On the 11th October 2022, we will celebrate the first PRIDE OFFICE DAY ® and are excited to use this special day to increase the visibility of your LGBTIQ+ employees and allies. The date has been chosen quite deliberately: PRIDE OFFICE DAY ® and Coming Out Day both coincide. Coming Out Day is an important day for the LGBTIQ+ community – and an important occasion to celebrate and shape this day together with your LGBTIQ+ employees.
PRIDE OFFICE DAY® is your opportunity to give LGBTIQ+ diversity more visibility in your company and beyond to give your workforce a special day. Often, the visibility of queer employees is limited to Pride Month; organizing events, participating in Parades, or even hanging rainbow flags internally. Often, company logos are brightly colored during this time of year to show solidarity with the LGBTIQ+ community. And that’s a good thing too! However, PRIDE OFFICE DAY ® is also intended to draw attention to the community outside of Pride Month and to express appreciation for it within the company.
For the first PRIDE OFFICE DAY® we would also like to make you an offer and offer you the LGBTIQ+ Awareness and Allyship Training (in german) for one hour at a reduced price. Participation is open to everyone.
Title: LGBTIQ+ Awareness & Allyship
Date: 10/11/2022 (on the day of PRIDE OFFICE DAY® 2022)
Time: 11.30 a.m. – 12.30 p.m.
All you have to do is buy a ticket from eventbrite. You can then share the MS Teams link internally with your employees.
There is no limit to how many employees from your company can participate.
Please note the size of the company when purchasing the ticket:
Attention: When you buy the ticket you will receive an e-mail with the order confirmation.
Under “Additional Information“ („Zusätzliche Informationen“) you will find the link to the training.
Feel free to use this training as a supplement to your campaign on PRIDE OFFICE DAY® 2022.
We look forward to seeing you!
The PRIDE OFFICE DAY ® is completely self-directed and free of charge. You decide when and what can be done. For this you can be inspired by a presentation of possible ideas or find another idea yourself and then carry it out. The goal is to dedicate this day to the community.
Once you have decided on an action, you should briefly describe it in the next step together with the registration. The special thing for this year is that participation is linked to a donation to an LGBTIQ+ organization. That means you can either find an organization yourself or use one we listed to support it financially. This is our way of giving back support to the community together, reaching out, and especially supporting organizations that care about the queer community. You have to indicate the amount of the donation and the organization when you register (no receipts necessary). On the day itself we will repost new photos (to a collage) and put them on our page, so that it becomes a common, big action and we show the queer community and your employees clearly to be active in the field of LGBTIQ+.
We would like to post all your actions through your photos/videos on our page. Also, we will link your photos on our LinkedIn page and our Instagram, because this way we will all reach as many people as possible together. For this, we will be happy to send you the PRIDE OFFICE DAY logo, which you can please place on the top left of your photo that will be uploaded.
After the end of PRIDE OFFICE DAY ® you will receive a feedback form from us, where we can collect your feedback and learn from your experiences for the next edition. We will also share the total amount of your donations with you, because we want to celebrate this success for queer organizations together with you. Two weeks later, you will receive an overview of the facts, figures, and data that you can use for your diversity management.
Visibility only comes about when many people join in – and we can only do that with you! Show your employees that you support the queer community and queer employees and that they can feel comfortable with you.
National Coming Out Day originated in the United States in 1987, when over 500,000 people participated in the “Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights.” The movement was primarily directed at the sodomy laws still in effect and as a criticism of the U.S. government for its abysmal handling of the AIDS epidemic and those affected by it. From this movement, contributors set a goal to combat the strong LGBTIQ+ hostility in the country. Through the efforts of Robert Eichberg, a gay psychologist and activist, and Jean O’leary*, a lesbian activist and founder of Lesbian Feminist Liberation, one of the first lesbian activist groups, Coming Out Day was created and would henceforth be celebrated every October 11, beginning in 1988. At the same time, the organization of the same name “National Coming Out Day” was founded.
