Pivoting Pride
Like many LGBTQ people, I love Pride. I love the energy, the spirit, the creativity, and the diversity of our community coming together. I especially love marching with a favorite organization, waving and throwing beads and other swag to joyous parade-goers. I love seeing the signs, especially from cisgender straight allies like proud moms and dads of LGBTQ kids. I love the freedom that I feel at Pride.
Free to be you and me, like that old song. Free, like the freedom dreamed of by Martha P. Johnson, Frank Kameny, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyons. For one day a year, it’s exhilarating.
It breaks my heart that LGBTQ Pride parades and festivals around the world are mostly postponed or cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Like many groups around the country and world, the LGBTQ community is striving for some semblance of order and calm in the midst of the Covid-19 chaos. Many of us live alone and are experiencing a profound sense of loss, confusion, or aloneness. Pride events are important for us to find community and celebrate our culture. They’re a critical time to build confidence – and more allies.
The good news? We’re a creative bunch. Pride organizations around the world are coming together for a virtual ‘Global Pride’ on Saturday, June 27. Global Pride will live-stream a Pride in which everyone, no matter where they are, can participate. The vision is for live music performances, speeches from human rights activists, and more. Pride has an opportunity to be more inclusive than ever – a virtual Pride means that people with disabilities and other folks who don’t typically attend parades and festivals, can more easily participate.
I’ll be there.
Within organizations, I believe it’s urgent to continue Pride programming even if there are no in-person events to attend. Educational programming can still create community, but more importantly, it can reassure LGBTQ people that they do have allies – even if they can’t see them every day at work.
Here are a few ideas of “Virtual Pride” programming you can easily implement within your organization this Pride month:
Invite your employees to join in a group live stream of Global Pride music and speakers on June 27 (or one of the other planned live streams in June). Employees can join a group conversation on one device and watch the live stream on another.
Focus on storytelling. Host virtual lunch and learns with LGBTQ employees who volunteer to come out and tell their stories about being out in the workplace, or being out in general. Note that you shouldn’t assume employees would feel comfortable sharing their stories, which may require a lot of emotional labor on their part. If you have one, put out a call for volunteer speakers within your LGBTQ Employee Resource Group (ERG) to gauge interest.
Host an ally panel with your LGBTQ ERG’s Executive Sponsor and/or other allies who can share their ally journey and examples of why allyship is so important in the workplace. Identify a great moderator who can share some practical ways to be an ally.
Plan a LGBTQ book club. Choose an LGBTQ-themed book or two and host a virtual discussion event. Some recommendations? I loved the incredible memoir “Redefining Realness” by Janet Mock, the hilarious, tragic graphic novel “Fun Home” by Alison Bechdel (which became a Tony Award winning musical), and the powerful novel “The Great Believers” by Rebecca Makkai.
Invite your team members to listen to a podcast and discuss over lunch. The Making Gay History podcast shares the interviews of some of the most notable LGBTQ figures. These stories are incredible – and these voices should be heard.
With some thoughtfulness, creativity, and of course, technology, Pride can be more accessible, inclusive, and perhaps joyful than ever.
As Alan Joyce, the openly gay CEO of Qantas Airlines said, “You cannot get the full potential of people in your business if people have to hide who they are and cannot contribute to the organization because they are scared of the impact it will have on their career progression.”
Pride gives your LGBTQ employees permission to be themselves. That is priceless.
I'll be talking through these ideas and more during a free online training on May 6 at 4pm EST with Scott Gatz, CEO of Q.Digital. Scott will be giving us the latest rundown of livestream Pride festivals and other celebratory events, and I'll focus on DIY educational programming.
You can register for this free training, "No Cost and DIY Pride Events and Programming" at this link. This training will be recorded and sent out to all registrants.