5 Performative Actions to Avoid in Your Pride Celebrations
During the month of Pride, institutions everywhere take part in themed celebrations, events and initiatives to recognize and show public support for LGBTQ+ communities.
However, depending on the intention and type of support they show, Pride celebrations may end up becoming performative, rather than genuine expressions of allyship. For instance, some brands utilize Pride as a one-time annual event that provides an opportunity to sell more products by capitalizing on the theme. Others may choose to only participate in surface-level bandwagon actions such as online trends or showcasing symbols, for the sake of appearing “involved”.
The problem is not only the lack of value that these actions may contribute to LGBTQ+ visibility and pressing issues, but that LGBTQ+ support should be integrated in day-to-day actions, extending beyond just June.
Allyship
Engaging in allyship for LGBTQ+ communities and other marginalized groups is a lifelong endeavour, as described by GLSEN Student Ambassador Emery Vela. Genuine allyship involves going beyond monthly statements and declarations, to creating space for LGBTQ+ voices and recognizing impactful issues year-round. Low-effort strategies that involve donating portions of profits of themed-product or wearing the Pride rainbow in solidarity, may not necessarily help create valuable change at the community level. If you think your initiatives might be surface-level, ask yourself: how do LGBTQ+ communities benefit from this?
Instead, hosting and creating conversation spaces, providing time and virtually accessible resources to educate ourselves, and being vocal about LGBTQ+ issues on a consistent basis, are better alternatives.
Here are some performative actions to avoid this Pride, with ideas for better alternatives and more impactful practices:
1. Rainbow-washing your product to sell more in June
Rainbow-washing is a process that involves the use of Pride symbolism, such as rainbow colours, in areas such as product design and general branding and marketing - only during Pride month. Pride symbolism is often capitalized on by brands in order to match the heightened spotlight on LGBTQ+ individuals and sell product in the process.
Rainbow-washing can be utilized as an act of solidarity, or in order to market a product to generate donation funds for LGBTQ+ charities. However, in many cases, successful companies may choose to only donate a portion of the funds received from Pride-themed products. Similarly, consumerism may downplay the emotional and cultural significance of Pride and overlook both the past and current oppression of LGBTQ+ communities.
“Rainbow-washing allows people, governments, and corporations that don’t do tangible work to support LGBTQ+ communities at any other time during the year to slap a rainbow on top of something in the month of June and call it allyship.”
Key takeaway: Overall, aim to implement more meaningful forms of allyship - such as celebrating LGBTQ+ accomplishments and cultural contributions, uplifting the work of activists and grassroots organizations, donating or volunteering within your organization, drawing attention to discrimination and implementing inclusive work culture policies year-round.
Here are some great resources for further reading:
LGBTQ Marketing and Advertising: Best Practices from the Human Rights Campaign
Have You Been Tricked by Rainbow Washing? - How to spot examples of rainbow-washing during Pride
2. Using the rainbow pride flag - but forgetting to use the ones that represent the groups you’re really celebrating!
Beyond the Rainbow: Your Ultimate Guide to Pride Flags by Cade Hildreth, featuring the previous Pride flag, the 6-colour Pride flag, Philadelphia Pride flag, Modern Pride flag, and flags for the following communities: Transgender, Nonbinary, Intersex, Asexual, Bisexual, Pansexual, Lesbian and Gay Men.
Pride is often seen as synonymous with the 6-colour Pride flag, and rainbow-coloured symbols and emojis in general. Grouping all identities together and consequently, their experiences, can generalize the individual challenges faced by different gender and sexual minorities. It’s fine to use the traditional Pride flag, but consider also highlighting further marginalized groups within the broader LGBTQ+ community, such as Black and Brown individuals.
For instance, following the increase in international focus on the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, many opted to use a modern Pride flag format in their celebrations - the Progress Pride Flag. This flag contains stripes to represent Black and Brown individuals, along with blue, white and pink stripes for transgender representation. Highlighting other marginalized communities in your Pride celebrations and centering inclusion can help support intersectional LGBTQ+ identities. It’s also necessary to acknowledge how essential the work of trans women and LGBTQ+ people of colour was in the formation of the LGBTQ+ rights movement. Read more about how Pride 2020 integrated intersectionality in its celebrations here.
3. Hosting panels that feature people with uniform identities and experiences
The breadth of experiences encompassed within the LGBTQ+ community is incredibly diverse! Aim to diversify the stories and perspectives you highlight in your panels, events and spotlights and especially, uplift underrepresented voices.
Resources for diverse panels and events:
Tips On Curating LGBTQ Speakers For Your Conference From TED's Content Producer - Content and Program Producer Cloe Shasha provides insight on how to diversify speaker rosters for events and conferences.
Virtual offerings by Out & Equal
Key takeaway: Opt to make Pride celebrations intersectional by supporting and representing marginalized LGBTQ+ communities. Be specific about which underrepresented or marginalized groups you are highlighting, i.e., avoid acronyms such as BIPOC (try to use full forms - Black, Indigenous and people of colour), or mention groups by name individually. This helps to reduce the generalization of a variety of experiences under a single acronym.
4. Restricting your recognition of LGBTQ+ contributions and current issues to a single month
The struggles experienced by marginalized communities exist year-round, and deserve to be highlighted beyond just Pride month. Avoid concentrating all initiatives that center and support LGBTQ+ experiences and accomplishments to take place during June. Instead, think of Pride as a great time to lay the groundwork and integrate LGBTQ+ inclusion within the broader fabric of your workplace culture and values. Some examples of ways to do this include:
Making sharing pronouns at work casual + welcome
Integrating pronouns in email signatures, name labels for online meeting software, introductions
Re-evaluating company policies for inclusivity, bias and assumptions - e.g. maternity and paternity paid leave, non-discrimination policies, trans-inclusive healthcare coverage, heteronormative language
Re-evaluating hiring processes to be more inclusive
Implement blind resume reviews to minimize unconscious bias
Take part in LGBTQ+ recruitment events
Look at the language used in job descriptions and documents: is there any language that enforces the gender-binary?
Using the momentum of Pride to get buy-in from your organization for initiatives that continue year-round is a more meaningful way to honor Pride.
5. Supporting Pride but continuing to work with others that don’t
Supporting Pride and the LGBTQ+ community but continuing to work or do business with companies, countries and individuals that do not support LGBTQ+ rights can create a breach of trust and a negative impact. Organizations that want to create workplaces that are safe for LGBTQ+ employees should hold their community to the same standard they employ, otherwise they risk putting LGBTQ+ employees in unsafe situations. If you’re not sure where to start, take a look at your own policies and see how you can extend them to your partners.
Here are a few more examples of performative or surface-level initiatives that companies may participate in during Pride:
Rainbow decorating competitions
Simply changing brand logo colours during Pride and not engaging in meaningful allyship and inclusive practices year-round
Releasing uninspired, lackluster Pride collections that either do not support LGBTQ+ organizations or amounts of donated proceeds are left undisclosed
Making ‘LGBTQ’ acronym puns → the LGBT sandwich example
This downplays the inclusion and value of each identity represented in the LGBTQ+ community and focuses heavily on simply being part of an acronym.
As Pride approaches, also see this toolkit by the Human Rights Campaign for more ways to participate in meaningful allyship that supports LGBTQ+ communities.