The organization received high media attention already in its first years after foundation. The logo, designed by Keith Haring, was displayed in all parts of the USA. In the beginning, this day was celebrated in 18 states, then in all US states and now internationally for several years. In 1993, the movement and the organization “Human Rights Campaign” joined forces. Since then, it has been able to attract many prominent faces to its campaigns such as Melissa Etheridge, RuPaul Charles and many more… Today, Coming Out Day has become an integral part and holiday of the community.
“Most people think they don’t know anyone gay or lesbian, and in fact everybody does, (…) It is imperative that we come out and let people know who we are and disabuse them of their fears and stereotypes.” – Robert Eichberg (1993)
Why is Coming Out Day still important today?
For many queer people, their own coming out plays a defining role in their lives. The term became popular during the Stonewall riots of 1969, in which queer people, especially BIPoc trans people, fought back against ongoing, unexplained police violence. Of course, even before the term became popular, there were many people who were coming out (under a different term).
During coming out, we can distinguish between inner and outer coming out. Inner coming out describes the process in which individuals realize that they identify as non-heterosexual and/or as non-cisgender. The duration of this process is very individual and does not necessarily occur once.
Outer coming out occurs when individuals decide to communicate their sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or gender with the outside world- often beginning with friends, family, and acquaintances. However, contrary to popular belief, external coming out is a long-term and recurring process, i.e. a person rarely comes out just once, but regularly comes out to the outside world because the majority society assumes a cis-heteronormative identification.
Quite simply: their outside world – i.e. the people around them; the conditions in which a person lives; threatening consequences; fears; and many other reasons. Even in the workplace, many people have reasons for not coming out at work, for example, because they are afraid it might hurt their career, they feel they might be stereotyped, or that coming out might put other people in an embarrassing situation-because there are still many people who do not accept different sexual orientations, gender identities, or genders. Through days like these, as well as through education and awareness, the goal is for people to be able to talk openly about themselves without fear of consequences. Statistics show that a lot of development is still needed: only every third person had a coming out in their working life. Interestingly, younger people are more likely to hide their queer identification (again) – for fear of negative consequences, such as being denied career advancement opportunities.
Through this day, we all want to contribute together so that every person can come out and not have to hide- and we can get one step closer to that by enabling a world where every person can be who they want to be.
Tip: it is usually enough to say thank you for trusting a person to come out – intimate questions (When did you know for yourself? Do your parents know? etc.) are not appropriate here.
#MehrAlsQueer
Die Fachstelle #MehrAlsQueer arbeitet NRW-weit zu Themen sexueller und geschlechtlicher Vielfalt im Kontext von Rassismus-Erfahrungen, Migration, Religion und Flucht. Sie sensibilisiert, vernetzt und berät Fachkräfte und Organisationen, zum Beispiel aus der LSBTIAQ* Selbsthilfe, der migrantischen Selbstorganisation, Integrationsagenturen oder der Sozialen Arbeit. Im Mittelpunkt stehen dabei intersektionale Perspektiven und die Bedarfe von mehrfachzugehörigen, rassismus- und migrationserfahrenen queeren Menschen.
Rebecca Knecht
Spendenkonto:
IBAN: DE89 3702 0500 0007 0255 01
BIC: BFSWDE33XXX
Initiative Grundgesetz für Alle
Im Februar 2021 startete deutschlandweit die Initiative GRUNDGESETZ FÜR ALLE (GFA). Die Initiative ist ein Zusammenschluss von aktuell mehr als 200 bundesweit tätigen queeren Organisationen, Großunternehmen und Prominenten wie u.a. Anne Will, Udo Lindenberg und Rosa von Praunheim, sowie zahlreichen Abgeordneten der demokratischen Bundestagsfraktionen. Sie alle fordern einen expliziten Schutz der sexuellen und geschlechtlichen Identität durch eine Ergänzung des Artikels 3, Absatz 3 Grundgesetz.
Christian Gaa
Spendenkonto:
Sparkasse Trier
Konto: 10 10 321
BLZ: 585 501 30
IBAN: DE55585501300001010321
BIC: TRISDE55XXX
Verwendungszweck: „GFA“