StartOut is the “must belong to” organization dedicated to creating great business leaders by fostering Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBTQ) entrepreneurs. It is the LGBTQ business life line. With 15,000 members and chapters in 6 cities StartOut is reaching out to expand and engage LGBT entrepreneurs across the US and the rest of the globe through the new…
I was working with a large Fortune 500 company considered to be one of the diversity and inclusion leaders. The CEO was championing diversity. He had all the right policies and procedures in place. Senior management was more diverse. Culture at that level was starting to change. A young African-American man pulled me aside to talk. He said he was the…
I was honored to be a special guest of Carole Copeland Thomas on her Conversations With Carole, on Understanding Intersections between race, diversity and LGBTQ. This is an important topic and everyone is included in real inclusion. If we support diversity and inclusion, then we can’t pick and choose which issues are real, or stay in our little comfort zones….
“I have a friend who keeps making offensive jokes about LGBT people and racist comments about Black people, but I don’t say anything. I don’t want my friend to be mad or hurt her feelings,” a colleague told me. My reply, “If you are really a diversity champion, if you support equal rights and opportunity for everyone, then you…
Sexual orientation is not a lifestyle. Another person told me they were not “prejudiced,” they just didn’t agree with the LGBT lifestyle. I asked them which part of the life style they disagreed with. Was it going to work, paying a rent or mortgage, having a family, eating dinner, going to the movies, wanting to feel safe, or what? He…
During a recent client meeting on inclusion, when the words LGBTQ came up, one of the meeting attendees remarked, “I’m not anti-gay but I just don’t believe that should have special rights.” My first thought, “Oh no, do we really have to have this conversation again?” Obviously we did. I told this woman that LGBT people want the same…
Like many of you, my heart is heavy, and my sadness is deep. The horror and hate that showed up in Orlando is immeasurable. But the grief and anguish of the family, friends and loved ones of the young LGBT people who were murdered is only the beginning of a long journey of anguish, shock and disbelief. They will never…
After posting an article on LinkedIn about Target and Transgender rights including using the right bathroom, someone asked why I would use the word hater for someone who just had a different point of view. She said that it was just a disagreement about whether men should use the women’s bathroom and women should use the men’s bathroom. Unfortunately, a…
Beyond LGBTQ, Finding Commonalities In Our Multiple Identities Every one of us has multiple identities. Those multiple identities influence our thoughts, perceptions and behaviors every day in our lives at work, and in our communities. Our multiple-identities are like panels that make us each separate but connected beautiful diversity quilts The late Dr. Roosevelt Thomas stated Diversity is any collective mixture…
Recent Comments