拉姆齐走在彩虹上。 The 骄傲银轮 recently minted 通过 TD Bank – special silver coins carrying a rainbow circle and the inscription 永远的骄傲 – are flying off the shelves. The money will be donated to 彩虹铁路, an organization that helps lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals escape violence and persecution in their home countries around the world.

It seems everyone wants a rainbow in their pocket, and as TD’s Associate Vice President responsible for diversity and inclusion and head of LGBTQ2+ and Black Customer Segments, Ramsay could not be happier. The coin’s success is one more step forward on the difficult road to gaining acceptance for the LGBTQ2+ community.

That is the road Ramsay, a 皮隆商学院 graduate (Business Administration, Marketing ’97), travelled to be where he is today – giving back to the LGBTQ2+ community from a position of power at a leading bank. 他站在那些他帮助过的人的立场上，和他们一样，默默地忍受痛苦，为自己的与众不同而感到羞愧。 多年来，他对家人、朋友和世界隐瞒了自己的性别身份，因为害怕受到谴责，甚至可能遭到报复。

“I did not tell anyone that I was gay. I was a chameleon, living two lives,” says Ramsay, looking back on his early years in Jamaica where he was born. 当时，同性恋恐惧症在牙买加根深蒂固，同性恋者不仅受到鄙视，还可能遭受极端暴力。 对拉姆齐来说，更糟糕的是，就在他十几岁时开始探索自己的性取向时，他的父母搬到了加拿大，在这个国家找到立足之地，然后把他们的孩子连根拔起，把他们带到新家。

“谢里丹是我的后院，是社区的一部分，我在那里结交的朋友至今仍是我的朋友。 They took me into the fold.”

拉姆齐和他的兄弟姐妹们被留给了一个充满爱的大家庭，这个大家庭也非常虔诚。 他的祖母是一名牧师，他是一名祭坛男孩，直到今天，他还能轻松地背诵圣经。

“I was 13 years old when my parents left and I didn’t see them for the next five years. 尽管我得到了爱和照顾，我的家人尽一切可能让我开心，但周围还是有恐同情绪。 Gays who came out were treated as outcasts, vilified, and could even be killed,” Ramsay says. “I was deep, deep in the closet for fear of being found out.”

Ramsay had to survive being gay and for that, he hid his sexual identity behind a façade of masculinity. He was a brilliant student and worked hard in school to get the grades he needed to continue his education once he reached his dream country – Canada. 18岁时，他的父母成为永久居民，把他和他的兄弟姐妹带到加拿大。 His new home was in 宾顿市 on Steeles Avenue, around the corner from Sheridan’s 戴维斯校区.

谢里登给予支持和信心

The happy geographical coincidence decided the next few years of Ramsay’s life and laid the foundation for his education in Canada. 他的一个阿姨带他去了谢里登大学，并让他注册了。 拉姆齐说，加入谢里丹是他做过的最好的决定。 谢里登不仅是他融入加拿大社会的好方法，对他来说更像是一个家。 “Had I gone to a university, I would have been lost. 谢里丹是我的后院，是社区的一部分，我在那里结交的朋友至今仍是我的朋友。 They took me into the fold,” he says.

Though a top student, Ramsay didn’t have any exposure to computers in Jamaica and was almost afraid of entering the computer lab at College. He also wouldn’t talk much in class, afraid that he would be ridiculed for his thick Jamaican accent. 然而，他在谢里登的教授和朋友给了他信心。 他仍然记得一位教授是如何给他额外的时间，坐在他旁边，直到他完成考试，慢慢地输入答案。

“Another professor wrote on my answer sheet, ‘100 per cent plus plus plus’ and said if she had more to give, she would have,” he recalls fondly. 这种无私的支持帮助拉姆齐找回了自我，开始过一种没有恐惧的生活。 完成谢里登大学的学业后，拉姆齐转学到瑞尔森大学获得了工商管理硕士学位。

However, he still wouldn’t disclose to anyone that he was gay. “It wouldn’t have mattered if they had painted every wall at Sheridan in rainbow colours, I had to make my own personal journey to come out. 我们内心背负着很多羞耻感，因为社会一再告诉我们，我们不值得被爱。 Most of us spend a chunk of our lives breaking that façade we create around us, in accepting who we really are,” he said.

