The history of LGBTQ+ Pride Month
LGBTQ+ Pride Month is celebrated each year in the month of June to honour the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Manhattan. The Stonewall Uprising was a tipping point for the Gay Liberation Movement in the United States and its impact was felt globally.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the first Pride march in the UK, a day when hundreds of LGBTQ+ people and their allies arrived in London to protest a society where we were not safe to be ourselves. The actions on that day paved the way for half a century of progressive societal change for LGBTQ+ people.
Celebrating LGBTQ+ inclusion in our networks
Today we are very proud to work with some amazing and inspirational organisations across our network. To celebrate Pride month, we spoke with some of our Princess Royal Training Awards alumni who are doing great work to support their LGBTQ+ staff and have been featured in Stonewall’s Top 100 Employer’s list, which recognises those organisations with outstanding commitment to LGBTQ+ employment equity.
Scott Hardie from NatWest Group shared an extract from their Annual Report:
In 2021, we celebrated the successes we’ve had in progressing our work to date with a series of events, but we also participated in the UK Stonewall Workplace Equality Index to understand what more we can do to support our LGBT+ colleagues and customers. Our Executive Sponsor for LGBT+, Jen Tippin (Chief People & Transformation Officer), is guiding and shaping our roadmap for the future.
During 2021, we created a new LGBT+ e-learning module to be launched in 2022. Our global learning uses colleagues’ perspectives and insights from external partners to enhance understanding. We also reviewed and updated our international travel safety guidance for LGBT+ colleagues and our family friendly policies to ensure language and scenarios are LGBT+ inclusive. As a founding partner of the British LGBT Awards in 2015, we continued our support in 2021 as a sponsor.
We continued to support our employee-led networks, which have around 24,000 members globally. These include: Gender, Multicultural, Disability, Rainbow (LGBT+), Armed Forces, Families & Carers, Sustainable Futures, and Aspire.
Damien Shieber, Head of Culture and Experience at Santander UK said:
We’re proud to be one of Stonewall’s Top 100 Employers for the first time. We aim to make Santander a place all our colleagues feel they belong by building a supportive environment where anyone can succeed. This achievement shows the importance of our continued focus on raising LGBTQ+ awareness, sharing lived experience and how the power of allyship drives positive change. We’re particularly proud of our Embrace Network for being change makers and their continued dedication to making improvements across Santander, including our Evolving Minds LGBTQ+ hub, which helps to educate colleagues and encourage respectful curiosity. We’re also proud to be supporting Tent and Stonewall’s LGBTQ+ Refugee Mentoring Scheme as part of our aim to affect positive change in society. We continue to be active allies for LGBTQ+ inclusion through our sponsorship of National Student Pride and involvement in 8 Pride Events across the UK.
Empowering LGBTQ+ people to succeed
At the City & Guilds Foundation, we believe that to be our best selves, our best teams and our best organisations, we must recognise and honour the value we and others bring, so it is inspiring to hear what those in our network are doing to support the LGBTQ+ community. We are always looking for ways we can champion LGBTQ+ inclusion, so please do get in touch if you have ideas.
Last year, we hosted a series of Inclusion & Diversity events including the Empowering LGBTQ+ people to succeed event where we explored how we can create workplaces that support LGBTQ+ individuals to stand up and stand out.
The aim of this event was to help everyone raise awareness of inclusion and diversity in the workplace and as part of this we are giving you the opportunity to make a pledge to building equity, claim a digital credential and share with your networks. Fill out the form for your LGBTQ+ Stand up, Stand out digital credential or access the event recording here.