A June Bug for luck and love
Month of Love
The June bug has come if you can believe it.
Literally. Those June bugs are everywhere. Someone do something.
Just joking! If you didn’t know, the phrase June bug is also synonymous with the love bug, Cupid, and all the sweet feelings and affection that little imp is rumored to bring. Accordingly, it seems fitting that pride month sits in June, the second season of love.
According to The Human Rights Campaign, as of May 3rd, 2023, there have been over 540 anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced in US state legislatures this year. Over 220 of these bills are targeted at transgender and non-binary people and 45 anti-LGBTQ laws have been enacted so far this year.
Unfortunately, many of these discriminatory laws have been passed here in Texas.
Despite this, the LGBTQ+ community continues to celebrate love and individuality. As nonprofits serving the diverse and varied communities of Central Texas, sometimes it can be difficult to know whether your workspace is inadvertently adding to the growing stress of being LGBTQ+ in Texas.
Mission Capital strives to center equity in everything we do, and that includes being inclusive of sexual orientation. Should you be wondering how to create a safe space for all orientations and identities, this blog will go through some of the best practices.
Are you ready? Good. Swipe away the bugs and prepare to be an ally.
Do not fall into Performativity!
This advice is both all-encompassing and wise. What does performativity look like? Well, examples exist in almost every industry nationwide. Performativity can be when businesses only showcase black artists during February, theaters only showcase movies with prominent women leads in March, and museums only Mexican American history in September.
In other words, it is when an organization tries to seem as if they support diversity and acceptance when it is popular to do so; but fails to uphold that same dedication for the rest of the year. Performativity is prominent when it comes to Pride Month.
As Hunter Johnson wrote in their Forbes article How To Create A More Inclusive Environment For LGBTQ+ Employees:
“But be warned: Rainbow washing—the act of only supporting the LGBTQ+ community during Pride Month—leads to backlash and resignations because people can sense when your motives are insincere. You should be fully supportive year-round, and if not, don’t jump on our Pride.”
If your office only waves the rainbow flag or starts incorporating gender-inclusive language into your meetings during June, your LGBTQ+ employees will surely notice, and trying to perform support is almost worse than active indifference.
Increasingly, employee retention has become a question of values, which means that if your staff does not feel that their workplace shares their values, they are more likely to make a quick retreat (for more info on this topic, check out our February blog).
So demonstrate your dedication to a truly inclusive workplace all year round!
Build Protective Policies
Admit it: not everyone is on board with LGBTQ+ equality. There remain too many people who are steeped in bias, misinformation, or fear. This is a consistent problem with every under-recognized minority. When women won the right to vote, it didn’t abolish sexism, did it? Nor did the 1964 Civil Rights Act destroy racism.
That’s where laws come in.
Everyone is entitled to their own worldview; however, no one has the right to harm or discriminate against someone because of their difference. Those who would try must understand that there are consequences for violating another’s rights.
Legally, every organization and company must have non-discriminatory policies in place, but does your organization have specific guidelines and procedures to protect your LGTBQ+ employees?
What if the new HR manager is homophobic and actively denies all LGBTQ+ requests for time off or a pay raise? What is the process for reporting such behavior and what actions are then taken to ensure that the employee is well taken care of afterward?
What if the new volunteer coordinator denies volunteers from LGBTQ+ community members, or makes inappropriate comments to those volunteers who identify as transgender or intersex? What rules are in place to hold those people accountable?
These are scenarios LGBTQ+ people face all the time.
Creating a safe place for your LGBTQ+ employees means taking the time and effort to sculpt procedures where these scenarios are a what if it does happen instead of when it does happen. For more concrete situations, take a look at how your current HR policies involve different circumstances for parental leave, adoption, and pensions.
If you’re scratching your head right now, think of it this way.
Without an extensive and thoughtful paid parental leave policy, you’re less likely to attract same-sex couples. As Julie Kruse, the director of federal policy at the advocacy group Family Equality, said:
“LGBTQ-plus parents often have additional needs for paid leave. Our families can be expensive to form — for people that require trans fertility services, for people using alternative reproductive technologies, even those going through the processes of fostering and adopting.”
For organizations with dispensation for parental leave, no matter how the child is born or brought into the family, those incentives often are a determining factor in whether to choose or remain at their current place of work.
As it exists now, there are many disparities in the world and too many opportunities to cause harm to one’s neighbor. For more resources on how to build respectful and safe structures for your LGBTQ+ employees, check out MyHRtoolkit.com.
Change the Tune
Now for the fun part. Too often, creating inclusive workspaces is treated like a chore that organizations are forced to complete in order to raise more funding. If the motivation for diversifying is money, then your work environment is less likely to be a healthy, productive one. In fact, chances are high that your employees, no matter their sexual orientation, will grow resentful and frustrated.
To avoid this, change the perspectives surrounding inclusivity.
Instead of demanding that everyone names their pronouns at the next all-staff Zoom meeting, start a discussion in your next team meeting about what pronouns mean to each person, and whether your staff wants to start incorporating them into email signatures, business cards or other identifying information.
Instead of waving a pride flag in front of the office for a scant thirty days, consider asking staff to decorate their offices with pictures of what love looks like in their lives. Instead of assigning every staff member to read an article about LGBTQ+ issues, invite a LGBTQ+ comedian or poet into your space for a fun Friday afternoon. There are a million fun, low-cost and private ways to begin those new conversations.
Change is inevitable, but it doesn’t need to be grueling or forced. Any botanist will tell you that the rain never tears flowers out of the ground by the throat, just gently pats the soil in an open invitation. Hey, I’m here. You can come out now. I’m ready to nourish you.
Now that’s love.
One Last Thing
This is possibly the most important piece of advice yet: do not ever pressure anyone into declaring their sexual identity before they are ready or feel safe. The decision to come out is deeply personal.
Nonetheless, whether you are aware of any LGBTQ+ members of staff or not, it is important to build an equitable and empowering environment always.
Like all efforts to diversify and create affirming workplaces, there are many steps in this rarely traveled road, but the destination will be a beautiful world that acknowledges love and humanity in all our transcendent forms.
Mission Capital is also walking this path, and we are honored to invite all nonprofit organizations to take part in our courses dealing with creating equitable workplaces.
Remember, there are numerous intersections that lead to an equitable world. Whether you want to create an inclusive environment for all races, religions, genders, or sexualities, it is pivotal to have a backbone for what exactly equity means.
Check out our list of courses below and choose one of our upcoming dates that best fits your goals!
Conflict Mitigation and Team Dynamics
Implicit Bias in Hiring
Power, Privilege, and Shared Leadership
Employee Retention and Culture: What do people want and need in a workplace?
We here at Mission Capital wish you all a Happy pride! May you know love and spread love!