{"id":1747,"date":"2015-05-31T17:21:23","date_gmt":"2015-05-31T21:21:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.totalengagementconsulting.com\/blog\/?p=1747"},"modified":"2015-06-01T15:55:28","modified_gmt":"2015-06-01T19:55:28","slug":"lgbt-pride-month-2015-year-t","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.totalengagementconsulting.com\/blog\/2015\/05\/lgbt-pride-month-2015-year-t\/","title":{"rendered":"LGBT Pride Month 2015 \u2013 The Year of the \u201cT\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

IMPORTANT NOTE: Lots of Useful and Interesting LGBT and Pride Month Links at the bottom of the blog! Any many links throughout the main article! Check them out.<\/em>

\"The<\/a>

The Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, New York City, Universally considered the beginning of the modern Gay Rights Movement in the US
<\/p><\/div>
\nTraditionally, June is LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) Pride Month commemorating the \u201cStonewall Rebellion\u201d <\/strong><\/a>in Greenwich Village, New York in late June 1969. Led by a set of brave drag queens, patrons of the Stonewall Tavern boldly stood up to police harassment.<\/p>\n

In my annual LGBT Pride Month blog this year I want to focus on the \u201cT\u201d (or transgender) in LGBT. Why? This seems to be a watershed time with a significant increase of focus on the transgender segment of our community. <\/p>\n

Over the past 12 months as I delivered LGBT workshops and trainings across the country, mostly in a human resources professional setting, about 80% of the questions during the \u201cQuestion and Answer\u201d time are about transgender issues. Questions like:
\n\u2022\tWhat do we need to do HR policy-wise to be more supportive of our transgender employees?
\n\u2022\tHow do we make the business case to our senior executives that we as a company should be providing gender transition health benefits for our transgender employees, and that medical treatments and surgeries should be considered necessary and not \u201coptional\u201d care?
\n\u2022\tWhat kind of training do we need to provide to the co-workers of an employee who may be undergoing gender transition?
\n\u2022\tWhat bathroom should a transgender person be using? What should we do if another employee complains about a transgender employee using a certain bathroom?<\/p>\n

I believe there are several reasons for this increased focus:
\n\u2022\tHigh profile celebrity transitions (Chas Bono<\/strong><\/a> a few years ago and more recently Bruce (now Caitlyn) Jenner<\/strong><\/a>) have made transgender people much more visible. (LATE EDIT: Link to this cool Vanity Fair magazine cover<\/strong><\/a> featuring Caitlyn Jenner!)
\n\u2022\tTransgender characters are featured as mainstream in a more positive light such as Laverne Cox (link to Time Magazine Interview)<\/strong><\/a> in \u201cOrange is the New Black.\u201d In fact Ms. Cox was the first transgender person to be featured on cover of a Time Magazine issue last year with the title \u201cThe Transgender Tipping Point \u2013 America\u2019s Next Civil Rights Frontier.\u201d

\"Transgender<\/a>

Transgender woman Laverne Cox made history by being the first transgender person on the cover of Time Magazine (May, 2014)<\/p><\/div>
\n\u2022\tWith a large majority of Fortune 500 companies now providing full inclusion for gay men, lesbian and bisexual people covered under \u201csexual orientation,\u201d they are now addressing the transgender area (gender identity and expression) that may have not been fully addressed earlier.
\n\u2022\tThe younger generation now emerging into more leadership roles are much more \u201cgender fluid\u201d and not as tied to strict gender stereotypes and roles.<\/p>\n

(NOTE: As a University of Chicago graduate I was delighted and proud as am alumnus to see the Jan-Feb Alumni Magazine include an alumni essay called “On Common Ground”<\/strong><\/a> written by transwoman Christina Kahrl AB’90 about her finding acceptance as a transgender women as a baseball writer and television analyst.)<\/p>\n

In fact, while I was in the middle of writing this blog, Mr. Val Boston III of Boston and Associates,<\/strong><\/a> one of my experienced consulting mentors forwarded me an announcement : Dr. Jamison Green,<\/strong><\/a> a pioneering world leader in transgender advocacy (who I even worked with early in IBM\u2019s days of addressing transgender employees) has announced a strategic partnership with the Diversity & Inclusion Center<\/strong><\/a> to education organizations about transgender issues in the workplace. <\/p>\n

Since it was several transgender people who took the bold lead in the original Stonewall Rebellion in 1969, it is totally fitting that the \u201cT\u201d should be front and center for LGBT Pride 2015!<\/p>\n

# # # # #<\/p>\n

Here are some additional past blogs that can serve as LGBT Pride Month Resources:<\/p>\n

LINK to last year’s LGBT Pride Month Blog On the Importance of Being a REAL Ally.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

LINK: Five things to never say to gay people<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

LINK: Five things to never say to transgender people<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

LINK: Five common misconceptions about gay people<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

LINK: Five Heroes of the early US Gay Rights Movement <\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

LINK: Five Ways CEOs Can Show Support for LGBT Diversity <\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

A Guest Blog: LGBT Gay Diversity in Direct Sales <\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

LINK: Four Quick Points around LGBT Economic Development<\/strong> <\/a><\/p>\n

LINK: The Intersection of LGBT and Aging<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

LINK: LGBT and Housing Issues<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

IMPORTANT NOTE: Lots of Useful and Interesting LGBT and Pride Month Links at the bottom of the blog! Any many links throughout the main article! Check them out. Traditionally, June is LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) Pride Month commemorating the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[863,338,868,867,864,865,860,866,862,858,367,373,857,202,859,861],"class_list":["post-1747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-info","tag-bruce-jenner","tag-chas-bono","tag-christina-kahrl","tag-diversity-inclusion-center","tag-gender-identity-and-expression","tag-gender-stereotypes","tag-gender-transition","tag-jamison-green","tag-laverne-vox","tag-lgbt-pride","tag-lgbt-pride-month","tag-stonewall-rebellion","tag-stonewall-tavern","tag-transgender-employees","tag-transgender-issues","tag-transition-health-benefits"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.totalengagementconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.totalengagementconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.totalengagementconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.totalengagementconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.totalengagementconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.totalengagementconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1747\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.totalengagementconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.totalengagementconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.totalengagementconsulting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}