08 Jul From Binary to Spectrum: LGBTQ+ Inclusion in the Workplace

Much progress has been made in securing the rights of members of the LGBTQ+ community since the Stonewall riots in 1969. That was when New York City Police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay club in Greenwich Village in New York City. Six days of protests and violent clashes with law enforcement ensued. The Stonewall Riots served as a catalyst for the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world. The first Pride event took place the following year in 1970. There have been decades of work and activism since to promote and protect LGBTQ+ rights, including in 2015, when the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in the United States. All done, right?

LGBTQ+ Rights Today

Actually, no. “People who had been feeling settled about these legal protections and the fact that Title VII had come to include protections for LGBTQ+ folks may be experiencing anxiety these days,” says Dr. Margo Jacquot, Founder and Chief Care Officer at The Juniper Center Counseling and Therapy. According to one Fox News affiliate, more bills targeted at transgender people have been written in 2022 than any year on record. (Fox8) “The stress level has started going up for a lot of folks again and for all of us,” says Dr. Margo, with new bills limiting access to gender-affirming care, renewed discussions around bathrooms, or restrictions on teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity. Many people are concerned that the recent strike down of Roe v. Wade will signal the elimination of the aforementioned Marriage Equality Act.

Executive spaces can take the lead on LGBTQ+ inclusion, with practices that engage everyone, at each stage of the business hierarchy. Pride Month is a great time to brush up on your vocabulary and to set strategies and tactics that will persist once the calendar switches to July 1st.

Why is Pride Month Important?

Pride Month, when embraced in the workplace, can provide a platform to allow people to tell their stories. It also allows members of the community to feel included and gives permission for allies to learn. It is a time of celebrating the right to be ourselves and to work towards your company’s shared goals.

Some LGBTQIA+ individuals will assert that they come out daily. “You come out every time you meet someone new, and you mention an ex-partner,” is how a friend described their experience.  “You come out every time you explain “they/them” pronouns to your well-intentioned co-workers or boss.”

Beyond the Binary

Language around gender and gender identity is evolving in an exciting way, with discourse that separates gender from sexual orientation and embraces a “continuum” model over a previously “binary” paradigm. “Binary” refers to the idea of two and only two distinct categories: Male. Female. “Non-binary understands gender as a spectrum of biological, mental and emotional traits that exist along a continuum.

The American Academy of Pediatrics stressed in a new policy in 2018 that “gender identity is a normal part of human diversity (Neergaard, AP 2018). That policy also separated the definitions of the terms “sex” and “gender.” In the same AP article, Dr. Jason Rafferty, a pediatrician and child psychiatrist at Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Rhode Island, and lead author of the AAP’s transgender policy affirmed “Sex typically refers to anatomy while gender goes beyond biology.”

The way that many were taught gender as children were lessons based upon social constructs. Those gender stereotypes continue to contribute to bias in the workplace. Even the World Health Organization (WHO) states that gender “is a social construct that varies across different cultures and over time.”

Popular attitudes and science about gender and identity continue to evolve. According to a 2021 study from consumer insights agency Big Eye, 3 out of 5 Millennials believe gender is a spectrum, not a binary. Shifting policies and creating more inclusive workplaces is important not just for members of a specific community, but for a stronger, more vibrant workforce overall.

Tips for Creating an LGBTQIA+ Inclusive Workplace

Creating an inclusive workplace for LGBTQIA+ individuals opens doors for inclusivity in many different formats. People across various races, ethnicities and religious backgrounds benefit from LGBTQIA+ inclusivity at work, too. These tips can get you started:

• Close the wage gap. Starting all employees off with a steady, base salary minimizes the potential for biases based upon gender and/or sexuality.
• Change the language in your application forms. Identifying factors can and should exist but do expand options for things such as pronouns. For example, instead of asking, “Are you a: man/woman?” create clickable boxes with as many different pronoun options as possible; Instead of “male” and “female” as an option, at a bare minimum include an option for “other.”
• Don’t insert gender where it doesn’t belong. This is a more pressing issue than one may assume. Really think about if the difference makes a difference.
• Continue your efforts once Pride Month ends. Businesses love to proudly display rainbows in their offices or storefronts in June, but you can do that all year.

The Key To Inclusion

Strong leaders are dedicated to learning more about the people they lead. Excellent leaders will go the extra mile to recognize the person before them, check their biases, and know that bias often comes from a lack of knowledge or flat-out wrong knowledge.

It is okay and appropriate to ask for pronouns. Perhaps share yours first as an invitation. Simple integrations like this make new employees feel welcome. Take time to understand various labels. Brush up on certain topics, even if they may feel too niche to incorporate into your workplace. Allow your employees to tell their stories–when they feel ready to. A truly inclusive workplace sees its employees as three-dimensional figures, with real lives, backgrounds, and feelings.

Resources

Big Eye Agency, Gender: Beyond the Binary. February 17, 2021. https://lp.bigeyeagency.com/hubfs/Gender_BeyondtheBinary.pdf

History.com, History of Gay Rights, June 15, 2022. https://www.history.com/topics/gay-rights/history-of-gay-rights

Jacquot, Margo, PsyD, What’s in an Acronym…LGBTQIAP (and other inclusive language discussions). https://www.thejunipercenter.com/whats-acronymlgbtqiap-inclusive-language-discussions/

The List, Resources for Trans and Gender Nonconforming folx and those who support them. https://www.thelistforus.com/

World Health Organization, Gender and Health. https://www.who.int/health-topics/gender#tab=tab_1