Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said its policies prohibit any reference to LGBTQ people being “groomers,” a term for would-be child rapists that conservatives have applied to LGBTQ people and allies – especially teachers and doctors – this past year.
The slur has increasingly been used by conservatives to oppose LGBTQ content in schools and gender-affirming care for transgender youth, leading to an increase in threats and harassment.
However, Facebook has continued to make money from at least 150 ads using the slur, even though the media watchdog group Media Matters alerted Meta to the issue. These ads have been seen over one million times, Media Matters reported.
On September 6, Media Matters told Meta about 134 ads using the slur. Meta removed only 40 of the ads from their platform. Now, Media Matters has discovered 19 more ads using the slur. Collectively, the advertisers paid Meta $13,600 to display these ads.
One ad, purchased by the conservative student group Turning Point USA featured a tweet from conservative pundit Candace Owen stating that she has “no patience for this child groomer movement.” The ad read, “Protect your kids.”
Another ad from The Dallas Express, one site of many in a right-wing propaganda network, purchased an ad referring to the anti-trans group “Gays Against Groomers” as an “an organization against the sexualization, indoctrination, and medicalization of children.”
New Jersey’s Holmdel Republican Party ran an ad asking people to support political candidates who “publicly state their opposition to the States [sic] new sex education curriculum which sexualizes our children to advance the agenda of groomers.”
Yet another ad by Republican Illinois state senate candidate Philip Nagel featured him stating that he is “fed up and pissed off with the sick perversion that is being pushed on our children” by “a political class full of pedophiles and groomers.”
Meta has also allowed several ads falsely linking LGBTQ rights to “the supposed normalization of pedophilia in society.”
Kayla Gogarty, deputy research director at Media Matters, told The Daily Dot that Meta’s policies against the slur don’t apparently matter.
“Those are just empty words when we see them turn a blind eye to the anti-LGBTQ rhetoric on their platform,” Gogarty said. “It’s really just another instance of Meta putting profit and engagement over the safety of its users.”
A conservative judge in Texas has issued a ruling against a federal guidance ensuring workplace non-discrimination protections for transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming employees.
In an October 1 ruling, Matthew Kacsmaryk, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, declared that, in June 2021, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued guidance that incorrectly interpreted the June 2020 Supreme Court ruling Bostock v. Clayton County.
The 2020 Supreme Court decision found that discrimination against gay and transgender employees is a form of sex discrimination forbidden by Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
One year later, the EEOC issued a guidance stating that the ruling required workplaces with more than 15 employees to allow all transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming workers to use the pronouns, dress codes, facilities, and healthcare practices matching their gender identities.
In response, the state of Texas sued the EEOC, and Judge Kacsmaryk just ruled in the state’s favor. He ruled that although the 2020 Supreme Court decision declared that employers can’t discriminate against workers for their sexuality or gender identity, it doesn’t protect an employee’s “correlated conduct.”
As such, Kacsmaryk declared the EEOC’s guidance unlawful and said that Texas doesn’t have to follow it. However, the matter is far from settled.
That’s because 20 Republican-led states have also sued the EEOC over the guidance, alleging that the federal agency violated the Administrative Procedure Act by not following the required process for making new rules and also the Constitution’s 10th Amendment by trampling on states’ authority over privacy expectations in workplaces.
Kacsmaryk’s ruling isn’t entirely surprising considering that he once served as the deputy general counsel for the First Liberty Institute (FLI), a legal organization that generally represents conservative Christians, attacks the separation of church and state, and opposes LGBTQ rights.
“Five justices of the Supreme Court found an unwritten ‘fundamental right’ to same-sex marriage hiding in the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment — a secret knowledge so cleverly concealed in the nineteenth-century amendment that it took almost 150 years to find,” he wrote.
Bisexual workers report lower rates of workplace discrimination than cisgender lesbians and gay men, a new study has found, but that may be because fewer cis bisexuals are out at work compared to cis lesbians and gay men.
