Pride Month 🏳‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ - Being LGBTQ+ in the Workplace

June is Pride month! 🌈

As well as colourful festivals and parties in the street, Pride is a time for us to remember those lost to hate crime, to recognise the LGBTQ+ people who have impacted history, and to acknowledge the work we still have to do in securing equality for all. 
 
So, in this episode, we chat with our colleagues, Barney and Zé about what pride means to them. We’ll discover some of the experiences they’ve had being LGBTQ+ in the workplace and we’ll explore ways employers and employees can become allies to those who find themselves in marginalised groups. 

Interviewer: Amy Burchill  https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-burchill-64b53361/

Guest Speaker: Barney Cox and Zé Meirinhos 

Resources:
Film: The Death and Life of Marsha P. Jonson
The Stonewall Report: https://www.stonewall.org.uk/lgbt-britain-work-report

Podcast produced by Let’s Talk Video Production: https://letstalkvideoproduction.com

Transcript

Hello and a very warm welcome to the Big Bright Podcast. I’m Amy, the Marketing Executive here at Bright. Today, we are going to be talking about all things Pride! June is Pride month. The international celebration honours the Stonewall riots that shook America in 1969. These riots, led by gender non-conforming people of colour (such as Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera and Storme DeLarverie), protested the constant police brutality against the LGBTQ+ community. It brought LGBT rights into mainstream consciousness and kickstarted a movement for greater equal rights, justice and equality.

Now, as well as colourful festivals and parties in the street, Pride is also a time for us to remember those lost to hate crime, to recognise the LGBTQ+ people who have impacted history, and to acknowledge the work we still have to do in securing equality for all.
In today’s episode, I’m chatting with my colleagues Barney and Zé. Barney is our product marketing manager for Dash, and Zé is our Javascript Developer who also works on the Dash team.

We’ll be discussing what pride means to them. We’ll discover some of the experiences they’ve had being LGBTQ+ in the workplace and we’ll explore ways employers and employees can become allies to those who find themselves in a minority group.

So welcome to the podcast, guys. Thank you so much for joining me today. As I mentioned, of course, it's Pride month at the moment. And I think Pride means different things to different people. So to kick us off, Barney, I'd love to explore what pride means to you.

Barney: Pride is a celebration. But it's also a time to acknowledge the diversity of the community as well. The LGBTQ + community spans all ethnicities, gender identities, religion, class - it's such an expansive community. And I think pride is a time to acknowledge how diverse that community is. It's also a really important moment to take stock and celebrate how far we have come. But also there is so much work left to do. And the experience of being LGBTQ is very different. We'll get onto this later, but there are some communities within this community who really need us to show up for them and stick up for them. And I think pride is a really important time to do that. Also, I think pride is the antithesis of shame. In most LGBTQ people's lives, they will have experienced some degree of self-assessment, self-shame, and the fact that Pride is the opposite of that is a really nice message. It's kind of like acknowledging where you've come from and where you are now. That's what it means to me.

Zé, what does Pride mean to you?

Zé: Completely agree with what Barney said. Often, people end up hiding themselves throughout most of the year. But for me, Pride is kind of magical, especially the party side of it. LGBTQ people get to live as everyone else gets to lives throughout the rest of the year. You feel like you belong in society. You're out in the streets partying and enjoying yourself and often people celebrate you, and everyone accepts you as you are without having to go through, shame as Barney said, and without having to go through people questioning you or questioning who you say you are. So if you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, people just celebrate you, and you get to be yourself and enjoy. And it's a party with your friends and with your chosen family. And after such a long history of fighting for rights, and so much hate crime that still exists in the world, we get to show ourselves and we get to be visible, and there's no better way to be visible than to just be happy and enjoy yourself. And as the old saying goes, revenge is a dish best served joyfully dancing in the street covered in glitter and colourful feathers.

I think that also highlights the fact that we do also have a lot of work to make sure that those people in the LGBT community feel that way for the rest of the year as well. It's not just a weekend, but it's something we need to think about all year round.

You've worked at Bright for three years now, as a developer, what's been your favourite, Pride at Bright?

Zé: Two years ago, Simone organised a rainbow bakeoff as a fundraiser for the Rainbow Fund in Brighton, which provides help for a lot of charities here in Brighton. There were some beautiful cakes and really tasty cakes. And she got rainbow and trans flags to put down on people's tables, which I thought was really sweet. But the sweetest thing is that months afterwards, even a year after, people still had the flags on their tables.

I was walking around the office earlier today because I'm in today and they're still out. So yeah, that's really lovely to see as well.

