To celebrate Bisexual Awareness Day, we asked the lead of our newly established LGBTQ+ employee network group (PriDe) Dan Mellis to tell us more about the day, why it’s important within the LGBTQ+ community and what PriDe are doing to celebrate.
“Bisexual Awareness Day is the cumulation of Bisexual Awareness week – where many in the LGBTQ+ community (and allies) raise awareness and acceptance of bisexuality.
It’s important that we continue to raise this message, even as homophobia becomes less and less acceptable as biphobia and bi erasure are still, unfortunately, very much a thing.
PriDe are posting on Engage (our internal social networking platform) around bi topics including mythbusting, microlabels, bi celebrities (Bicons) and bisexual history. With the aim of de mystifying bisexuality and increasing awareness and acceptance in the workplace”
We also asked Dan to tell us a little more about the employee network group, it’s priorities and why it was important to him and other members of the group.
“We launched PriDe (the LGTBQ+ Network Group) this summer. Our aim is to encourage LGBTQIA+ individuals and allies to come together to discuss key issues and give support to LGBTQIA+ talent within the organisation. Since launch, we’ve been focussing on communicating key LGBTQ+ dates and events, e.g. Pride 2024 and Bisexual Awareness Week.
Our priority at the moment is to grow our membership, as we feel it’s important to give everyone the chance to be represented at work. Many LBTQ+ people may not feel comfortable talking about their sexuality, or even their personal interests, if they feel that might draw attention to their sexuality.
Personally speaking, just having some other LGBTQ+ people and allies to talk to about common issues has been awesome. It’s impossible to understand how PD Ports is as a place to work for people like us unless we have a private space to talk about these things.
The proudest achievement for the group for me is simply the members. I still find it a little uncomfortable to talk openly about my sexuality and I imagine others do too, so every contribution represents a small act of courage to me, even if it’s easy for them!”
The employee network group will enable PD Ports and it’s employees to:
- Understand the tools and knowledge we need to support our LGBTQIA+ individuals in relation to challenges faced by many people in this community.
- Understand the current level of acceptance and tolerance to LGBTQIA+ people in the business, and work to improve if/where necessary.
- Provide a psychologically safe (and necessarily discrete) space for our LGBTQIA+ colleagues to be open with themselves and each other, and discuss their specific challenges and experiences.
- Understand how we can raise awareness of LGBTQIA+ life, and explain why it’s important to keep championing tolerance.
- Work with communication leads to highlight important historical/current events, stories and dates relating to LGBTQIA+ people across the world.
- Share resources that help enhance LGBTQIA+ inclusion and acceptance.
- Create a network of safe and informed people who can be approached privately and in confidence to discuss matters relating to sexuality and gender.
- Encourage discussion of current controversial topics in a constructive, safe way; ensuring those with differing viewpoints feel heard and understood while supporting LGBTQIA+ inclusion at work.
- Work with policy holders to create/maintain robust reporting structures which ensure harassment and discrimination are identified immediately and dealt with appropriately.