The Williams Institute — a UCLA’s School of Law group that researches sexual orientation and gender identity issues — analyzed survey data collected in May 2021 from 935 LGBTQ adults in the workforce.
Its analysis found that 33.8 percent of gay and lesbian employees experienced at least one form of employment discrimination, namely, being fired or not hired due to their sexual orientation. Comparatively, 24.4 percent of bi employees reported experiencing the same.
The lower overall rates of discrimination may be due to the fact that fewer bisexuals are out at work. Only 19 percent of bi workers are out to all their co-workers, compared to 50 percent of gay and lesbian workers who are out to co-workers.
Only 19 percent of bi workers are out to their coworkers, compared to 50 percent of gay and lesbian workers. Similarly, only 36 percent of bi employees are out to their supervisors, compared to 74.6 percent of gay and lesbian employees.
Bi men and women were also more likely than gay and lesbian employees to report changing their workplace appearance to hide their sexual orientation. Approximately 26.4 percent of bi workers said they had done so, compared to 17.9 percent of gay and lesbian workers.
Interestingly, roughly 60 percent of gay, lesbian, and bi employees said they avoided social events and personal discussions to reduce the likelihood of discrimination and harassment. But when bi employees were out to their coworkers, they reported facing similar or higher rates of discrimination and harassment as out gay and lesbian workers.
The survey also found that gay and bi men typically faced higher rates of employment discrimination, verbal, and sexual harassment than lesbians and bisexual women.
For example, 57.7 percent of bi men experienced verbal harassment, compared to 26.8 percent of bisexual women. While 41.6 percent of gay men experienced verbal harassment, only 29.5 percent of lesbians experienced the same thing. Nearly 50 to 65 percent of all discrimination was religiously motivated, the respondents said.
Workplace sexual harassment was experienced by 34.8 percent of bi men, 33.6 percent of gay men, 29.2 percent of bi women, and 17.4 percent of lesbian women. While 58 percent of out bi men said they had left previous jobs due to workplace discrimination, only 27 percent of out bi women had left previous jobs for the same reason.
These findings came out just before Celebrate Bisexuality Day, an annual day for uplifting the bisexual community, individuals, and their shared history. Today is Celebrate Bisexuality Day.
A 2021 Gallup found that 57 percent of LGBTQ Americans identify as bisexual.
Internet hosting and security services provider Cloudflare said Saturday that it would block Kiwi Farms, a website associated with harassment campaigns against transgender people.
The announcement puts the future of the fringe internet forum in doubt, though some of its members had already anticipated that Cloudflare could act and began to explore other options.
When attempting to visit Kiwi Farms’ website Saturday evening, an error message appeared that said: “Due to an imminent and emergency threat to human life, the content of this site is blocked from being accessed through Cloudflare’s infrastructure.”
The move comes after Cloudflare became the subject of a pressure campaign by a trans Twitch streamer who has been a target of abuse by Kiwi Farms users.
The streamer, Clara Sorrenti, known to fans as Keffals, responded Saturday in a tweet. “Cloudflare has dropped Kiwi Farms. Our campaign will put out a statement soon,” Sorrenti said.
Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince’s announced the move in a blog postand did not mention Sorrenti by name, but said that abuse from Kiwi Farms had intensified in response to her campaign.
“This is an extraordinary decision for us to make and, given Cloudflare’s role as an Internet infrastructure provider, a dangerous one that we are not comfortable with,” Cloudflare’s statement said.
“However, the rhetoric on the Kiwifarms site and specific, targeted threats have escalated over the last 48 hours to the point that we believe there is an unprecedented emergency and immediate threat to human life unlike we have previously seen from Kiwifarms or any other customer before.”
On Friday, NBC News reported that Sorrenti is one of Kiwi Farms’ growing list of targets, and that its harassment techniques could become a playbook against political enemies as the 2024 U.S. presidential election nears.
