Blog
When Inclusion Feels Unsafe: Rethinking Psychological Safety in Veterinary Workplaces
I’ve seen it in workplaces and conference sessions—that moment when someone speaks up about racism, disability, access, or harm. The room shifts. Tension rises. And someone says, “This doesn’t feel psychologically safe.”
That moment can shut down a vital conversation—and reinforce the false belief that inclusion work and psychological safety are in conflict.
At first glance, inclusion and psychological safety seem like natural allies. As workplaces become more inclusive, we assume people will feel safer. But the reality is more complicated—and more uncomfortable.
Inclusion asks us to examine systems, biases, and behaviours that have gone unquestioned. Psychological safety, as commonly understood, asks us to reduce fear and protect emotional wellbeing. The tension arises when these two aims appear to contradict each other.
1. Who Defines Safety? Who Experiences Risk?
Much of what gets called “psychological safety” in veterinary teams is shaped by dominant cultural norms—norms that centre whiteness, neurotypicality, hearing people, cisnormativity, and hierarchical leadership.
In that context, “safety” is often defined by those who already feel secure:
It’s the comfort of not being challenged.
The ability to avoid difficult conversations.
The option to withdraw when discomfort arises.
But inclusion work asks: whose safety is prioritised when conflict arises? And whose vulnerability is made invisible to preserve group cohesion?
In many cases, the people who most need psychological safety—disabled staff, LGBTQIA+ team members, people of colour, those living with trauma or difference—are asked to tolerate real risks (misunderstanding, minimisation, backlash) in order to protect the emotional comfort of others.
So, the first layer of the tension is positional:
Psychological safety for some has historically come at the cost of safety for others.
2. Discomfort is a Necessary Part of Growth
Veterinary culture values clinical detachment, mastery, and control. These traits help us manage crises, but they can also create resistance to relational vulnerability—the very space inclusion work occupies.
When inclusion efforts surface long-ignored truths—like ableist norms in rostering, or gendered assumptions in hiring—those benefiting from the status quo often feel destabilised. They may interpret that destabilisation as harm, even when no harm has occurred.
This is where psychological safety is reduced to:
Avoiding challenge
Maintaining surface harmony
Preserving comfort over growth
But true inclusion requires discomfort. It asks us to unlearn. To sit with complexity. To acknowledge histories we may not have personally caused but still benefit from. That is not always “safe”—but it is necessary.
So the second layer of tension is cultural:
In a profession trained to fix, inclusion asks us to sit with what can’t be immediately solved.
3. Weaponised Safety: When Safety Becomes a Silencing Tool
In many workplaces, we see a pattern:
Someone raises an issue about racism, ableism, transphobia, or exclusion.
The dominant group expresses discomfort or says the tone is “unsafe.”
The conversation is shut down or postponed “until it can be had safely.”
This is not psychological safety. It’s comfort culture masquerading as care.
In this dynamic, the language of safety is used not to protect the vulnerable, but to defend the powerful. It reasserts the right to avoid discomfort as a higher priority than the right to be heard, seen, or included.
This third layer of the tension is structural:
When definitions of safety are monopolised by those in power, they stop serving those most at risk—and start protecting the status quo.
4. Reframing Psychological Safety for Inclusive Workplaces
So how do we hold both truths?
We redefine psychological safety—not as the absence of tension, but as the presence of trust, courage, and accountability.
We train teams to:
Distinguish between discomfort (a normal part of growth) and danger (a sign of harm or retaliation)
Centre the safety of those most at risk, rather than those most comfortable
Understand that hard conversations, when held with care, are not unsafe—they are the groundwork of inclusion
This reframing doesn’t undermine psychological safety. It deepens it.
Because a psychologically safe culture isn’t one where nothing difficult is said. It’s one where difficult things can be said—and responded to with dignity, respect, and repair.
Final Thought
The tension between inclusion and psychological safety isn’t a flaw in the system—it’s a diagnostic sign. It shows us where our definitions of safety have been too narrow, too privileged, or too fragile.
The goal isn’t to eliminate the tension.
The goal is to hold it wisely—and build workplaces that are brave enough to do both: challenge exclusion, and care for the people in the room.
If you're ready to move your team beyond comfort culture—and toward a more courageous, inclusive way of working—the Vetquity Inclusion Lab toolkits offer the structure, language, and support to get started.
