Happy Pride! Allyship Tips From Our Guest Speaker
Yesterday was Pride Day at Clarion. Not only did we celebrate inclusivity within our business with a Pride party at our rooftop bar - complete with DJ, make-up artist and more colourful T-shirts and rainbows than you can imagine - we also welcomed Lip Wieckowski from the London LGBTQ+ Community Centre, who kindly took the time to discuss and educate our team on issues the LGBTQ+ community face today.
Lip took us through lots of relevant issues, from how to broach the subject of gender fluidity, to the different situations visitors of the LGBTQ+ Community Centre find themselves in – and the support the centre provides. They also shared some very personal experiences with us.
As communications experts naturally how we, and our clients, can be better allies was a rich topic of discussion so we thought we’d share 3 things they felt passionate about, which resonated strongly with us all:
- Don’t be afraid to ask – once we accept most of us are coming from a place of ignorance, it opens the possibility to learn. Lip’s view is we shouldn’t fear asking a silly question or making a mistake. The worst thing we can do is be too afraid to have the conversation at all.
- Don’t say ‘we support this community’ – it comes across as tokenistic. Instead brands should give voice to the people or organisations doing great work within that community.
- Remove gender cues where we can – from using ‘they’ rather than ‘he’ or ‘she’ in presentations we give to clients, to stop labelling heels as ‘women’s’, there’s lots of small steps we can all take to remove gender language and help to normalise different pronouns.
Thank you Lip for such an open, honest and insightful conversation. At Clarion we’ll certainly be taking steps to be even better allies this Pride month.