Nobody cares that you're an LGBTQIA+ ally

Now that LGBTQIA+ Pride Month is over, it’s time to recognise a fundamental truth about how businesses talk to their minority audiences.

For decades, no company could tiptoe through Pride season unscathed without hanging a rainbow flag, launching a tokenistic product variation, participating in a local march, or changing their logo’s colour palette. To do otherwise was considered, at best, laziness and, at worst, homophobic or transphobic.

More recently, though, the tide has turned when it comes to corporate communications around large-scale, minority-focused events—such as LGBTQIA+ Pride, Black History Month and Disability Pride Month (which began on 1 July). Corporations no longer feel the need to broadcast about the struggle of minority groups, especially when it only tangentially affects their business by dint of their employee equality networks. After all, what do Tesco, WeWork or OpenReach really understand about legal discrimination in Uganda or the oppression of LGBTQIA+ Iraqis?

It is, therefore, not surprising that 45% of Fortune 100 companies sent out at least one social media post explicitly related to LGBTQIA+ Pride this year, compared with 51% last June. This is not to suggest that businesses care less about LGBTQIA+ rights; rather, they are wary of communicating without substance. Businesses are realising that, if they have nothing gay to say, they shouldn’t say anything at all.

This trend towards silence is a positive development. It forces businesses to act meaningfully rather than tokenistically and to recognise that empty gestures can do more harm than good.

These gestures send the message that all the world’s ills can be fixed by printing brightly coloured T-shirts—the human rights equivalent of clapping for the NHS.

Rather, committed allyship requires much more, and consumers, especially those within the LGBTQIA+ community, are quick to call out performative allyship. Authentic communication must be backed by real action. Yes, of course, this means implementing and promoting inclusive policies within the company, such as health insurance that covers gender-affirming care, offering adoption leave, and establishing strong employee resource groups.

But it also means extending efforts beyond the City of London, in the form of support for LGBTQIA+ equality at home and abroad. The companies that sponsor LGBTQIA+ activists, lobby local governments and publicly advocate for equality and respect in highly discriminatory countries are the true innovators and have the right—perhaps even the exclusive right—to talk the talk on all things equality.

Companies must also ensure their efforts are inclusive of all LGBTQIA+ experiences, particularly those of people of colour and trans and non-binary individuals. Intersectionality cannot be an afterthought; it must be integral to all internal and external endeavours.

For businesses to communicate about equality, they must be ready to do so authentically—backed up by action. Otherwise, it’s time to keep schtum and leave the rainbow flags to the real changemakers.

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Callum Jackson is a strategy lead at Shape History.