It’s Pride Month Y’all!
Pride Month kickoff and inclusion at Tamman
by Devon Murphy
LGBTQ+ Pride is held throughout the month of June every year. While we largely see pride parades and celebrations across the country – it’s important to understand the history of LGBTQ+ Pride and why we should celebrate it each year, while also acknowledging that pride is at its core, a protest.
While the fight for LGBTQ+ rights started long ago and continues to this day, June 28, 1969 is the historic day when we saw the beginning of the Stonewall Uprising – the rebellion that was largely led by Black and Brown Trans Women and that ignited the LGBTQ+ movement, which pushed for and helped us to gain many of the rights we have today. However, Stonewall did not end our fight for equality, and we still have so much work ahead of us!
While there are protections for LGBTQ+ workers at the federal level, that doesn’t stop us from experiencing harassment, microaggressions, and pay disparity. This makes finding places of employment that engage in active allyship, when accessible, absolutely necessary for folks who identify as LGBTQ+. As a Transgender Man, I consider myself incredibly lucky to have found a place like Tamman as an employer.
Tamman is a digital accessibility and technology solutions company, but it’s important to recognize that we can’t advocate for disability justice without acknowledging and fighting for the rights of the intersectional identities within the Global community as well. This includes, but is not limited to the LGBTQ+ community.
Tamman consistently engages in active allyship, adjusting policies to be more inclusive and allowing all staff members to speak openly and authentically about their experiences. Tamman encourages us to show up as our full selves and to challenge ideas or policies that could be more inclusive. If a problem arises, the leaders of Tamman hold themselves accountable in a productive way that leads to dialogue, change and growth.
This held true when I shared my Trans identity with Tamman. Coming out was the most terrifying, yet empowering thing I’ve ever done in my life. At a time when we had over 500 anti LGBTQ+ laws proposed throughout our country – and still do today, it felt like an act of protest to stand firmly in who I am and share it with the world while so many Trans and Non-Binary folks aren’t safe to do so. Tamman was one of my biggest supporters through my coming out process, ensuring that I wasn’t responsible for the labor of educating folks about the importance of pronouns and respecting each others’ identities. This experience showed me that there is still so much love for the LGBTQ+ community, regardless of the influx of hatred we’re seeing throughout this country.
At Tamman, we’ll celebrate Pride all month long – focusing on education, advocacy, and open discussions around what Pride means to our team. We’re excited to share more about this as the month continues, but for now we’d like to wish everyone a Happy Pride!
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