It’s easy to become cynical of the activities of businesses around landmark moments in a year, such as Pride month, viewing them as pink washing or virtue signalling. However, that doesn’t mean that businesses should not celebrate or share their policies around LGBTQIA+ issues, just that their output should not be limited to a single month.
June was chosen to represent Pride to commemorate the Stonewall events which sparked the global gay rights movement. The Stonewall Inn, in New York’s Greenwich Village is still a thriving gay venue but on June 27, 1969 was the site of a police raid which erupted into a spontaneous protest by patrons, tired of discrimination and being forced underground into spaces run by Mafia groups.
This was all against the context of the wave of activism in the 1960s including; civil rights, feminist activism and demands for social progression. The first Pride march was held to commemorate the first anniversary of these riots and has become a global event representing visibility, resilience and community for LGBTQIA+ individuals and allies.
It’s crucial to remember that discrimination still exists. It’s something we have promised to take action on as we promise in our diversity, equity and inclusion goals to increase the levels of representation in every organisation we work alongside in order to mirror the true demographic of our population.
In the UK, that would be around 3.2% of the population according to data published by the BBC in January this year.
We understand that this will take a huge amount of education and work and is why we endeavour to address individual diversity goals with every organisation we work alongside and help advise them if they don’t have any specific goals in place.
