Pride month celebrations had been postponed to November due to the pandemic. The corporate sector in India and abroad is sensitising their employees and making workspace conducive to the LGBTQIA+ community, reports Shormita. An exclusive for Different Truths.  

Pride month embarks at the beginning of June; the whole month of June was celebrated to empower the LGBTQIA+ community all over the world. The month of June was chosen because the famous Stonewall Riots took place in New York in 1969. In this riot, a large number of queer persons have participated, as the police officials had raided the popular gay nightclubs and targeted the gay couples and beaten them mercilessly, and arrested them. After this incident, large inhabitants of the LGBTQIA+ community had come down to the streets and started protesting against the police officials and the injustice being done to them. So many gays and lesbians died in this protest; this pride parade was organised to fight the stigma which continues to exist in society at that time.

This year marks the 51^st anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. Unlikely, this year the Pride parade is celebrated quite differently and unusually. Due to COVID-19, our globe is partially being shut, so the Pride month is celebrated through a digital assistantship. These are little but progressive steps that have been taken towards the LGBTQIA+ community, efforts, and endeavours to make their lives better and equitable to live in this world.

Significantly, corporate sectors are moving ahead in this direction to create an inclusive environment for the queer individuals. To celebrate PRIDE, CEO of IDA Ireland Martin Shanahan says that their company has launched various initiatives to promote awareness towards the LGBTQIA+ community – launched Gender Expression and Identity Policy, promoting articles on the history of Pride and developing LGBTQ+ Ally Network in IDA Ireland by hosting virtual Table Quiz.

Also, ZS Associates in India celebrated LGBTQIA+ Ally week in a virtual set. They have taken an artistic approach to celebrating Ally week by hosting a webinar on 26th-27th November 2020 by collaborating with an NGO – Humsafar Trust. The main agenda of this event is to spread awareness among the ZSers to create a friendly workplace for the people belonging to the LGBTQIA+ community. They have organised Art Exhibition and Open Mic for their employees so that they could showcase their creative art to raise awareness for this community.

The foremost aim to organise such events and policies in the corporate set up is to encourage the peers how to build up a healthy ally relationship with the queer persons. Also, to educate the employees to treat every person equally irrespective of their sexual orientation. Due to the pandemic, a virtual challenge known as #21DaysAllyChallenge is being organised in the Pride month to raise consciousness and awareness against the stereotype about the LGBTQ+ community. The aim of this challenge is to bring together from all over 30 countries and 70 organisations to construct a worldwide community of LGBTQIA+ allies.

Significantly, so many leading companies have started recruiting LGBTQIA+ talents, to help them to grow and prove their worth to the world. Amazingly, companies like Uber, Accenture, The Lalit, and BNY Mellon participated in India’s first LGBTQIA+ job fair in 2019. Also, TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) is one of the few organisations in India that provides health insurance to their LGBTQIA+ employees.

Similarly, same-sex couples have the benefit of 12 weeks of paid leave for adoption and three days of bereavement leave at Tech Mahindra. Incredibly, all the Wipro offices have gender-neutral restrooms and this firm has also started attending Pride parades for the first time since 2018. It has included inclusion programmes for the LGBTQIA+ persons and they trained their employees by including LGBTQIA+ framed questions in their periodical unaware bias quiz.

Thus, most of the companies are implementing gender-neutral language in all corporate matters, providing equitable benefits to same-sex couples, and started taking steps to aware their employees and business associates treat LGBTQIA+ employees equally without discriminating against them for their gender identity or sexual orientation. Also, companies organise gender sensitisation training and host workshops to educate the employees about gender identity.

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Shormita Bose

Shormita Bose, is pursuing PhD in English literature from GLA University, Mathura. She has completed her M.A. & B.A. from University of Allahabad. She has contributed her research article in the edited book- Human Rights: Issues, Challenges and Present Status and also written an article in the anthology -Words That Stay Forever. Currently, she is working on her own edited book- Women and Queers: The Marginalized Gender.

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