During the month of June, people all over the world come together to celebrate Pride Month and to raise awareness of the LGBTQIA+ community. At Chanelle Pharma, we always strive for equality inclusivity and diversity as well as a commitment to ensuring everyone feels respected, valued, and appreciated. To celebrate Pride Month, our National Account Manager, Chanelle Pet UK, Jonathon Doyle shared a series of articles in Chanelle to help us understand the very fundamentals of Pride and create more awareness and support of the LGBTQIA+ community.
- Say It With Pride
By Jonathon Doyle
As it is Pride season and as an openly gay man myself, I am going to share with you over the next few weeks some articles about the meaning of Pride and show our support for our LGBTQIA+ community within Chanelle Pharma.
So what does LGBTQIA+ stand for?
You might have noticed over the past couple of years that the LGBT community has added some additional members to its club.
When the first movements started, it was very much condensed to Lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people.
As more are more people come out as different, they find themselves not really fitting into these 4 categories. This is where the addition of QIA comes in.
Here’s a brief rundown of what it all means:
L – (Lesbian) a person who identifies as a woman, who is attracted to women.
G – (Gay) a person who identifies as a man, who is attracted to men.
B – (Bisexual) a person who identifies with their birth gender, who is attracted to both men and women
T – (Transexual) a person who was born as one gender, who now identifies as another.
Q – (Queer) very broad meaning but a person who doesn’t identify with their birth gender (trans/non-binary), who is attracted to others (women/men/trans/non-binary). It can also include someone who identifies as straight but is attracted to someone who is LGBTQIA+.
I – (Intersex) a person who has several sex characteristics that doesn’t fit into the norm of male and female bodies.
A – (Asexual) a person who isn’t attracted to, or has limited attraction to another person.
+ – additional subgroups within the community. E.g. this can include people who are non-binary (don’t have any gender) and pansexuals (who are attracted to all gender types and sexualities).
The community adds more abbreviations year on year, so there will probably be an update in no time!
When in doubt, just call us the alphabet mafia 😉.
2. The Importance of Pride
By Jonathon Doyle
A common question I get asked is “Why do you still need pride month? You’ve got your rights, what more do you want?”
Honestly? The LGBTQIA+ community has won various battles, but the war is far from over. If we stay close to home for a moment, statistically speaking 1 in 5 LGBT people have experienced a hate crime or incident because of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity in the last 12 months. (stonewall.org.uk)
Hate crime has steadily been on the rise in both the UK and Ireland post pandemic. Pride month is a reminder, as the old saying goes, “we’re here, we’re queer, get used to it.”
Also, we’re lucky to live in countries that have laws that protect the LGBTQIA community. That can’t be said in other parts of the world. In some countries, being gay, trans, queer is punishable by imprisonment, torture and even death. We need to continue supporting our LGBTQIA brothers and sisters across the world. We need to keep changing minds and perceptions of governments so that one day, there will be no discrimination against something for being who they are, and loving who they love.
I would encourage all of you to support your local LGBTQIA community whenever you can. Galway pride this year is from 8th-14th August 2022. Go down and check out what’s going on. Watch the parade and embrace a very welcoming community.
3. The long awaited “pronouns in the email signature” piece.
By Jonathon Doyle
For those who converse with me via email, you will have spotted that I have my pronouns (he/him) in my email signature. And a lot of you will be thinking – “Jonny of course you’re a man. You look and dress like a man, so surely you are.” Aha – did you just assume my gender?
Let’s rewind for a moment and review the three pillars that define people in society.
- Sex – the category we are assigned at birth based on our reproductive functions.
- Sexual orientation – who we are attracted to.
- Gender – category based on your sex, and the expectations of that.
Without diving deep into this topic too much, “Gender in society means how we’re expected to act, speak, dress, groom, and conduct ourselves based upon our assigned sex. For example, girls and women are generally expected to dress in typically feminine ways and be polite, accommodating, and nurturing. Men are generally expected to be strong, aggressive, and bold.” (plannedparenthood.org, 2022).
I first started putting my pronouns in my signature as a sign of solidarity with my non-binary and trans brothers and sisters. For them, society automatically assigns their pronouns to them without much question. A lot of the time, they need to stop and explain that they themselves don’t conform to societal norms.
So I’ve also taken away the assumption by openly displaying my pronouns as well. When I email someone (be it internally or externally) and they see my pronouns in the email signature, they will know that I am an ally.
More and more businesses are encouraging staff to display their pronouns as a way of support, but more importantly so that people know how to address them properly. I would encourage you all to do the same as this small piece of information can have a big impact on everyone around us.
Thank you for reading my articles, I hope they were informative and as always feel free to reach out if you have any questions or comments you would like to share.