Oh, and that same year, it was the year that the Brighton Pride route was diverted because of some roadworks and it went right by out the front of the office.

The tech industry is constantly growing and with it, so is its workforce. Ze, as a developer, do you think the tech industry does enough to support LGBTQ+ employees? What's your experience with it?

Zé: You see some of the biggest tech companies do quite a lot to support their LGBTQ + employees like Google and Apple, they're very good examples of supporting diversity. Part of it comes from actually having an LGBTQ presence in the companies because tech is an interesting industry. When people are growing up, tech is something they can do on their own, away from other areas that can feel a bit repressive like sports. And of course, I'm talking from the perspective of cis white men, which is really specific to me. Personally, growing up, I hated sports. So I learned how to code and it's something that I can do on my own and on my own terms. It can feel like a safe space for queer people. I hope that nowadays it's different and sports is also more embracing but because of that there's more LGBTQ presence in the tech industry. And also, when you work in an office, individuality is appreciated and rewarded. People don't need to dress up or wear uniforms or anything, people just wear whatever they want it. And because of that companies, when they work with people, they will support them.

For instance, Brandwatch, a couple of years ago, released a report on hate speech, and transphobia online. It was an amazing report. They're experts in that field in following like social media and stuff. And as a way of supporting their employees, they just started this project with a church.

That's really interesting, and going back to the online thing that you were saying, as well, especially during like the last year and COVID, we have all gone more online. And especially with tech companies, it's very important that they are supporting those online communities too. And also calling people out online as well. So I think that is very, very important.
 
And the internet is a great way to connect with people. People don't need to feel alone in the world anymore, because you can easily connect with others around the world.

Barney: I think for most LGBT people, especially growing up now, at least in the past 20 years, the internet has been probably a lifesaver because it's meant that no matter where you are in the world, when you're feeling alone, and like you're the only person like you that's maybe feeling certain way, you see everybody else fitting in. The fact that the internet is there and there are communities of people like you out there that you can talk to who might just not be in the same town as you, I think has probably been transformative for a lot of LGBT youth growing up.

Barney, could you tell us a little bit about your experience of being out in the workplace?

Barney: So my experience has been actually largely fine. Most of my battles at work in being out has come from intently within myself. So I'm sure every LGBT person will recognise this. But when you're meeting a new person for the first time, especially in a work context, you can get slightly nervous sometimes introducing the fact that you're a gay person, you're kind of like trying to suss out when to drop in that you have a boyfriend maybe when talking to work colleagues. And that's not necessarily a reflection on your colleagues, it's more a history of growing up and you're not necessarily used to being able to talk about that freely. And if you do, you potentially face repercussions or some kind of prejudice. It's s kind of unlearning that.

I have had some people assume certain things about me or my interests after me telling them I am gay or that I have a boyfriend. But I think on the whole for me, it's been largely positive. However, I realise I am quite privileged. I am a white cis-gendered, middle-class, gay man. And I've also been lucky to work in industries that have been fairly accepting. So the fact that my experience of being out in the workplace is mostly just been me trying to overcome some internal stuff I've learned, that isn't necessarily reflective of the LGBTQ + community of being out and truly themselves in the workplace.

In particular, right now, there are some real challenges for trans and non-binary people. There's a lot of misinformation and hostility out there.

Going back to what you mentioned about unlearning the reflex to hide who you are and having a boyfriend and stuff - for anyone listening who may be feeling the same way, do you have any tips for them or any sort of advice you could give?

For me it has just come from, as you get older, you're more confident in yourself and hopefully, you care less about what other people think. If you're in a position to be open and you feel like it's fine to be open about yourself because that's not necessarily the case for everybody, but if you are then I think it's more just the more you do it, the more you treat it as just a normal part of your life. The more experience you have of it being fine, then you kind of start to tip the scale a little. So those positive experiences or just when it's been treated like it should be as a normal thing, an important part of your life that you should be able to talk about freely, the more experiences of that that you accumulate, hopefully starts to outweigh some of the more negative experiences that one has experienced in the past.

So Barney, in your opinion, why is it important to foster an inclusive workplace, both for the individuals and for the company?

Barney: That's a really good question. And I think as you've alluded to, in that question, it's not just about LGBTQ people, it spans all sorts of other communities outside of this. I think at the end of the day, it's about if you care about your employees, mental health and well being which you'd hope all companies do, then this is something that you need to be taking seriously because everyone has the right to feel like they can be themselves at work, that they can arrive to the office and just be authentically themselves. 

I think some companies might feel like, "Oh, we've got LGBTQ employees, it's all fine. We don't need to do anything, we're clearly attracting employees to the workplace, it can stop there." And that, sadly, isn't the case. For LGBTQ + people specifically. 

