Ingrid Palmer

Out From The Margins: An Intersectional Story of Triumph

(Ideal Audiences: Corporate, Non-profit, Government)

From obscurity to significance! This is a story of the positive impacts of focused leadership and the triumph of the human spirit.

In this talk, Ingrid Palmer shares her experiences as a visually impaired, gender non-conforming Black female in foster care. She shares how carrying that much intersectionality pushed her to the farthest regions of social precarity and how confronting adversity and inequity in every area of life has been a lifelong occurrence.

This powerful narrative unpacks layered oppression, bias, and barriers to employment for people with disabilities. Ingrid highlights how individuals and organizations can prioritize diversity and foster environments that nurture belonging and opportunity for historically equity-denied communities.

In spite of her challenges, Ingrid pushed hard and successfully graduated from college and university only to find herself chronically unemployed due to ableist attitudes in the labour force. “I felt wasted more than anything else.” After 20 years she emerged as a leader in a senior level position in a non-profit association.

Learning Objectives/Overall Audience Takeaways:
~ The audience will receive insights into intersectionality, layered adversity, and bias.
~ Ingrid will provide suggestions on achieving a sense of community, and belonging at your organization, how to prioritize gender equity and diversity, and shed light on what may be getting in the way.

Checking Your Ingredients: A Recipe For Allyship and Cross-Community Partnership

(Ideal Audiences: Community Organizations, Corporate, Non-profit/Associations)

In this engaging and thought-provoking keynote, Ingrid Palmer challenges organizations to examine the “ingredients” that make inclusion meaningful. Drawing on her lived experience as a Black, androgynous woman with a disability, she explores how unconscious bias, systems, and everyday actions shape belonging in the workplace and beyond. Blending personal narrative with practical insight, Ingrid offers a powerful framework for allyship and cross-community partnership—helping teams move from awareness to authentic action and sustainable inclusion.

Key Takeaways:
~ Everyone has the agency to recognize and dismantle bias with intention.
~ How allyship and authentic partnership drive meaningful social change.
~ Practical ways community organizations can nurture inclusive ecosystems.
~ Understanding the models of disability and the language of ableism.
~ How to “fail forward” with courage while learning from missteps.

No Excuse, No Doubt: The Art of Non-Negotiable Living

(Ideal Audiences: Corporate, Non-profits/Associations, Government, Educators, College/University Students, Clubs/Community Centres/Social Services)

“When I was a teenager there was nothing I wanted more than to be ordinary. You know, just a kid living at home with a family that was actually mine, no disability and no hormonal induced facial hair. I would have been happy to be anyone except me.”

In this heartwarming presentation, Ingrid Palmer shares the challenges of growing up different and the devastating yet transformational experiences that taught her the value of self-love.

Molested as a child, diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa – a degenerative eye disorder that would slowly erase her vision, foster care, and a hormonal imbalance that led to her growing a beard as a female; Ingrid Palmer endured cruel taunts, social isolation and acts of violence that ate away at her very soul. But everytime she wanted to give up, something happened that fueled her determination to succeed.

“The days when the most extraordinary things happen, those life changing occurrences where life is irrevocably changed, tend to start out as the most mundane and routine days.”

In this raw and moving talk, Ingrid Palmer will demonstrate how even the most difficult life experiences can be transformed into building blocks for a life of fulfillment. Learn how to disconnect traumatic past events from your future and how to overcome limiting beliefs and overcome self-doubt.

Today could be the beginning of the best of life for you, your staff, and your clients.

Learning Objectives/Overall Audience Takeaways:
~ The audience will gain perspective into the inherent value of all people, and feel more empowered to show up more powerfully in their own lives and in their jobs.
~ When you make your goals non-negotiable and do one thing everyday towards your goal, then success is inevitable.
~ Don’t let anyone take away your inherent value, downgrade it, or deny it. Your belief supersedes everyone else’s.
~ When you focus on ability, on what you can do instead of what you can’t you put the spotlight on your own capacity and fuel your drive to succeed.
~ You are not less than, you are made for. Diminished function of a body part doesn’t equal diminished value.
~ We don’t need permission to shine so stop waiting for it.

Inspiring Inclusion and Belonging

(Ideal for Corporate, Non-profits/Associations, Government, Educators, College/University Students, Clubs/Community Centres/Social Services)

As a woman with a disability, Ingrid Palmer had to contend with sexism as well as ableism and other forms of intersectional discrimination related to experiencing childhood sexual abuse, being a foster kid and having gender non-conforming features.

As a Canadian woman living with sight loss, Ingrid works actively to promote belonging and inclusion. She has worked hard to achieve her dreams, overcoming significant challenges to make significant contributions in the workplace, child welfare, disability, gender, housing, education, and health sectors.

Ingrid not only inspires inclusion and belonging for intersectional women, and individuals who identify as trans and non-binary, she actively advocated, educates and fights for it.

“When we live authentically with pride, we elevate ourselves and all women.” – Ingrid Palmer