Kiwi Farms owner Josh Moon did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday from NBC News. A post on the Kiwi Farms Telegram account said Cloudflare’s decision was “done without any discussion.”
“The message I’ve received is a vague suspension notice. The message from Matthew Prince is unclear,” the post stated. “If there is any threat to life on the site, I have received no communication from any law enforcement.”
Cloudflare is an internet services company that provides websites with a variety of crucial resources, most notably its content delivery network and mitigation of distributed denial of services campaigns, or DDoS, a common cyberattack that floods websites with fake internet traffic and renders them unusable.
Cloudflare’s central role as one of the main providers of these services has also made the company a flashpoint around extremists’ internet operations.
The company has generally been hesitant to take action against particular websites or internet operations, citing concerns that it holds immense power in terms of who is able to exist on the web, though it has before.
In 2017, Cloudflare said it would no longer provide services to the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi message board.
Prince also warned about Cloudflare’s role in knocking websites offline.
“Reasonable people can and do believe all those things. But having the mechanism of content control be vigilante hackers launching DDoS attacks subverts any rational concept of justice,” Prince wrote in a blog post, citing the inevitability of cyberattacks that would knock the Daily Stormer offline.
Kiwi Farms users had been anticipating the Cloudflare ban for weeks and had created contingency plans if the site went down, including alternate internet domains, along with accounts and communities on Telegram.
While the decade-old Kiwi Farms archive of personal information on political enemies will be considerably more difficult to access and add to, the site’s user base appears committed to continuing to track trans people online, according to posts made on Telegram about a potential site shutdown.
“They’re thinking about what comes next,” said Fredrick Brennan, who worked with Moon when they were both administrators at the fringe message board 8chan. “I watch them closely, and they’re already thinking about how to move everything to Telegram.”
Brennan has since denounced 8chan, which he created, and successfully advocated to get the page removed from Cloudflare in 2019.
Workers at a Hostess bakery in Chicago accused the snack dessert maker of firing a transgender employee for her gender identity and segregating LGBT employees onto a separate work line at the factory in the Galewood neighborhood on city’s west side at a Wednesday news conference.
Danyell Wallace, 43, said she was filing a charge with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission after she was fired in June from the company, where she had worked since 2020.
Wallace, who is transgender and worked as a machine operator for Hostess, said she had been discriminated against by supervisors and was singled out for discipline and firing because of her gender identity.
“Supervisors insulted me to co-workers,” she said. “Other times, it took the form of gossip that was indulged by supervisors.”
Wallace said when she used a single-stall women’s restroom instead of the men’s common restroom for her safety, she became the subject of “stressful and humiliating” gossip at the bakery.
Wallace said she was told she was fired for returning late from breaks, though she said she had not received a warning from the company before her termination. She said she had been about five minutes late returning from breaks a few times and maintained the company’s reasoning was pretextual.
In a statement, Hostess said it had not received an EEOC filing and declined to comment.
Wallace said she had been discriminated against both as a Black worker and because of her gender identity. She alleged Black workers were segregated to the second shift at the bakery and that LGBT workers were moved to the second fryer line on that second shift, where they were singled out for discipline.
Dan Giloth, an organizer with the group Black Workers Matter, which hosted the news conference, said at least four LGBT workershad been fired at the bakery.Giloth said the group planned to file employment commission complaints on behalf of at least two additional workers within the next month.
Wallace’s employment commission charge alleges other similarly situated workers were also segregated and discriminated against at the factory. “There was a policy and practice of hostility toward workers in my area based on my gender identity and sexual orientation,” the complaint reads.
“I’m not doing this just for myself, but for other workers as well,” Wallace said Wednesday.
On Wednesday, former Hostess employee Garland Rose, 53, who is bisexual, said he was fired by Hostess in June and had since become homeless.
“It’s very unfair for anyone, whether you’re straight, gay or bisexual, to have to come to work and feel discriminated against and uncomfortable,” Rose said. “It’s just not right.”
