I need some help articulating something - EDI and LBGTQI - it’s not me is it ?

[Orangemintcream]

There has been a couple of examples this past few weeks where the “commitment to diversity” has been all about LGBTQI community and not any other and it’s really starting to bother me. As does the language used around it.

My work are celebrating pride month. Fine all good go ahead. But I do wonder - and I haven’t yet dared ask but I might - when is disability awareness month ? Is there one ? If so I didn’t hear anything about that at my work. Only the LGBTQI again. Why do they dominate so much ?

What about the rest of the protected characteristics ? I know there is international women’s day (and international men’s day) but you never hear much about anything else.

I’m also aware of black history month but I don’t believe my work has every celebrated that.

Then last week I also go lt a survey through about a hobby (I know it’s a cliche but I can’t say what it is) and that they want to do a survey for their (again) LGBTQI members. The survey was for all members though - asked how I identify and I said female as I was born as such and didn’t not have a gender identity.

It also asked if we had seen examples of “welcoming language or behaviour” towards said LGBTQI members.

I answered that no I had not as the only gay member of our team was treated exactly the same as everyone else from what I had seen. Surely that is the goal ? Someone being gay shouldn’t be seen as “other” anymore ?

It was anonymous so I felt I could say what I did politely.

There really does seem an over focus on this group and also of …I can’t quite articulate it but if I were uncharitable I would say fawning behaviour being required by organisations to show they’re doing their bit.

Where is this level of support for the disabled community ? I now have a serious illness and there is fuck all support for me and certainly I have never seen disability awareness month at my work. We did at least have mental health awareness day which is something I suppose. But certainly not an entire month nor surveys done to check we are inclusive enough via my hobby.

Yeah, I had this same thing where I was t work- all the diversity stuff increasingly focused on LGBT. I concluded that it’s because it’s basically an easy win. There’s nothing specific about those people that is difficult to accommodate in a workplace from a practical POV vs disabled people and women. It’s less thorny than addressing structural racism ( why are all the bosses white and the minions brown?). After 5 years we’d done about 50 LGBT conferences( much pink tat had gone to landfill) but the office internal and loo doors still hung in a way that would make it impossible for someone in a wheelchair to go through.

No one gives a shite about people with disabilities, and barely gives a shite about pregnant women or the elderly.

With protected characteristics some are more equal than others.

So not just something I’ve noticed then.

It’s also the language that bothered me. That question about if we had been “welcoming” enough.

What are we meant to do exactly ? Say “Oh are you gay/trans/bisexual? How wonderful come tell us all about your personal life” when we don’t do that for anyone else ?

There's a thread about a legal challenge to Edinburgh Uni around their EDI/DEI policy, and I think your experience is a very good illustration, OP.
One of the responding posts asks how anybody could possibly be against equality, diversity, inclusion etc.

They are missing the point that problem is not the concepts enshrined in EDI, it's that the reality of EDI in many organisations is that it is not equal, not diverse and actively exclusive of more or less anyone who isn't trans. Or NB. Or something similar.

And you can be sure, OP, that EDI will not be about the 'LGBTQ' community, it will be about the Ts and the Qs, and not in the slightest about lesbians and gays, who never agreed to have the Ts and Qs bolted on, no more than it is about disabled people, pregnant women, Black and ethnic minority people....

Most of it is nothing other than virtue signaling.

If only that were true. A lot of it is about centring the needs of a small number of people who demand that we bend to their wishes. This comes at the expense of many groups not least women.

There was a great article a few years back on global names in pride month.

Think Nike, Zara, Apple etc who have a European social media page, North American, Latin, etc etc.

It was asked why they had the pride flag on all of their logos apart from their middle east pages?

I think we know why - so they don't really have any conviction at all.

Pandering to the LGBTendlessalpabetti lot is a quick win. Employers don't have to do anything other than enable self identified employees to police language, put up flags and posters, waste endless hours of work time droning on to colleagues and perhaps purchase some landfill banners, stickers etc.

