Happy PRIDE Month!
Our second Logo Enhancement for the year celebrates PRIDE! Pride month, celebrated each June, was created to commemorate the Stonewall Uprising in New York. Since its founding, Pride has evolved into a month-long celebration to uplift LQBTQ+ voices, support LGBTQ+ rights, and celebrate LQBTQ+ culture. At Raindrop, we do our best to establish a culture where people from all walks of life are encouraged to bring their whole selves to work – a place where people can show up authentically themselves, without having to cover any part of who they are. No matter your identification or identity, we are committed to making Raindrop a safe space for diversity to thrive.
For this logo enhancement, we drew our inspiration from the Progress Pride Flag, created by Daniel Quasar (xe/xyr). You may be familiar with the traditional Pride flag. It uses the colors of the Rainbow, each with a different meaning, to show the diversity of the LGBTQ+ community. Over the years, the flag has evolved, but its most recent version, the Progress Pride Flag, had some additions we found essential to include in our design. The newest additions to the flag are meant to highlight groups within the queer community itself that are often left out of the narrative, despite being the driving force behind the Pride movement. The Progress Pride Flag now includes black and brown to represent people of color and white, pink, and light blue to represent trans individuals and those who identify outside of the normative gender binary.
Like any marginalized group, the queer community has faced many struggles and has also experienced many triumphs, and though we are glad to see progress within our nation for LGBTQ+ rights, we wholeheartedly acknowledge that there are many improvements to be made. Although we can’t change systemic shortcomings overnight, we can aim to ensure that all those who interact with Raindrop and its employees feel safe, comfortable, and respected.
We also are aware that best practices are constantly evolving and broaching these topics can be uncomfortable or confusing for those outside of queer communities. With that in mind, we’ve compiled the following tips on how to enter and carry these conversations with respect, show yourself as an ally, and be open to improving:
- Try not to assume someone’s gender. Introduce yourself using your own pronouns. This lets the person you’re speaking to know that you’re familiar with pronouns and are open to using the pronouns they identify by.
- Add your pronouns to your zoom/ email. Again, this shows others that you are comfortable using your pronouns in communication and that you will be open and receptive to others using their pronouns, especially if they are not their birth-assigned pronouns or if they are outside of the normative gender binary.
- If you do happen to misgender someone on accident, Correct yourself briefly and move on. Do not overly apologize or cause a big scene. This places the responsibility on the other person to accept your apology and console you for your mistake.
- Don’t make people feel like learning their pronouns is an inconvenience. Just as you would expect people to pronounce your name correctly, we should extend the same respect to others regarding their pronouns, gender identity, sexual identification, or other aspects of their identity.
- Use the term transgender, not transgenerED. Transgender is something someone IS, not something that happened to them. You can also use it as an adjective – for example, a transgender woman or a transgender person.
- Know that mistakes are bound to happen! The important thing is that you improve moving forward!
- Approach learning and conversations on these topics with empathy and understanding. Allow yourself to unlearn previous conceptions and be open to educating yourself on ideas/ terminology that may be new to you!
It is our hope that armed with these tips, you too can make your workplace and the people in your life feel more safe, loved, and understood. Just as important, we hope that you feel prepared to go out in the world and make a difference!