Rose said the company told him he had been fired for taking doughnuts home without proper signoff from his supervisor. Rose said he did break the rules, but maintained it’s common for employees to take doughnuts home and said he was singled out because of his sexual orientation.
Giloth said Black Workers Matter had sent a letter to Hostess leadership in July and had first attempted to mediate Wallace’s firing without taking legal steps. Wallace filed an internal grievance with the company but her termination was upheld, she said.
Wallace said she had also reached out to the union that represents workers at the factory, Local 30 of the Chemical and Production Workers’ Union, but never had a union representative at any disciplinary meetings.
Local 30 did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday afternoon.
At Wednesday’s news conference, Audrey Harding, legislative director for Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson, read a statement on his behalf and said the commissioner supported Wallace’s employment commission complaint.
“For far too long, Black employees at this plant have suffered racist abuse, firings and retaliation for speaking out and demanding basic fairness and humanity from their bosses,” Harding said. “That must stop.”
Hostess Brands bought the Galewood bakery from Swiss-based Aryzta for about $25 million in 2018.
That year, a federal lawsuit filed against Arytza and two staffing agencies, Labor Network and Metro Staffing Service, alleged Arytza had conspired with the staffing agencies to weed out Black workers seeking employment.
The plaintiff, Anthony Stewart, later agreed to drop the suit with prejudice against the companies; court documents show he reached a settlement with Arytza in 2019. The case had sought class-action status but never reached the class certification stage.
“This plant has had a long, troubled history of discrimination,” said Stewart, who spoke at Wednesday’s news conference.
A bakery in a Chicago-area suburb that has been the target of vandalism and harassmentdue to a planned family-friendly drag event has now been ordered to stop hosting public events.
“I feel like this is discrimination and a conspiracy to interfere with my business,” Sac said. “Unfortunately, when the attention waned from all the hate this week, they shifted gears and started victim blaming me after we were attacked by a known domestic terrorist who committed hate crimes against us just one week ago.”
Sac says she was first informed that her business was not zoned for entertainment purposes at a Thursday meeting, which she described as “very threatening.” She says city officials also expressed concerns over public resources being used to protect UpRising Bakery after it was the target of a hate crime late last month.
“This issue is about a business conducting activities it was never permitted to conduct,” Village of Lake in the Hills officials said in a statement. “This zoning designation prohibits entertainment in large part due to the close proximity to residential neighborhoods and shared tenant parking.”
“We dispute the letter’s characterization of UpRising programs as ‘entertainment events’ that are prohibited in a B-2 zoning district,” writes senior staff attorney Rebecca K. Glenberg. “Even if that characterization is correct, however, the Village’s sudden determination to enforce the code against UpRising or Ms. Sac based on their exercise of First Amendment rights constitutes unconstitutional retaliation.”
UpRising Bakery became the target of repeated harassment last month after announcing a planned “child-friendly” drag event. “One morning I came in and there was a bag of feces outside,” Sac told Chicago’s ABC7 News. “There was a letter taped to the door that said pedophiles work here.”
The event had to be cancelled after the bakery was vandalized. On July 23, Lake in the Hills Police arrested 24-year-old Joseph I. Collins after he allegedly shattered windows and spray-painted hateful messages on the bakery.
The tasteless, anti-LGBTQI+ comic Dave Chappelle performed five shows at Luther Burbank Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa. It is difficult to believe the LBC staff and board were unaware of Chappelle’s numerous anti-LGBTQI+ comments that are well-documented and for which he has offered no apologies. Chappelle identifies as a so-called “TERF (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist)” joining author J. K Rawlings in such dangerous hate speech. These people refuse to accept that we are in the position to declare our gender or lack thereof.