Ensuring workplaces are accessible for those with physical disabilities, that the hearing and sight impaired are able to access and get informed responses, putting in place policies and practices relating to lone working, being responsive to the needs of pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, responding to those with varying physical disabilities would cost money and demand genuine adaptation and change in many workplaces.

Pointless initiatives pretending that this one group is the most vulnerable demonstrates how immensely powerful this group are at the expense of the rest of society with genuine needs.

In the UK, Black History Month is October, and the equivalent for disability is mid Nov-Mid Dec. I would contact your workplace Pride organiser and ask what is planned for these.

I am still awaiting an update on my workplace's parking policy for disabled visitors, via the EDI Officer. It's a long long wait.....

Completely agree. I work for an institution that is all about "EDI" in the very selective sense OP describes yet disabled staff are treated in a way that is knowingly illegal and would result in manslaughter charges if the lack of care for their safety came to the worst.

My old work place used to have a logo on their letterhead of a person in a wheelchair with a caption that said 'positive about disabled people'.

It made me roll my eyes every time I saw it. Of course we are positive about disabled people! They are people! What a weird thing for a company to proclaim. I kept wondering if they would add a second line to say 'also we aren't racist'.

I feel the same about rainbow lanyards. I think they are insulting

Bitter snort.

START with challenging the LGBT+ and establish, what exactly do they mean when they use that acronymn?

Because the T don't tolerate the LGB, so is this is a minority population defined by... well what? Because LGB are defined (and protected) on the grounds of homosexuality, which has nothing to do with the rest of the letters. And are we talking about ALL LGB people or are we looking at the LGB people at least willing to perform compliance to T political beliefs, which include that homosexuality is sexual racism and women have a duty to embrace and learn to tolerate (the HORROR of that phrase) straight sex to validate men's inner selves regardless of their own inner self and right to be homosexual?

Is it an acronymn that really, truthfully, just means 'gender ideology political club'?

And where is the equality and diversity in that? It's fantastically narrow. How are they representing and supporting the people in all those groups who are NOT politically part of the gender ideology movement and do not define themselves by and through it? Who actively find the ideology oppressive and harassing, the biggest threat to their equality in decades?

And yes. If I see a rainbow lanyard as a lesbian, my first response is to know that as a lesbian I probably cannot trust this person, they are committed to a political position that advocates among other interesting things the exclusion, and according to waved placards at marches and social media posts the rape and murder of lesbians who won't do it for men on command, and so they are now, obviously, the last person I would now confide in or be willing to out myself to in course of treatment. And as a woman of any sexuality I now have very serious concerns about how I will be treated if I need single sex facilities or health care. Or what will happen should my needs, identity, etc, clash with those of a man.

Challenge, challenge, challenge.

A past job I had employed a non binary manager. She (sorry!) used to lose the plot if anyone (and the job was working with extremely vulnerable, substance misusing, often mentally unwell people, who could barely remember their own names at times!) forgot to call her 'they'.

The CEO regularly sent emails out reminding us all that this was terrible and upsetting and distressing and all that bollocks...but oddly, rarely commented on the racism (by staff) towards the BAME employees...

Quite agree. The alphabettis' shout longer and louder than anyone else. And appeasing them costs less than new toilets presumably.

A past job I had employed a non binary manager. She (sorry!) used to lose the plot if anyone (and the job was working with extremely vulnerable, substance misusing, often mentally unwell people, who could barely remember their own names at times!) forgot to call her 'they'.

The CEO regularly sent emails out reminding us all that this was terrible and upsetting and distressing and all that bollocks...but oddly, rarely commented on the racism (by staff) towards the BAME employees...

A past job I had employed a non binary manager. She (sorry!) used to lose the plot if anyone (and the job was working with extremely vulnerable, substance misusing, often mentally unwell people, who could barely remember their own names at times!) forgot to call her 'they'.

The CEO regularly sent emails out reminding us all that this was terrible and upsetting and distressing and all that bollocks...but oddly, rarely commented on the racism (by staff) towards the BAME employees...

A past job I had employed a non binary manager. She (sorry!) used to lose the plot if anyone (and the job was working with extremely vulnerable, substance misusing, often mentally unwell people, who could barely remember their own names at times!) forgot to call her 'they'.

