What do LGBTQ groups look like at your place of work?
November 11, 2016 6:10 AM Subscribe
Some coworkers and I are starting a networking/education group in our office for LGBTQ folks. We'd like to benchmark across other organizations and learn what has been successful.
Hopefully your company is similar to ours - Midwest, product manufacturing and sales, $4bn revenue. Right now we have other groups - for women, for young employees, and for people of color. This group would start off for the office staff (about 6k) and maybe eventually expand to the manufacturing staff as well.
Sometimes our culture seems to be one where lgbtq people are tolerated but not encouraged. Sometimes it feels like, unless you're white cis/straight religious married, you have to whisper about it. But we have a lot of support from leadership, who decided years ago to extend benefits to same-sex couples, and currently is funding transgender-related medical care through our health program. Also, lots of folks here are very progressive, we just don't always feel comfortable being open about it.
I want to know, specifically:
- What kind of lgbtq group exists at your company
- What is the goal
- What do they do poorly, what kind of problems have they had difficulty with
- What are the big successes they have accomplished
Links to stories about what other companies or manuals or resources would be amazing. Any advice for how to get started would be nice, too, but mostly I want to benchmark, to help build a case for our group.
Hopefully your company is similar to ours - Midwest, product manufacturing and sales, $4bn revenue. Right now we have other groups - for women, for young employees, and for people of color. This group would start off for the office staff (about 6k) and maybe eventually expand to the manufacturing staff as well.
Sometimes our culture seems to be one where lgbtq people are tolerated but not encouraged. Sometimes it feels like, unless you're white cis/straight religious married, you have to whisper about it. But we have a lot of support from leadership, who decided years ago to extend benefits to same-sex couples, and currently is funding transgender-related medical care through our health program. Also, lots of folks here are very progressive, we just don't always feel comfortable being open about it.
I want to know, specifically:
- What kind of lgbtq group exists at your company
- What is the goal
- What do they do poorly, what kind of problems have they had difficulty with
- What are the big successes they have accomplished
Links to stories about what other companies or manuals or resources would be amazing. Any advice for how to get started would be nice, too, but mostly I want to benchmark, to help build a case for our group.
The one at my company is just barely getting off the ground and hasn't done anything but send a couple emails and encourage people to wear purple in support one day last month, but as someone who kinda/sorta identifies on the asexual spectrum, seeing them chirpily assert, 'A is for Ally!' really kind of rubbed me the wrong way. So, uh, that's something to think about.
posted by miratime at 5:31 AM on November 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by miratime at 5:31 AM on November 12, 2016 [1 favorite]
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posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 6:42 AM on November 11, 2016