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I'm flying the flag for Aces at my LGBT+ group!


Retronaut

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Hi everyone

 

My company - which is a nationwide UK social care charity with several thousand staff - recently launched an LGBT employee network. I was on board enthusiastically as a founder member, but a little miffed when the initial invites went out saying it was only for staff who "identify as lesbian / gay, bisexual, or trans". I responded to the email saying I'd love to come along, assuming asexuals were welcome too? (I knew the sender personally.) I got a friendly and slightly apologetic "Of course!" which was a great relief and went along.

 

As you may imagine I was a little antsy that if it stayed as "LGBT" there may be others like me who may identify as something covered by the " + " and not feel confident joining in, so when as an icebreaker we went round the room talking about our heroes, I put asexuality on the radar by giving David Jay as my hero. It must have stuck, as they tabled the question of whether to put the + on the end so all sexualities / identities were visibly in there as well. And everyone in the room approved it in a trice! We became an LGBT+ group - joy! And, a couple of people in the group who didn't know about asexuality had an "every day's a schoolday" moment....

 

As far as I know, I'm the only person there covered by the " + ", and although we're in our infancy I feel a bit of a responsibility to see that the "little" groups, for which we might not have a member, get represented too - pansexuals, polysexuals, aromantics, agender people and so forth (yes, the irony of pansexuality being represented by its exact opposite tickled me too). We're about to host a coffee morning to fundraise for Stonewall, and when we were brainstorming ideas, I proposed putting up all the various pride flags (of which there are of course loads for the groups beyond L,G,B and T) together with little snippets on what each is. That's all coming together now, and looking very shiny.

 

We also produced a definitions document for terms that our staff might encounter in working with LGBT+ staff and service users. I drafted or tweaked the entries for the asexual and aromantic spectra (another schoolday for someone in the group email who'd not heard of romantic orientations) and... well, I think it's fair to say that document is about as comprehensive as it can get.

 

Just had to share this, as I'm really excited about how this is shaping up, and glad to be working with such an openminded bunch of folks.

 

Cheers

 

 

Retronaut

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^_^ Oh, wow. I applaud your bravery in taking a stand to help change your company's inclusivity and to help educate your co-workers about asexuality and other ones, like intersex and pansexual, too, as it's possible there are co-workers with those identities, but who perhaps don't come out because they're unsure whether they'd be welcomed or understood.

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That's brilliant. Well done!

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