Why High-Level Corporate Actions Are as Important as Pride Day

TL; DR: Nearsure has been preparing for Pride Day since the start of the year, holding internal discussions leading into International Women’s Day to continued great light by our female executive leadership, which also constitutes 47% representation for the group in-house. Specific to Pride Month, the company is relying on gender equality sponsorships in technology, diversity and inclusion webinars as much as the latest unconscious bias training for its recruiters and Capacity teams.

Pride month has undoubtedly become a time of the year when most corporations, unfortunately not nearly all, make an effort to commemorate diversity as part of their culture. Many logos change colors for June, Pride parade floaties are commonly endorsed, and we generally see considerable amounts of merchandising centered around this theme. Rainbow-filled activities tend to be seen as the most “progressive” form of tackling what many know as International LGBT+ Day.

Nearsure, however, has participated little in what many may also conceive as pink and/or rainbow-washing. This blog post will clarify Nearsure’s latest measures around Pride month while giving away a few practical considerations around the meaning of Pride month for the 2SLGBTQIA+ community in general.

Anyone interested in expanding their understanding and conceptions of pride, especially around corporate culture, will find food for thought and learning with this read.

Why Pride Day 2023 Needs to Be Seen as More than Just an International LGBT+ Day

By the end of quarter three 2022, mainstream media already registered “a 93% increase in tracked homicides of trans and gender-nonconforming people in the United States and Puerto Rico over the last four years.” Yet, “while only 13% of the transgender community is estimated to be Black, according to UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute, Black trans women accounted for nearly three-quarters of the known victims.” The intersection between gender and sexuality and racial oppression needs to be addressed when discussing diversity and inclusion topics. The same report also confirms that people whose gender does not align with the sex conceived at birth are 2.5 times more likely to be victims of violence.

Marginalized communities stand on the front against sexual oppression that thousands have seeded – and, more importantly, many continue to experience – on the mere basis of their human identities. With violence still heavily exercised against marginalized groups, as shown, the question of Pride month meaning must inevitably be tied to a perennial fight against racism and other systemic oppressions.

Going Beyond the Pride Flag into Pride Month Meaning

Raising any sort of pride flag – from the dozens that exist – still stands as a powerful symbol of the myriad of experiences, social movements, and, more importantly, literal pride on which people around the world stand across diverse groups of the gender and sexuality spectrums. Yet, Pride month needs to go well beyond a colorful cheer on an LGBT pride parade to a continued improvement of many people’s lives worldwide. Numerous other considerations give pride month meaning.

Commemorating Pride Day 2023 needs to be about the value that different experiences hold in every sphere of our lives, corporate or otherwise, for the world to stand by them, believe, and support them. This is especially the case coming from groups that currently and historically possess diverse sorts of privilege.

It is only by understanding the major underlying reasons behind this famous international event that we can truly seek a genuine contribution to improving 2SLGBTQIA+ rights around the world.

What Has Nearsure Done for Pride Month?

With the premise above, Nearsure has engaged in several efforts this year, most of which we’ll gladly share with you, as follows:

Internal Discussions since Women’s Month

To start, focus groups since the start of this year engaged in diverse discussions around International Women’s Day in March, which already detonated internal conversations and initiatives to tackle the topic of gender equality – in tech especially – by any and all means possible.

Female Executive and Internal Female Leadership

Our Chief Executive Officer, Giuliana Corbo, has continued to take the lead, incessantly sharing key insights on the state of female leadership and female equality & empowerment in the tech space as part of Forbes Tech Council. The list of awards Giuliana continues to earn as a leading female executive in IT Services is extraordinary. Moreover, 47% of all Nearsure’s leadership is made up entirely by women, and they’re all following her lead. Internally, Nearsure’s female leaders are perennially setting great examples within our work culture.

Gender Equality Sponsorships in Technology

Furthermore, Nearsure has been supporting women in tech non-stop & year-round by partnering with communities and organizations that collaborate with women in tech through education, financial support, and more.

We actively collaborate with FemIT and Women Hack and sponsor events such as the WomenHack while providing scholarship through the Codear Futura program with MediaChicas to build up women.

Diversity and Inclusion Webinars

Back in February, we held our first webinar in Portuguese on How to make gender diversity in technology a reality. This 40-minute session was another way to keep shaping a new reality in an industry that’s lacking diversity to “kickstart meaningful change and promote accessibility to women.” We’ve held other webinar sessions on the topic since, as well.

For Pride month especially, we will host Julissa Mateo Abad on June 21^st. She’ll delve into the profound impact of diversity within teams and how we can pave the way for a more inclusive and equitable future. Julissa will “focus on the extraordinary benefits of having a diverse workforce during this session, how companies can embrace DEI policies, and why minorities shouldn’t shy away from developing a career in the tech market.” There’s still time to register for free, in case you’re interested.

Unconscious Bias Training for our Recruiters and Capacity Teams

As an IT staff augmentation and nearshore outsourcing services partner of high value, our talent makes up the very center of what we do. To commemorate Pride month this year, Nearsure has done extensive and prolonged work to facilitate our recruiting and capacity teams with a new training certification. Our teams are now certified in Unconscious Bias in Recruiting and Interviewing.

These efforts were followed with internal team meetings to further secure this training’s content and team understanding within Nearsure. The topics are as relevant in today’s hiring and recruiting sectors as ever.

What Can We Do to Honor International 2SLGBTQIA+ Day Every Day?

If you’re wondering how to secure similar actions for minorities and marginalized groups at your company, workplace, home, or otherwise, the great news is every little action counts. How many times have you heard people wrapping up a sentence about the queer community’s acronyms, for instance, by saying: “Oh! And however many letters! It´s like the whole alphabet!”? A point at which, most commonly, people laugh.

Certainly a common reaction that people in the 2SLGBTQIA+ community must withstand quite often, mostly from parties that commonly fall outside these groups, the importance of adding two-spirited experiences (2S) at the forefront of LGBTQIA+ rights, for instance, “acknowledges the specific oppression of Queer Indigenous folks” while contributing to take a stand against colonialism and its well-known traditions. For many folks, therefore, these sorts of so-called humorous remarks are the opposite of funny.

In general, it would be helpful if people were better aware of the implications of taking away all seriousness from the use of this acronym (or any of the many others that exist) to address diverse populations.

On the same token, gaining awareness and setting active practice around a reality as simple as the above, along with so many mini and macro actions available to become better allies, can help anyone stop bullying and harassment in the workplace, let alone at home, with, or around our loved ones. From education and awareness to meaningful actions of change, sustained work is needed at all levels of our experience to guarantee more diverse and inclusive environments and opportunities for all.