Pride Month

LGBTQ Affinity Group Promotes Transgender Inclusion with Human Rights Campaign

Holland & Knight’s longstanding cooperation and collaboration with the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) continued in 2021 with a transgender advocacy webinar held during LGBTQ Pride Month in June.

LGBTQ Affinity Group member and Partner Louis Rouleau (WAS) moderated the “Transgender Inclusion in the Workplace” discussion, which was held on June 22 and included HRC Workplace Equality Program’s Deputy Director RaShawn Hawkins and Senior Manager Raina Nelson.

HRC is the largest LGBTQ civil rights organization in the world, with more than 3 million members and supporters. It promotes and helps write legislation, lobbies lawmakers and provides public education, outreach and research.

The presentation explored best practices for transpeople’s integration into the office environment, with a focus on how the HRC’s Workplace Equality Program provides support and awareness training to help both the new employees and their co-workers. This includes the group’s benchmark Corporate Equality Index (CEI) and its toolkit for employers. Other topics included pronoun etiquette, tips for allyship, intersectionality and trans and nonbinary identities, as well as important concepts and terminology for the LGBTQ community. “At the core of respect we require self-awareness and the ‘platinum rule.’ We were all taught this growing up: Treat people how they want to be treated and not how you want to be treated,” Ms. Nelson said during the event. She added that society must strip away its view of only two genders, avoiding assumptions rooted in the binary and accepting others as they see themselves.

The speakers also highlighted Holland & Knight’s ongoing journey to achieve diversity and inclusion as one of sustained commitment, consistent engagement and regular assessment. They noted that the firm recently signed on to the HRC’s Business Coalition for the Equality Act in support of equal employment for LGBTQ individuals. In addition, Holland & Knight received a perfect rating of 100 percent on the 2021 CEI, the nation’s foremost benchmarking survey and report measuring corporate policies and practices related to LGBTQ workplace equality. The firm, which has maintained a 100 percent score on the CEI since 2015.

During the intersectionality portion of the webinar, Ms. Hawkins reflected on the violence against the transgender and nonconforming community that in the first half of 2021 has seen at least 29 of its members violently killed. In 2020, 44 cases of violent fatal incidents against transgender and gender nonconforming people were reported, marking it as the most violent year on record since HRC began tracking such crimes in 2013.

“The systems of oppression reinforce each other to create a compounded experience of oppression,” Ms. Hawkins said, noting the combined effects that racism, gender discrimination and class or LGBTQ issues can have on a transgender person.

Louis Rouleau

CELEBRATIONS AND COMMITMENT

Pride Month 2021 marked a return in many U.S. cities to the pre-pandemic street festivals, parades and parties celebrating the LGBTQ community – but with a twist and a focus that continued to unite and promote support among the nation’s many minority groups. Members of Holland & Knight’s LGBTQ Affinity Group used the month as an opportunity to listen to the voices of LGBTQ colleagues, hear their stories and be intentional about advocacy, representation and inclusion.

As part of this effort, the LGBTQ Affinity Group urged attorneys across the firm to volunteer their time to provide pro bono representation in cases involving hate crimes and discrimination, as well as other opportunities to provide pro bono legal services to the LGBTQ community.