Big shoutout to Linda Lee (she/her), Chief People Officer of Velocity Global for allowing us the opportunity to speak to our whole company about important & difficult stuff. I had the honor of interviewing the incoming leadership of our PRIDE group. They were all so willing to be open, transparent, vulnerable, brave, and strong. These are the attributes we need right now. My opening remarks follow: ----------------------------------------------------------- Hey all! And happy pride month! We typically begin these kinds of meetings with a reminder of why this matters. Why do we still need pride events? I mean…sure… we can all use an injection of style & fabulousness, but why do we "need" this? In our post-Will-&-Grace age where we have gay marriage as the rule of the land, why do we "need" these events? As a reminder, Pride month is in June. It’s not because we can all wear short shorts and tight t-shirts on floats. Well… that’s not the only reason. It’s because it's the anniversary of the Stonewall riots - a huge gay uprising in NYC against the cops who were routinely raiding the bar and arresting us. Pride events were and are acts of activism; they’re a reminder of uprising, they’re a reminder to keep fighting, they are a call to action. There was a German philosopher named Hegel who posited that history has patterns - the Hegelian Dialectic - made up of Thesis, Antithesis, & Synthesis. Something is true (thesis), then the opposite pushes back (antithesis), this leads to a transformation (synthesis). For gay rights, we've seen this year after year. When I was 18, I marched in my first gay pride parade in New York. When we passed churches we were met with people screaming at us “God Hates Fags”. 42 years later, in Colorado right now, we have people chanting God Hates Flags, pushing people to burn gay flags. So yes, we have gay marriage And we have gay flag burning. The thesis and antithesis. What remains is the synthesis; the transformation. That’s where the role of Pride events lives; in the nudging of social evolution. That’s why we do these. To not back down, but to keep fighting back. Especially when it’s not easy.
Our Pride panel was vulnerable, authentic and sincere--to the point where my mouth dropped, I held back tears and I wanted to hug each of these panelists: Klew Still, Justin Overbay, Eric Edelstein, Ph.D., Steven Troxell, and Robert Schlegel. They shared how they came out, how some were accepted while others were bullied, how to ask someone what their pronouns are, and what not to ask someone from the LGBTQ+ community (and some were doozies!). They came with open hearts and we left with full ones. I am grateful to Klew, Justin, Eric, Steven and Robert for 'fighting for your rights', sharing such personal stories, and feeling safe to do so at Velocity Global. Our executive sponsor of our Pride ERG is Shawn McIntire, General Counsel, who made sure the executive team was available to watch and listen to this lunch and learn. Thank you for advocating and promoting our Pride ERG! #pride #LGTBQ+ #fullhearts #culture #fightforyourrights
Backend Software Engineer
2moI'm very proud to have met you Eric Edelstein, Ph.D. :)