I was reading a Stonewall report that was published in 2018, about being out in the workplace. And there's some genuinely astonishing, quite upsetting statistics in here:

• More than a third of LGBT employees have hidden their identity for fear of discrimination. 
• One in five trans people wouldn't feel comfortable reporting transphobic bullying
•  Almost a third of non-binary people wouldn't feel comfortable arriving at the workplace in clothes that reflect their gender identity or who they are inside. 

So I think that underlines that there is still a lot of work to do. Companies can't afford to be complacent with this. You can maybe make a slightly cynical point about there's been studies which show I think it was a McKinsey study, which shows that diverse organisations are more profitable because you have more diversity of opinions to draw on, diversity of thoughts and experiences. I think that argument is true, but it's definitely slightly cynical because at the end of the day it's just about employees happiness and their mental well being. So like I said earlier, if you care about those things, this is something you should, for sure, be taking seriously

I read this report, and I found it genuinely heartbreaking. And I realised that my reaction to that was probably to do with my own privilege and naivety to be honest. So I'm a straight white woman. And I feel like I have the responsibility to educate myself around other people's experiences and to understand the experiences of marginalised groups. Of course, I'm fully supportive of the LGBTQ + community. However, I know there are certain things I can change and things I can do to further support my friends and colleagues.

So this brings me on to the idea of allyship and how workplaces can better support their employees. How can workplaces better support their LGBTQ + employees?

Zé: Workplaces can offer training and support around diversity. There are a lot of little things that are actually quite simple, that can be done, but often people are not aware of them.

For instance, pronoun use. Just by people showing what their pronouns are is a very simple way of embracing everyone to represent themselves and let everyone else know what the pronoun should be, so that they feel more respected and included. We make a lot of assumptions when I talk to people like you tend to read a lot of body language from people and expect things, but often, you don't know about some traits so just by having that openness for people to be themselves and then accept them for what they tell you. Not trying to gender them from what they look like.

For instance, here at bright Caroline, Head of People, has been rewriting all the job adverts so that they read more neutral and fully inclusive because language carries a lot of these constructs with it. Until recently, the default would be to use male pronouns and male words. And that certainly happens in Portugal, which, by the way, I'm Portuguese and Romance languages are fully gendered. It's very difficult to take those assumptions out of the language, but it can be done in English.

Caroline was rewriting the job advert so that whoever reads the job advert can feel identified with it and feel like they would belong in the company. What often happens is that you read something and you have this idea that it's a company run by and for straight white men.

Yeah, from what I understand, they run them through a gender decoder at the moment. So it takes out any of the masculine words, things like competitive and challenging, those quite masculine words. They run it through the decoder to make sure it's not either too masculine or feminine. Trying to be quite neutral, which is very easy. You can just Google that. And you can put your job ad straight into the decoder on Google. And I think it will come up and it will give you suggestions of how to word it.

Zé: These things are really easy. Just little shifts in mentality. And just as when you're walking in the street, and someone's coming in, like everyone shifts a little bit to the side, and you give everyone space, like it's not difficult at all.

Barney: That's a really interesting point. Sometimes companies might think of these big, like diversity inclusion projects as a huge project and a huge policy. And obviously, you should have all of that in place. But it doesn't necessarily have to start there. There are some quick and easy things that you could be doing right now, I'm sure, which would make a huge difference to your employees.

Yeah, exactly. And as Ze mentioned, as well about the pronouns, that can be something that can be put on your email. If everyone does it as well, no one has to feel pressured to do it either way, if everyone just had it as like a general company thing.

Zé: For a non-binary person, it can be daunting to have to out yourself and say that.

I also mentioned this idea of allyship. In Forbes, allyship is defined as "a lifelong process of building relationships based on trust, consistency and accountability within marginalised individuals and or groups of people." What does this mean to you? And how can people build allyship with those in the LGBTQ + community?
 
Barney: Allyship is intersectional, basically, so this isn't just about how to be a better ally for an LGBTQ + person. As a member of that community, I can be a better ally to other people outside of this community. I think it's definitely been a few years of that really coming to the fore, especially with the MeToo movement, and Black Lives Matter. Whilst all of those movements encapsulate different experiences, there are some really key lessons that we can take from them and apply them to really all sorts of communities that we can better show up for.

I think it also means acknowledging that your lived experience is different to somebodies lived experience of the community that you're trying to support. Sometimes that can be difficult to do because it means acknowledging certain privileges you might not have even recognised before, and how that affects people of that community. I think allowing space and opening up this space for people within the community that you're trying to support and letting them share their experiences and having those conversations, that should really be treated as a privilege because it can be a scary thing for people in that community to do.