Netflix came under fire for producing and airing two Chappelle shows that feature anti-Trans comments. LGBTQI+ Netflix employees protested – some even quit. Days before the LBC shows comenced, a Minneapolis Chappelle show switched locations as a direct result of a protest organized after Chappelle referred to Monkeypox as “a gay disease.” Chappelle mocked the members of the local LGBTQI+ Community who brought about the move. The original venue apologized to the local LGBTQI+ Community for once welcoming Chappelle and his hate. Chappelle has never backed down, apologized or even reached out to better understand the concerns of he LGBTQI+ Community. Instead, he continues to mock our Community.
The Press Democrat revealed that mere weeks before the five July shows, Live Nation approached LBC with an offer LBC appears to have found unable to refuse. The LBC staff and board claim there was considerable conversation – considerable, but certainly brief and misguided. Did they notice how few dates Live Nation had booked for Chappelle? None in San Francisco or Oakland or Los Angeles. LBC thought they could sneak this past our Community. No doubt comedy venues in big cities find Chappalle as toxic as the LBC staff and board should have.
Luther Burbank Center for the Arts found it necessary to confiscate all audience cell phones before the Chappelle shows. I have attended too many LBC concerts to count but have never had my cell phone taken away before a show. They must have done this so no footage of his anti-LGBTQI+ vitriol would find its way onto social media identifying LBC as the location. Sorry, LBC, you are now forever linked to anti-LGBTQI+ comments.
Should the North Bay’s LGBTQI+ Community allow hate speech and inflammatory comments to be staged in our backyard? Make no mistake – this is not an attack on free speech or about censorship. This is about making LBC aware that Trans people are harmed and even killed as a result of such despicable comments. 2021 saw a record number of Trans-folks murdered. So far this year 57 have been murdered in the United States alone. We once valued this venue, but it’s decision to allow Chapelle a forum for his hate is unacceptable. The LGBTQI+ Community finds Dave Chappelle comments offensive, inflammatory and even deadly.
Let’s stand up to Hate Speech and inform those in power at Luther Burbank Center for the Arts we will boycott the venue. Some shy away from boycotts. If you are amongst them, at least express your opinion by contacting the people listed below.
Let the Staff and Board of Luther Burbank Center for the Arts, its sponsors, those who share the Center’s campus, and elected officials know that such Hate results in harm to members of the LGBTQI+ Community. Email and call, as many as possible and as often as possible.
If you aren’t aware of this man’s exploits, check out these articles:
Call to Action: BOYCOTT Luther Burbank Center for the Arts for Bringing Anti-LGBTQI+ Hate to Sonoma County
The tasteless, anti-LGBTQI+ comic Dave Chappelle performed no less than five shows at Luther Burbank Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa. It is difficult to believe the LBC staff and board are unaware of Chappelle’s numerous anti-Trans comments that are well-documented and for which he has offered no apologies. Chappelle identifies as a so-called “TERF (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist)” joining author J. K Rawlings in such dangerous hate speech. These people refuse to accept that we are in the position to declare our gender or lack thereof.
Netflix came under fire for producing and airing two recent Chappelle shows that feature anti-Trans comments. LGBTQI+ Netflix employees protested – some even quit. Recently, a Minneapolis Chappelle show switched locations as a direct result of a protest organized after Chappelle referred to Monkeypox as “a gay disease.” Chappelle mocked the members of the local LGBTQI+ Community who brought about the move. The original venue apologized to the local LGBTQWI+ Community for once welcoming Chappelle and his hate. Chappelle has never backed down, apologized or even reached out. Instead, he continues to mock our Community.
The Press Democrat revealed that mere weeks before the five shows, Live Nation approached LBC with an offer they seen unable to refuse. The LBC staff and board claim there was considerable conversation – considerable, but perhaps, but certainly misguiged. Did they notice how few dates Live Nation had booked for Chappelle. None in San Francisco or Oakland or Los Angeles. LBC thought they could sneak this past our Community. No doubt comedy venues in big cities find Chappalle as toxic as the LBC staff should have.
