The Power of Pride
Pride Month is a time to celebrate the resilience and contributions of the LGBTQ+ community, reflect on progress made, and innovate to effectively address the work still to be done in order to achieve measurable and lasting equality.
And while the LGBTQ+ community—with the support of allies, advocates, and authentic corporate commitments—has made great strides, we find ourselves at a critical moment. Across the United States and around the globe, the introduction of hundreds of bills and efforts to restrict the rights and freedoms of LGBTQ+ people—with a specific and bigoted focus towards transgender and nonbinary people, LGBTQ+ people of color, and their families—is a stark reminder that the fight for recognition, inclusion, and belonging is far from over.
We all have work to do and roles to play to realize the inclusive world we seek. We must come together as a larger community of LGBTQ+ people and allies to persevere, push forward, and thrive. And while there is much hard work to be done, we must remember to celebrate and refuel with Queer joy. It’s our superpower and has given our collective community the strength to endure in the darkest of times.
We hope the content in this special Pride Month issue of our newsletter aids in your celebrations still to come, supports the work that’s underway, and serves as a resource to drive progress, equality, and change forward.
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Driving Change & Building Inclusive Environments
In Pride Month and beyond, Out & Equal is committed to being a catalyst of change, intentionally and actively working to achieve workplace equality and belonging by supporting LGBTQ+ employees, leaders, and teams. We hope you'll find great value (and share!) everything below, this month and year-round.
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Out & Equal’s 2023 Pride Guide is designed to embrace and amplify the remarkable beauty of a community united in love, joy, and progress, while also supporting change agents within organizations—be they individual contributors, employee resource group members, or teams—in bringing inclusive conversations and celebrations into the workplace during the month of June and throughout the year.
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Much like our individual names, pronouns are tied to our deepest sense of identity. Utilizing inclusive pronoun practices in the workplace is vital in building organizational cultures of respect and belonging not just for the LGBTQ+ community, but for anyone who in some way challenges traditionally accepted/expected models of gender identity and expression. Out & Equal’s resource, “What’s Your Pronoun?,” provides practical guidance on how to implement successful practices and norms around pronouns in the workplace.
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Visibility—in the workplace and beyond—plays a key role in shaping the narrative that individuals can be both successful and their authentic selves simultaneously. Out & Equal’s “How to Celebrate Transgender Day of Visibility Year-Round" offers organizations a helpful tool to support transgender/gender expansive community members in aspects of the workplace and beyond.
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Global Toolkit for Change |
Around the world, we have seen instances of the business community leading the momentum for LGBTQ+ inclusion, well ahead of legal and societal changes. Out & Equal’s “Global Toolkit for Change: Assessing LGBTQ+ Inclusion In Your Workplace” serves as an actionable learning, self-evaluation, and self-improvement guide to support organizations identify possible gaps between policies, programs, and inclusive practices versus the day-to-day realities for employees.
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Out & Equal has an incredible library of resources dedicated to advancing LGBTQ+ equality and representation within the workplace, which can be found on our website!
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In Conversation with
EMILY SHILLING (she/her)
Emily Shilling (she/her), Out & Equal's 2022 Corporate Advocate of the Year, & President of SPARTA, discusses how she is reflecting on Pride Month this year and highlights the critical importance—and tremendous ripple effect—of recognition and representation.
Keep an eye on our blog for more conversations with trailblazers and role models from the Out & Equal community!
And speaking of Outie Awards...
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2023 Outie Award Nominations are Open
Representation matters! Each year, The Outie Awards recognize and celebrate individuals, organizational initiatives, and employee resource groups that serve as role models in advancing equity for LGBTQ+ people in the workplace and beyond.
Nominations are now open and the deadline to submit is Friday, July 7th. Winners will be announced at the closing ceremonial gala at our Workplace Summit.
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LGBTQ+ Is Not A Monolith: Intersectionality & Intersectional Approaches to LGBTQ+ Workplace Inclusion Matter
Queer people of color have always played an integral role in fighting for and shaping the LGBTQ+ community. While we celebrate these pioneers as part of Pride throughout the month of June, we also are intentional in recognizing Juneteenth (June 19), a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans.
We celebrate Juneteenth understanding that the LGBTQ+ community is not a monolith, and in order to be most effective and impactful toward achieving measurable and lasting LGBTQ+ inclusion, we must center and recognize the unique experiences and needs of our Black community members. To learn more about intersectionality in the workplace, check out the content and videos within the featured sessions highlighted in Out & Equal’s, “Practitioners for Change: Intersectionality Learning Series Resources.”
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In Other Out & Equal News
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PRIDE EVENT
We are deeply grateful to have been part of the largest White House Pride event in history.
Our very own Deena Fidas, Managing Director, Chief Programs & Partnerships Officer, joined our friends and partners from PFLAG, Diego Sanchez, and Equality California, Valerie Ploumpis, in a day of celebration, reflection, and Queer joy.
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PARTNER EXCLUSIVE WEBINAR
In a webinar held exclusively for our Partner community, we led an engaging discussion featuring O&E's own Deena Fidas, with Bob Witeck, President of Witeck Communications discussing the Pride landscape in 2023 and the evolution of corporate engagement of and support for the LGBTQ+ community
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“It’s not just a data point to say 90% of the Fortune 500 companies support our community. Well, what does that mean? Try to boycott a tech company that supports our community and you’ll probably be left with chalk on a side walk...You’d be hard pressed to find an industry right now that isn’t filled with companies that are fully supportive of the LGBTQ+ community.”
—Deena Fidas (she/her), Managing Director | Chief Programs and Partnerships Officer, Out & Equal
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EVENT
On June 15, we delivered an amazing Southern States Forum in Mobile, Alabama, hosted by our Partner Airbus. The Forum (#SSForum2023) brought together executives, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) and Human Resource (HR) practitioners, Employee Resource Group (ERG) leaders, and other workplace inclusion change-makers for interactive workshopping, peer-to-peer educational sessions, and discussions on innovative best practices including intersectionality and LGBTQ+ workplace inclusion.
We’ll be sharing a more detailed recap in our next newsletter! For now, check out the inspiring “In Conversation With” blog interview with pioneer Amanda Simpson (she/her), Vice President for Research and technology at Airbus!
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UPCOMING EVENT
On July 11, Out & Equal’s 2023 LGBTQI+ APAC Forum, is returning to an in-person gathering this year with an even wider geographic reach and an agenda designed to incorporate more diverse perspectives from across the region
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