Bisi Alimi is done living a double life. It’s been a journey, literally, across land and sea. Today, he is an executive coach and founder of the Bisi Alimi Foundation, which advocates for the rights of LGBTQ+ people in the Nigerian workforce. Over a decade ago, in 2004, he was an actor and activist in Lagos, and the first man in his country to come out as gay on national TV. When I first came across Alimi on LinkedIn, I knew nothing about his story. That day, I logged into my account with the regular expectations. I expected the bright landing page, the long list of updates, and my connections, clad in crisp attire, grinning as I scrolled through the feed. I didn’t expect Alimi, fierce and unapologetic, serving realness over a baby pink background in a leather tube top, black tutu, and thigh-high boots. “Do we live a double social media life?” his post began. “As someone who has a lot to do with the corporate world, I have really struggled [with] representation … How do I show myself on LinkedIn in a way that doesn’t cost me jobs? Why do I have to be a different person on different social media platform[s]?” In my own profile picture, I stand, smiling in a button-up and suspenders. A green field sprawls blurrily in the background. The photo was taken at a wedding I attended this summer, and I chose it because it is one of the rare moments I’ve been captured in anything close to a traditional business suit. In real life, I’m covered in grey and black tattoos. My hair oscillates along a spectrum of colors, and if I don’t mat it down with gel, I look like an electrified cartoon. I prefer ripped jeans over chinos, patterned vests instead of shirts, and love anything with glitter, including combat boots. Few of these preferences feel truly “safe for work” or any online platform where a recruiter might find me. Alimi had hit a personal note, for me and others. More than 60 people commented on his post, many expressing similar pressures to present a different, more subdued, version of themselves in work-related settings. What struck me most was that the comments touched on points far beyond physical appearance. For a lot of people, it’s not just about how we dress, it’s about who we fundamentally are. “My professional self has always been separated from my personal, to the detriment, at times, of my success and mental health…” “I’m non-binary and autistic and am very honest about myself on other platforms and have really tried on here too. I’ve tried to push against this pressure to be conventionally ‘professional’ on LinkedIn a lot and I’ve posted … my poetry, my gender bending modelling … but people often ignore it…” “I think I literally said the other day, ‘I don’t know how to exist in different spaces as the same myself.’ It’s a feeling of never being whole…” “On My WhatsApp I’m quite a different person, I’m more outspoken, more raw but here I’m very professional…” I wanted to learn more about what inspired Alimi to post that morning. His answer is nuanced and born out of a longer story that he shared with me over the phone while driving through the streets of London, the city where he now resides with his partner and family. It is a story that begins several years prior, in Nigeria. Alimi was born in Lagos, his father a police officer and his mother a cleaner. He went to university to study theatre arts, and shortly after graduating, got his first big gig acting on national television. By that point he was already well practiced at living two lives. “I couldn’t talk about my sexuality,” he told me. “I come from a culture where being gay is a crime, and it would cost me my job. I had to be intentional about hiding that part of myself. I would go on set and perform both on- and off-camera. I’d flirt with a girl in the workplace, and on the weekends, I would go to gay clubs.” Over the years Alimi had lost several of his close friends to HIV, and in 2004, he tested positive for the virus. By then, he had gotten involved in activism and mobilization work in Nigeria, promoting safe sex in his community, but he was still publicly closeted and very frightened. “I had already lost so many people,” he said. “But it was [the death of] my best friend who really touched me. I began to ask questions around life and death and aspiration and purpose. People were trying to out me, so I took it upon myself. I came out on one of the most watched talk shows in the country.” Three years later, in 2007, he was forced to flee Nigeria after receiving death threats in response to his disclosure, and so began his work in the UK. He was granted asylum in 2008, and he earned an MA in Global Governance and Public Policy from the Birkbeck College, University of London in 2011 — marking the beginning of his current path and his work creating more inclusive work environments for LGBTQ+ people in Nigeria. “Nigeria is a very patriarchal society,” Alimi said. “To do the work that I do now, to have this conversation around inclusion with executives and corporations, I have to come across as manly to be quote-on-quote ‘respected.’ A lot of my clients are on LinkedIn, which means to be seen as responsible in my appearances, I have to look formal. But on Instagram, where I have a very young following, I feel comfortable sharing a much freer part of myself, one that challenges the binary.” What if one of his clients stumbled onto Instagram and saw him in heels and a crop top? Would it cost him his job in the same way coming out had years before? Alimi told me he thinks it would bring his professionalism into question. For Alimi, the question has now become: Is he acting on what he is preaching? “I’m asking companies if they allow people to come to the office just the way that they are,” he said. “Meanwhile, I’m hiding. So, the morning I shared the post of me in a crop top, I had an epiphany. I asked myself: How many other people feel like this? I posted the picture on LinkedIn. The response has only been positive.” The internal dilemma Alimi faced that morning highlights just how outdated certain business practices can be. Even in environments that preach equity and have laws protecting employees from discrimination, many corporations adhere to an old set of rules that favor gendered dress codes with roots in the 18th century. Corporations who hold steadfast to these rules may — knowingly or not — be a major source of stress for gender-nonconforming people, or anyone who challenges the binary. I asked Alimi if he has any advice for others facing the “double-life” dilemma — especially when it comes to how we present ourselves on social media. Should we be hiding who we are for the sake of our employers, or do we need to push the boundaries if we want to change the rules? “You have to be very careful,” Alimi said. “Especially to young people who may be navigating this for the first time, I would tell them to test the waters. Just because a company has an inclusive policy doesn’t mean that people in power don’t question it and won’t have opinions about you. LinkedIn is for professionals. It’s where you display your career. It’s where you show what you hope to become and who you aspire to be. For me, that’s very important. So, ask yourself, how do you think of your career? How do you link your authentic self to the message you are trying to send?” Alimi’s post was tied to the change he is trying to make. It feeds directly into the direction he wishes to take his work and career. Now a graduate of business and executive coaching from Meyler Campbell Institute, he is on a mission to use the power of coaching to cultivate collective intelligence and empathic leadership with a focus on emerging economies. He believes diversity and inclusion should leave no one behind, and to do this, the sector needs to develop a global language that transcends religion, culture, and social expectations. He believes we need to take a closer look at the values guiding the “powers that be” in the corporate world and reimagine those that may be harming marginalized communities. He was careful to reiterate, though, that some people do not yet have the platform or privilege to show their full selves on social media without consequence. As made clear by the comments on his post, when it comes to representation at work, fashion is just the tip of the iceberg. While identity in and of itself goes much deeper than our dress, how we present is a factor that we can, to some extent, control. On platforms like LinkedIn, our pictures are our first impressions. For some of us, the reality is that we still need to be careful about the parts of ourselves we share publicly — for our safety and for our careers. This may not be our reality forever, but it does mean we need to be strategic as we push for the changes we want to see. “I think LinkedIn is starting something revolutionary in a way,” Alimi said. “There’s beginning to be a lot of pushback when it comes to what is acceptable in terms of corporate identity, and LinkedIn is where that conversation is starting. We need to take it into the workplace next. The idea of masculinity and femininity is changing. Why are we still operating in a binary structure? It’s a question that needs to be at the forefront.”