拥抱他的真理

After graduating from Ryerson, Ramsay got an internship on Bay Street in downtown Toronto and continued to lead a dual life – split between his home at 宾顿市 where he was closeted, and Toronto where he was free to live his true self with friends. 但后来，一位高级同事在听到他和同性恋朋友的电话后开始欺负他。 “This was 17 years ago and it speaks to the work culture then, where an intern could be openly bullied in the workplace for being gay. I was very afraid and worried,” Ramsay said.

大约在同一时间，他的工作让他接触到了一些LGBTQ2+社区的领导人。 在工作中不断受到骚扰，他崩溃了，和其中一个同事讨论了他的问题。 “It took so much courage to confide in him. 我以前从来没有对任何人这样说过。 I call this person my fairy godfather and he introduced me to TD’s head of community relations,” Ramsay says. 当时，TD正在寻找能够真正在不同社区建立其品牌的人。 在与道明高管的一次自以为很随意的会面结束后，拉姆齐得到了一份新工作，这份工作尊重他的为人。

“I had to make my own personal journey to come out. 我们内心背负着很多羞耻感，因为社会一再告诉我们，我们不值得被爱。”

“I decided then and there to rebrand myself, even change my name,” says Ramsay. He took the initial letters of his first and middle names and created a new name for himself – Al.

“I said to myself I’d never hide again. I would walk into TD Bank as a proud gay man, and the rest is history,” he says. 早在他向自己的家人承认自己是同性恋之前，他就在TD出柜了。

Ramsay was among the first of TD’s employees to focus on equity and diversity. 2005年，在他带头发起的一项倡议中，道明银行成为加拿大五大银行中首家赞助同性恋骄傲节的银行。 “We sponsored the Toronto Pride Festival, and an unprecedented backlash followed. We were called the ‘devil bank’ 通过 protesters; 客户取走了数百万美元，但我们岿然不动。 TD’s CEO said our principles are not up for negotiations and that empowered me,” Ramsay said. 他还对TD进行了内部的系统性改革，为包括少数族裔和LGBTQ2+在内的不同群体成员组织了一个员工资源小组。

Ramsay后来被提升到人力资源多元化部门，然后成为市场高级经理。 这是一个位置，他可以利用他的学习和经验，从市场营销计划在谢里丹。 His job was to redesign TD’s marketing strategy to ensure that its ads had diverse images of its customers.

“One of my proudest moment was to launch an ad campaign that included LGBTQ2+, Asian, South Asian and Black communities depicted in a way that wasn’t stereotypical,” he says. He also put in place a 针对LGBTQ2+群体的独特客户计划 and is often approached 通过 banks around the world, wanting to learn from TD’s success in the LGBTQ2+ segment.

In 2020, Ramsay’s mandate was expanded so he could share the best practices from his LGBTQ2+ work to support the Black community. “Our CEO, Bharat Masrani, is firmly of the view that economic progress is key to reversing the impacts of systemic racism and bias,” he says. “Our goal is to achieve wealth parity and financial inclusion.”

Ramsay says the most rewarding part of his work now is knowing he’s helping to create a world where everyone can be themselves. The 13-year-old who once hid from the world – afraid to tell his truth and floundering without help – has empowered himself to bring in change. 他永远骄傲地活着。

上图：Al Ramsay（右），TD负责多元化和包容性的助理副总裁，LGBTQ2+和黑人客户群的负责人，与他的丈夫Michael Daniels在2016年多伦多骄傲游行上。 （米切尔·拉斐尔摄）