Sunday is Pridefest in Denver. The LGBTQIA community is once again gathering in the park to announce that they, that WE are not to be ignored. For those wondering about the alphabet soup acronym, it stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, Questioning, Intersexed, and Allied. Allied, that's most of you, hopefully. The people who are "in the social norm" but also interested in the rights of all people.
Being an activist I'm involved in a variety of social justice and equality projects. But around this time of the year, more than others I am reminded of how far we've come, and how far we still need to go. I've been teaching diversity education longer that I've called myself a trainer. In any company I worked for I was always the person that my manager could come to to ask questions about the queer community.
I've fielded questions about how to handle employees who transition from being one gender to another and stayed in the same job position. Other employees came to me to ask if I thought it would be safe for them to come out, which I always found rather funny since I was already out, thus I thought they would have already determined that. I figured out why later. In all of these situations I just gave them the best advice I could since I had no "formal" training. After I had formal training, I think things actually got worse.
Diversity education, didn't help teach people how to accept each other, it taught us how to be tolerant of each other.
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