The CEO regularly sent emails out reminding us all that this was terrible and upsetting and distressing and all that bollocks...but oddly, rarely commented on the racism (by staff) towards the BAME employees...

A past job I had employed a non binary manager. She (sorry!) used to lose the plot if anyone (and the job was working with extremely vulnerable, substance misusing, often mentally unwell people, who could barely remember their own names at times!) forgot to call her 'they'.

The CEO regularly sent emails out reminding us all that this was terrible and upsetting and distressing and all that bollocks...but oddly, rarely commented on the racism (by staff) towards the BAME employees...

Do they say LGBTQI? Then you could tell them that the "I" in "LGBTQI" is not inclusive. Stonewall uses LGBTQ+ not LGBTQI because people with physical disorders of sexual development (DSDs) told Stonewall that they they do not want to be called "intersex" because it is demeaning, they are all either male or female and what they is need is more medical support and not the politcal shite what Stonewall has to offer.

I was once involved in a disability group at work. It had done great work, but also became obsessed with trans issues via the ND contingent who had become the majority participants.

Our neurodiversity support network's been totally taken over by trans issues (often from the self-diagnosed) to the point I (as a diagnosed autistic employee just mundanely trying to chug along with life - and actually struggling at the moment) have detached completely and am running around support-less as usual. Meanwhile they're polishing pronouns.

Feels like as a generally invisible middle aged autistic woman - I don't fit in with any of the "autistic" groups because they've all been lost to the gender agenda.

Yeah I am pretty over it. And tbh I am over all of it, which is reflective of the nature of my workplace I suppose.

I think the others above are correct, the reason Pride is so big is that it is easy, and I also think because it makes people feel "cool" and it seems fun. Because we all know gay people are fun creatives, and especially among gay men there are a lot of well off high achievers. That's obviously to some extent a stereotype, but like most stereotypes there is a basis in the numbers.

I find where I am there is some of that also with racial issues - they are elevated in a similar way when the fact is the people being elevated are often very much middle or upper-middle class, well educated. my sister's workplace is like that, they are very into their racial diversity but they are almost all from the same kind of tech middle class background, like craft beer and are come from urban areas.

Disability is talked about more now, but the fact is that it is not simple in the workplace in the same way things like race or sexuality are, in fact I tend to think it's so differernt it shouldn't be in the same category at all.

In my workplace we are constantly being pushed to highlight every group that's supposed to be EDId, it's like a treadmill every year, we trot out the same displays which no one cares about. I try and make them more locally relevant or whatever but it's still massively boring.

There is the odd good program - the intellectual disability group in the town runs a Disability Pride Day (one day only) where they rent a hall, have some vendors, including my organisation, the mayor comes, they do some speeches, eat pizza and sing karaoke. It's a fun event and you can see really social and empowering for the people involved. And it seems proportionate - it makes sense as an event.

The lgbtqi+ stuff just seems so disproportionate a lot of the time, like way out of scale.

The other thing I'd say is, I think politics is generally not ok in the workplace. Even implying that who employees support politically, or their religious beliefs, etc, are the business of the company, is wrong imo. Why companies think these are areas they have any expertise in, or have any moral authority over, idk. Why employees should be taught by their employers idk either. I like my organisation's CEO a lot, but he isn't more morally enlightened than I am.

Or they could do none of them....

Yeah, I've noticed that. Disability only seems to get talked about if it's bundled in as an add-on to some other identity. Someone will be lauded as a "queer disabled bipoc icon" but there's very little interest in just disability on its own.

Except autism. Companies seem to love autism awareness lately. Presumably because it's quite cheap to just dim the lights for an hour a week and call themselves autism friendly. Meanwhile, the bathrooms are out of bounds and the car parks full of potholes.

I think others have summed it up well with “virtue signalling” and “some are more equal than others”.

I don’t begrudge the awareness for the gay community but to expect extra special words and behaviours just for existing makes no sense to me. That’s not equality. That’s not being treated equally.

That’s attention seeking and pandering.