So, if they have taken the time and the mental energy to do that, I think it's really beholden on all of us to listen to their experience, rather than judge them or tone police them. I think taking the lead from the community that you're trying to support is really important. So not dictating what they should and shouldn't be responding to, and how they should be feeling, taking the lead from them. If they're saying, actually, this upsets me, and here's why. But also, on that point, it's not leaving everything to the people in that community that you're supporting.

It does take quite a lot of energy. So for example, in the LGBTQ community, if I'm raising an issue that I feel quite personal about, or that I think affects me and that we should change, that does take quite a lot of energy and it can actually be slightly traumatising for people. You shouldn't always have to leave it to people of that community to advocate for change. You can also take some of the burden.

Zé: Often, people have already been living a constant uphill battle every day of their lives. And it doesn't have to be always on them to have to change things. Allyship is also about taking action and calling things out even when there are no queer people around or black people for example. Whenever you hear something that feels unfair, it's calling it out. Because when you put pressure on people from those communities to be the ones to do it, it's like their whole life is already that battle.

Barney: That's exactly it. That's a really eloquent point. And you might have certain access to spaces that those people might not do. And it's important that you carry that conversation into those spaces.

Going back to what you said Ze, about taking action even that when there aren't queer people around, I think that's a really great point. I think it's very easy for  all of us to fall back into the same behaviours, the same sort of old thinking and attitudes that we've  maybe grown up with. You might be might trying to make a change in the workplace, but you need to take that home with you as well, not just sort of hiding behind the TV or hide, within the noise of social media. In those spaces that you feel comfortable, you've got to make a stand for other people too.

Zé: And it's about making that space comfortable for other people that don't necessarily feel the same level of comfort.

Barney, do you have any recommendations for people wanting to know more about the LGBTQ + rights, culture and history?

Barney: Yeah, of course. There's a lot of resources out there if you are interested, that you can definitely support. To name a few charities which are really worthwhile if you do care about these things. Stonewall and Mermaids right now, in particular, with everything that's going on in the media need your support, they do really valuable work. Switchboard, LGBT Foundation, really valuable charities to show up for.

If you're interested in LGBT culture, I mean, it's maybe a bit of a cliche, but I think starting with Drag Race is a really good way to start. I think often we're used to seeing LGBTQ narratives painted with this kind of tragedy. I think Drag Race is a really nice antidote to that, especially now that it's International. And you've got Drag Races Espagne, Australia, UK, it's a celebration of the diversity and the strength of the LGBTQ community. And often you find the Queen's on Drag Race sharing and bonding over their history, and the past traumas that they've overcome, but also learning to really be comfortable with themselves and turn it into art, basically, or art or comedy. And it's a really uplifting and sometimes educational and eye-opening show to watch. Sometimes it's it can be problematic. But I think that's probably the best place to start if you are interested in learning a bit more about what it means to be LGBT today.

Zé: And I also find it really interesting how what makes them different is what makes them so successful and amazing at what they do. The strength that they get from different life experiences.

Barney: Definitely. Yeah, that's a good point.

Going back to your introduction, you mentioned the Stonewall riots, there's a really good documentary on Netflix, I would recommend for anyone interested in that quite momentous period of history called The Life and Death of Marsha P. Johnson. Marsha P. Johnson was a trans person of colour, who was a really pivotal part of that protest. But also, she was a really inspirational figure for LGBT rights in America, but also around the world. So it's a sad documentary, but it's really educational, and it's definitely worth the watch.
Fantastic. Thank you, Barney. Yeah, I'll put some links in the show notes afterwards, so people can check those out as well.

Ze do you have any queer figures that you find inspiring?

Yeah, I'd have to say my trans friends. Being with them it's always shocking. The constant battle that their life seems to be. For instance, my friend, Emma, she's amazing. And she's always really positive and really welcoming and warm. She's amazing. But when I think about the things that she goes through in life, sometimes they're just heartbreaking. Just simple things that I never think about. But I find her very inspiring.

Also thinking about queer figures, there are some figures that are not real, and they never did anything for anyone, but sort of mythical figures. What I find really interesting is that throughout history and throughout the whole world, there are mythologies about the queer gods and goddesses and spirits and things, which I love because it just shows how queer people have always existed throughout the whole of history and in several cultures. They are part of the cosmic order of things.

Thank you so much, guys, for coming and doing the podcast. This has been such an interesting chat and I hope it will be educational and enlightening for people as well. Thank you so much.

Thank you for having us! 

And Happy Pride, everyone!

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