Linda Landman-Gonzalez
LESSON 4
We’ve encountered this on multiple levels, whether it’s some of our
client organizations or colleges and
universities, and what we’ve done
in those situations is … have a conversation with them and say, “Look,
this is who we are as a company.
You’re about social-justice issues;
this is a social-justice issue. How
can we say that our organization
is inclusive of and provides equal
opportunities for everybody but
this population, the LGBT population? That’s not something that you
would endorse either.” And we’ve
been able to work it through.
LESSON 3
LESSON 2
LESSON 1
I was doing some consulting
for an organization that wanted
our services. They actually said,
“Well, this is great. Can you come
in and speak to our executive team,
but leave out any reference to the
LGBT population?” We said, “Well,
look. This is what we do, this is
who we are, this is what we’re committed to, and we can’t leave this
out of the conversation because if
you want our story, this is part of
our story; and if you don’t want
our story, we understand. You
can have someone else share their
story.” And they came back to us
and said, “No, we still want you to
share your story.”
There is a lot of resistance
out there—but some of it is the
dialogue, and then you
draw a line in the sand
and say that if it’s not
working, then we walk
away from the client.
DAGIT: I can go to organizations
that have been in existence and
have fought for civil rights for decades yet still do not include their
own people who have a disability
or who are gay. And we can’t even
have the conversation. So before
somebody says, “Let’s blame one
group,” let’s stop and do a little
self-examination. I don’t feel one
whit of benefit of being white
or female, and it doesn’t matter
whether I’m in the wheelchair or
using a cane. I definitely feel like
that’s what comes first, and so I’ve
had to learn not to assign intent,
because who would I blame? There
isn’t anybody left. I mean, except
for the other people who have disabilities who have no power in the
whole equation anywhere on the
planet, right?
Probably my greatest trust is
with the gay community, because
that’s the lowest level of the totem
pole, the same degree of stigma,
and I can be anywhere in the world
and we can be trying to break
through language issues, and I
know they’ve got my back. Why?
Because we know that we’re both
in it together.
USE YOUR
LGBT-EMPLOYEE
GROUP
One of the things we
learned this year is we really
leveraged our employee-resource group, our LGBT group.
One of the barriers that we face
is how you start that conversation. How do you create that
dialogue? And for someone
who maybe doesn’t think about
the LGBT agenda or issue, there
are questions around “OK, I get
gay, I get lesbian. Tell me about
bisexual? What is transgender?”
When you’re talking to senior
executives in your company,
you have to be honest, and
what you have to say is, “I don’t
understand that any more than
you do. Why don’t we get a
group of folks together who
might provide us with some
insights, who might help us in
terms of the education process
and in terms of asking the right
questions and getting this out
in the right way?”
