Building LGBTQIA+ Belonging 365 Days a Year

Pride month is here but for too many LGBTQIA2S+ employees, there's little to celebrate at work.

Many of us are still navigating workplaces where we feel unsafe, unseen, and undervalued. Across the U.S., queer and trans people are facing alarmingly high rates of discrimination in our personal lives, in the workplace and the public sphere, and in our access to critical health care.

That’s not just disappointing. It’s the result of structural choices that prioritize comfort over the dignity and safety of people you claim to “support.”

The gap between stated organizational values and lived experience exists because good intentions without real action create what researchers call diversity theater—a performance of inclusion with no real substance.

If you’re a cisgender heterosexual person, I invite you to reflect—not with guilt or shame, but with courage—on the everyday ways your comfort is at our expense.

Allyship requires moving beyond performative gestures:

🏳️‍🌈 Post rainbow flags in June AND speak up when coworkers make exclusionary comments or when policies fail to protect trans employees.

👂Listen when LGBTQIA2S+ colleagues describe harm instead of insisting “Most people are accepting these days.”

🛑 Address harm directly rather than brushing it off with “They didn’t mean it,” especially when it comes to pronouns or deadnaming.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Challenge cisheteronormative assumptions in workplace policies, from parental leave to who counts as “family.”

📚 Take responsibility for your own learning rather than expecting queer and trans folx to take on the emotional labor of educating you.

The freedom, autonomy, and choices of LGBTQIA2S+ people are now under attack across the country. If you want your employees to feel safe and included for more than a few weeks, then commit to doing the real work of building belonging 365 days a year.

______
🌈 Hire me to speak virtually or in person for LGBTQ+ Pride Month! I’m an international speaker, book author, and queer studies professor who helps organizations build trust and safety through courageous conversations. Let's move beyond rainbow washing toward workplaces where LGBTQIA2S+ employees truly thrive.