OFF-MUTE 🔈
🌈 Pride Month isn’t all rainbows and parades.
💥 We’re living through another moment in time where equality is at stake for the queer community:
📝 More than 300 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced this year
🧑⚖️ Eight states have signed such bills into law
👩👦👦 Parents and doctors who provide gender-affirming care for trans youth in Texas can now be investigated for child abuse
✨ Business leaders are taking stands as corporate allies to help make change — not just in the workplace but within the broader communities in which we operate.
📝 If you’d like to participate, GLAAD recently published this helpful guide with recommendations. For example, companies should:
➡️ Join the movement, not market it: Give back to LGBTQ advocacy and direct service non-profits.
➡️ Showcase the diversity and intersectionality of the LGBTQ community in advertising, marketing, public advocacy, internal communications and employee programming. This includes ability, age, body size, ethnicity, faith, geography, race, socioeconomic status, and more.
➡️ Bring in LGBTQ voices early for LGBTQ Pride Month campaigns.
💬 And if you’re wondering whether or not you should turn your logo rainbow this month, there’s just one question to ask yourself: Is it performative or not?
🤔 Here are some other things to consider:
☑️ Look inside before you communicate outside. Make internal changes happen within your workplace before you attach your logo to a message about equity. Remember, talking about Pride publicly is different from doing the hard work of diversity, equity and inclusion.
☑️ Be authentic. Employees are your #1 audience. If your messages or actions aren’t authentic to them, you shouldn’t take them to customers or other key stakeholders. At Inkhouse, we have affinity groups for employees to join and participate in. Celebratory and commemorative months are for them, not us, and we work with them to determine our activities, including marketing.
☑️ Highlight your policies. This is a good way to share real intentions versus performative actions. For example, we implemented a panel diversity policy years ago. Because actions always speak louder than words.
☑️ Show your intentions. Change takes time and won’t happen overnight. You don’t need to be perfect to speak out. But you do need to have a plan and communicate about progress against it.
☑️ Hold yourself accountable. Brands that do this well are transparent in their actions and clear in their words. When something doesn't work, they speak up. Trust is the glue that holds communities—online and offline—together.
