culture of my friends. I see their music, performances, and activism as a gift from them to us, and that is something to be celebrated!

What are the benefits of joining groups that focus on LGTBQ+’s topics and issues?

I feel extremely lucky to have met and built relationships with professional staff through the PRIDE PAN group. When the groups started in 2020, we were all craving connection. And with so much instability, the bi-weekly meetings provided a space connect with colleagues who were both extremely similar, and extremely different from me. That is what I love about being queer – you may share almost nothing in common with someone else who is queer, but there is an immediate understanding that is incredibly safe and settling to be around. Also, as I mentioned before, I am obsessed with music and am constantly searching for queer new artists and musicians to support. At our recent PRIDE PAN meeting we have taken time to share queer artists, community groups, activities and activists that are currently inspiring us. And I have learned so much!