Imagine, Luther Burbank Center for the Arts confiscated cell phones at the Chappelle shows. I have attended too many LBC concerts to count but have never had my cell phone taken away before a show. They must have done this so no footage of his anti-LGBTQI+ vitriol would find its way onto social media identifying LBC as the location. Sorry, LBC, you are now forever linked to anti-LGBTQI+ comments. Did you think this community could be so easily duped?
Should the North Bay’s LGBTQI+ Community allow hate speech and inflammatory comments to be staged in our backyard? Make no mistake – this is not an attack on free speech or about censorship. This is about making LBC aware that Trans people are harmed and even killed as a result of such despicable comments. 2021 saw a record number of Trans-folks murdered. So far this year 57 have been murdered in the United States alone. We once valued this venue, but it’s decision to allow Chapelle a forum for his hate is unacceptable. The LGBTQI+ Community finds Dave Chappelle comments offensive, inflammatory and even deadly.
Let’s stand up to Hate Speech and inform those in power at Luther Burbank Center for the Arts we will boycott the venue. Some shy away from boycotts. If you are amongst them, at least express your opinion by contacting the people listed below.
Let the Staff and Board of Luther Burbank Center for the Arts, its sponsors, those who share the Center’s campus, and elected officials know that such Hate results in harm to members of the LGBTQI+ Community. Email and call, as many as possible and as often as possible.
Reddit has banned the anti-LGBTQ+ slur “groomer” under its hate speech policy, as well as any other reference to LGBTQ+ people as “paedophiles”.
The vile slur, which conflates LGBTQ+ identities with paedophilia, has been increasing in use online, and has now been banned by Reddit as hate speech.
Journalist Alejandra Caraballo explained on Twitter that the social media platform will now “enforce their hate speech policy on content that utilizes the groomer libel”, which means that posts containing the slur will break Reddit policy and could be taken down.
The community “Against Hate Subreddits” added that as well as the “groomer” slur, Reddit will now enforce its hate speech policy on those who portray being transgender as a mental illness, or quote transgender suicide statistics in a hateful way.
Caraballo added: “Your move Twitter”, referencing Twitter users’ complaints that the social media site does not do enough to prevent hate speech.
The Data for Progress poll surveyed 1,155 likely voters and asked them about the spread of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation across the US, as well as certain slurs and stereotypes.
The poll stated: “Some groups have been describing teachers and parents who oppose banning discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in schools as ‘groomers’ – a term used to describe someone who gets close to and builds trust with a child or young person with the intent of sexually abusing them.”
Respondents were asked whether they agreed that “teachers and parents that support discussions about sexual orientation and gender identity in school” in the wake of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” legislation were “groomers”, and a majority of 55 per cent said they did not.
Broken down by political affiliation, just 15 per cent of likely Democrat voters supported anti-LGBTQ+ “groomer” language, while 45 per cent of likely Republican voters agreed with the slur.
A Reddit spokesperson said: “Reddit is a place for creating community and belonging. In line with this, our content policy prohibits content that promotes hate based on identity or vulnerability, including gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation.
“We regularly reach out to the communities on our platform to remind them of our policies and offer support, and we will continue to enforce our policies across the platform.”
Despite great strides of progress over the past few decades, the fight for full equality and acceptance of LGBTQ people is far from over.
Corporates has been a growing ally and critical partner in many key moments for LGBTQ rights, including the movement for marriage equality, the fight to decriminalize LGBTQ people in India in 2018, and the successful 2017 campaign to repeal the anti-LGBTQ HB 2 in North Carolina. Brands have immense power, especially in their advertising, where LGBTQ visibility and representation matters. This brand power extends outside of advertising as well – to all internal and external communications.
A number of corporations and brands prioritize workplaces where LGBTQ employees can achieve and have equal benefits and opportunities. But this is just one step on the journey toward true allyship. Corporate accountability does not begin and end with employee benefits and hiring practices – it extends to how a corporation spends its dollars, philanthropic and political. It extends to how a corporation takes public stands and lobbies against anti-LGBTQ legislation, and how it supports and lobbies for pro-LGBTQ legislation, because this legislation impacts LGBTQ employees and consumers.
