Guest Blog: Kerrie Banaszak, Pride Month 2022
Pride is a celebration of people coming together in love and friendship, to show how far LGBTQIA+ rights have come, and how in some places there's still work to be done.
Pride month is celebrated in June to represent the stonewall riots that took place which changed gay rights in America and around the world. It is about acceptance, equality, celebrating the work of LGBTQIA+ people, education in LGBTQIA+ history and raising awareness of issues affecting the LGBTQIA+ community.
It also calls for people to remember how damaging homophobia was and still can be. Pride is all about being proud of who you are no matter who you love.
You will be surprised to know that the LGBTQIA+ isn’t one big happy family; being part of a minority group means we’re not free from prejudice.
Racism, sexism, ableism, xenophobia, transphobia, homophobia and biphobia are all still very sadly present in our community. That’s why we, as LGBTQIA+ people, have to be allies to all individuals in our community.
Over the last 5-10 years, I have seen a shift in attitudes towards certain words used to describe our community.
For example ‘Queer’ was and still can be used as a derogatory term for LGBTQIA+ individuals. But the term has been reclaimed by many people in our community, particularly those of a younger age and we feel empowered by it.
Some LGBTQIA+ people describe themselves in more than one way because the term Gay may not fully cover their identity, sometimes you may hear the term QTPOC (which means Queer or Trans people of colour).
Visibility could not be more important right now. There are many organisations around the world that claim to be diverse and inclusive, but there is no visible action taking place.
At Nash Squared, we have our own LGBTQIA+ group called Nash Pride. We are a group of beautiful humans who meet once a month to discuss our community and how we will drive Equality, Diversity and Inclusion across the business.
For example during pride month we will be holding local celebrations in the UK. Not all of us are from the LGBTQIA + community, which makes it even more beautiful, and we have support from a number of Senior Leaders within the group who keep Nash Squared accountable for delivering physical change.
Nash Squared have created a safe space for everyone to be themselves no matter which identity, community and culture they belong to and I couldn’t be more prouder.
For those of you that don’t know me, I’m a Project Manager within Harvey Nash Talent Solutions. We specialise in MSP and RPO solutions. You will find me in the Birmingham office and I couldn’t be more passionate about ED&I, Innovation, Processes, Technology and Client Implementations.