June is Pride Month: 5 Best Practices for LGBTQ-Inclusive Events

By
Barbara Scofidio
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PrideJune is Pride Month! Take action to ensure that every aspect of your event is inclusive to your LGBTQ attendees.

In honor of Pride Month, we turned to the Equality Institute for 5 best practices for LGBTQ-inclusive meetings and events:

Train your front line employees to understand the fluidity of gender, remove gendered language from greetings, and serve guests whose presentation might not match their ID. For some specific tips, check out  A Person Walks into a Store…

Include pronoun identification as part of the event registration process and show pronouns on name badges, or offer as stickers at the registration desk. Singular pronouns are no longer just he or she. Many people are identifying with the pronoun, “they.” Read this for more specific tips on using “they.” 

Update your forms to include ‘Other’ as a third gender option, and gender neutral honorifics (such as Mx). Many companies are now understanding that great customer service starts with great policies that provide diverse gender options on forms. Here are more specifics on how to do this.

Allow guests to choose the restroom of their actual gender identity and create at least one gender- neutral restroom in the event space. This could mean re-branding multi-stall or single stall restrooms as gender neutral. Some creative options here.

Promote your event as an LGBTQ-welcoming space by including the community in marketing images, and using inclusive language. This means showing real life photos of real life LGBTQ folks in marketing, not just cheesy stock photos. This also means showing the diversity of the LGBTQ community in imagery, not just gay men or lesbians.

The bottom line is to lead with inclusivity and brand loyalty and repeat attendees will follow!

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Barbara Scofidio
Barbara Scofidio is Editor of Prevue and heads up the Visionary Summits, our exclusive conference series targeting senior-level meeting and incentive planners. In her 30 years in the industry, she has become known for her passion around greening meetings, growing awareness of human trafficking and promoting CSR activities as part of business events. She is currently a member of SITE's Women IN Leadership committee and the media liaison for FICP's Education Committee. She was the first member of the media ever to be invited to sit on a committee by GBTA, where she spent three years on the Groups and Meetings Committee. She has also been an active member of SITE for 30 years, chairing its Crystal Awards committee and acting as a judge. Before joining Prevue in 2014, she served as Editor of Corporate Meetings & Incentives (MeetingsNet) for more than 20 years. She has a BA in Literature/Rhetoric from Binghamton University. Barbara is based outside Boston, in Groton, Mass.

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