Protecting all LGBTQ people, including LGBTQ people of color, members of the trans community, and LGBTQ youth, is both good for business and good for the world. The journey to true allyship for LGBTQ people is not always easy, but it is always important. Any company that wants to be a true ally of the LGBTQ community should work toward the below recommendations. Recent high-profile calls to action from LGBTQ employees and LGBTQ consumers have shown that the bar for corporate allies has been raised. Community leaders and press actively research a company’s political donations and other internal information and speak out if a Pride or other LGBTQ-inclusive marketing campaign conflicts with a company’s internal policies or political giving.
Note that these recommendations should not be considered an exhaustive checklist, at the end of which a company is “done.” Being an ally is an active, ongoing, principled journey.
Especially during LGBTQ Pride Month, and for Pride campaigns:
June is LGBTQ Pride Month, and a time when many brands showcase support for LGBTQ people. June should not be the only time this support is exhibited, but it is the loudest time of year for allies to express support for the community. At a time when brands are trusted by many consumers, and advertising and brand marketing have the opportunity to educate the general public on LGBTQ people and issues, GLAAD recommends that companies showcase support and include LGBTQ people in campaigns year-round. The following are best practices for public or internal Pride campaigns, though they should be used for campaigns outside of Pride Month too.
Don’t market to the moment, join the movement: Give back to LGBTQ advocacy and direct service non-profits. Involve LGBTQ employees in deciding the causes and organizations to support, and include state and local organizations, as well as organizations led by and serving transgender people and LGBTQ people of color.
Showcase the diversity and intersectionality of the LGBTQ community in advertising, marketing, public advocacy, internal communications, and employee programming. This includes ability, age, body size, ethnicity, faith, geography, race, socioeconomic status, and more.
Feature more LGBTQ talent and community members in external mainstream and community specific campaigns and programming. Compensate LGBTQ talent for appearances and panels, both internal and external facing, at corporate events and in promotion of LGBTQ-inclusive campaigns.
Include LGBTQ consultants who specialize in storytelling and out LGBTQ creatives behind the scenes. Take a comprehensive inclusive approach, from the creation of the campaign to the final product. Include LGBTQ professionals on marketing, production, and other third-party consulting roles.
Bring in LGBTQ voices early for LGBTQ Pride Month campaigns. LGBTQ consultants, talent, employees, and nonprofit partners should be a part of conversations around Pride initiatives as plans are being developed. Allow ample time to bring LGBTQ voices, professionals, and beneficiaries into planning for June.
Devote budgets to Pride campaigns that are consistent with other programmatic campaigns, consistent with LGBTQ consumer behaviors.
Be very aware who the target for Pride initiatives are. Some initiatives will primarily benefit LGBTQ employees. Others may target consumers. Others may target the community where you operate. Each one of those targets will have a distinct, if overlapping, focus.
Every day of the year, including LGBTQ Pride Month and beyond:
Extend support to the political fight. True corporate allies do not donate to candidates or elected officials who introduce, vote yes, or otherwise support anti-LGBTQ legislation or block passage of pro-LGBTQ legislation like the Equality Act. Develop criteria to vet elected officials and political donations by evaluating candidate platforms and LGBTQ voting records.
Use your company’s leverage and internal resources, including social media, marketing, public relations and government affairs, to speak out against local and national anti-LGBTQ legislation, and engage other businesses to do the same. Speak out and support pro-LGBTQ legislation when proposed.
Support LGBTQ media via advertising buys to get your message heard. Include LGBTQ publications, digital and print, in media plans during Pride and all year round.
Support the notion of Pride 365 and plan LGBTQ-inclusive campaigns and support for the community year-round, not just during Pride month. Consider including LGBTQ people and families in holiday creative, Mother’s and Father’s Day, and other moments of recognition like Black History Month.
