IDAHOBLIT 2023: Lived Experiences

In honor of IDAHOBLIT (the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Lesbophobia and Transphobia), myGwork hosted a panel with various LGBTQ+ professionals to discuss the impact queerphobia has had on them. With speakers from a broad range of backgrounds and experiences, everyone involved shared their stories with an admirable resilience. As well as being graciously honest about their encounters with LGBTQ-phobic attitudes, they also offer advice to individuals experiencing hostility, hoping to inspire workplaces to monitor potential discriminative behavior and take necessary action.

Image Credit: Canva

Panel host Harriet Lunney, Senior Customer Success Manager at myGwork, opened the discussion with an introduction to IDAHOBLIT and its history. Describing its inception in May 1990 as a way to commemorate the removal of homosexuality from the World Health Organizations classification of a disease, she brought up the reasons why it’s still as important as ever to mark this special occasion.

“Over the last few years, we have seen headlines across the world indicating an increase in LGBTQ+ hate crimes,” Harriet stated. “Last week the Rainbow Map Index was released by ILG Europe, which ranks all 49 European nations on their legal and policy situation with regards to LGBTQ+ rights. The UK once again dropped down this list. We were 14th in 2022 and we’re now 17th. ILG Europe has stated that this is due to anti-trans rhetoric and that hate crimes rates in the UK have been described as reaching dramatic numbers.”

Zoe Megins-Davies, Venue Consultant at ARUP, discussed the shift in societal perceptions, and how damaging the negative rhetoric currently used against the transgender community is. They call for a better understanding of gender identity as a way to combat such a harmful narrative.

“Quite frankly, we’re in an extremely hostile environment for trans people. Addressing that is an absolute priority. Acknowledging that we need self-ID, we need to trust people that they know themselves and their identities. Understanding that they are entirely natural, and that gender is a social construct. Whenever we speak about identity, we need to do it in a nuanced way.”