Seek out Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) training, including LGBTQ-specific workshops, for yourself and your employees as well as. Seek out resources like the GLAAD Media Institute.
Commit to employee recruitment initiatives that include the LGBTQ community, including outreach to transgender people and LGBTQ people of color.
Use meetings with your LGBTQ ERG to learn what LGBTQ issues are arising where your company does business, and to help form strategic responses with support from external LGBTQ experts and consultancies.
Tell authentic and accurate LGBTQ stories, spotlighting LGBTQ people and issues year-round on social media, in editorial, and in internal communications, with consideration for how these stories enter into a cultural context and conversation.
Real-world examples:
Speaking out against anti-LGBTQ legislation: Apple
Amidst an unprecedented wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation in 2022, Apple utilized multiple offices to take action. Apple lobbied against these harmful bills, filled court briefs in cases involving LGBTQ people, and encouraged other large companies to take public stands against this legislation. (Read more here.)
Building authentic LGBTQ campaigns that give back: Can’t Cancel Pride, PUMA
In 2020, iHeartRadio and P&G developed Can’t Cancel Pride, a concert in celebration of LGBTQ Pride, available to all via iHeartRadio livestream. In 2022, the now annual effort brings top out artists including Lizzo, Elton John, and Kim Petras, to raise awareness of current LGBTQ issues and support from more than 20 brands to donate funds to GLAAD, SAGE, The Trevor Project, the National Black Justice Coalition, CenterLink, and OutRight Action International. (Read more here.)
When ideating on their 2022 LGBTQ Pride Month efforts, PUMA collaborated with LGBTQ talent, creatives, and advocates from start to finish. PUMA partnered with Texas-based out queer artist Carra Sykes to design a Pride footwear collection, partnered with Cara Delevingne to help promote the collection, and collaborated with out photographer LaQuann Dawson to lead the collection’s photography. Proceeds from the collection benefit GLAAD.
For media inquiries, contact [email protected]. The GLAAD Media Institute consults behind-the-scenes on LGBTQ representation with brands, Hollywood, journalists, tech products, and more content creators. To learn more about the GLAAD Media Institute’s workshops and trainings for corporate allies, contact [email protected].
Twitter on Monday labeled but refused to take down a pair of highly transphobic tweets attacking Adm. Rachel Levine, the assistant secretary for health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Why it matters: Twitter has a practice of often labeling — but not removing — tweets from elected officials that would otherwise violate its terms of service.
Details:
The tweets, linked here, misgender Levine while also using extremely vile terminology to describe gender reassignment surgery.
Twitter’s move means that people will have to click through a warning to view the tweets. Twitter will also limit sharing of the posts.
What they’re saying: “The Tweet you referenced violated the Twitter Rules on hateful conduct,” Twitter said in a statement to Axios.
“However, we’ve determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible, and has been labeled in line with our policies.”
Meanwhile, GLAAD, the LGBTQ civil rights group, condemned Twitter’s move as inadequate.
“This account has repeatedly and intentionally violated Twitter’s Hateful Conduct guidelines against targeted deadnaming and misgendering of transgender people,” a GLAAD spokesperson told Axios. “It’s clear that some politicians see pushing malicious, anti-trans content on social media as part of their election strategy, even with the full knowledge that such content is violative.”
Between the lines: Twitter has already suspended and then banned Greene’s personal Twitter account but has refused in the past to take action against her official account despite apparent violations of various policies, including the prohibition against deliberate misgendering.
Allowing the latest tweets to remain reignites questions as to just what it takes to get Twitter to remove tweets from elected officials. Twitter eventually banned former President Trump after the Jan. 6 insurrection.
A spokesperson for Adm. Levine declined to comment.
Be smart: The tweets also falsely promote the idea that gender-affirming care for youth relates to surgery.
For young trans kids, gender-affirming care involves social transition and support. Kids approaching puberty may be prescribed puberty blockers to delay the onset of puberty while some older teens are allowed access to hormones.