I need some help articulating something - EDI and LBGTQI - it’s not me is it ?

[Orangemintcream]

There has been a couple of examples this past few weeks where the “commitment to diversity” has been all about LGBTQI community and not any other and it’s really starting to bother me. As does the language used around it.

My work are celebrating pride month. Fine all good go ahead. But I do wonder - and I haven’t yet dared ask but I might - when is disability awareness month ? Is there one ? If so I didn’t hear anything about that at my work. Only the LGBTQI again. Why do they dominate so much ?

What about the rest of the protected characteristics ? I know there is international women’s day (and international men’s day) but you never hear much about anything else.

I’m also aware of black history month but I don’t believe my work has every celebrated that.

Then last week I also go lt a survey through about a hobby (I know it’s a cliche but I can’t say what it is) and that they want to do a survey for their (again) LGBTQI members. The survey was for all members though - asked how I identify and I said female as I was born as such and didn’t not have a gender identity.

It also asked if we had seen examples of “welcoming language or behaviour” towards said LGBTQI members.

I answered that no I had not as the only gay member of our team was treated exactly the same as everyone else from what I had seen. Surely that is the goal ? Someone being gay shouldn’t be seen as “other” anymore ?

It was anonymous so I felt I could say what I did politely.

There really does seem an over focus on this group and also of …I can’t quite articulate it but if I were uncharitable I would say fawning behaviour being required by organisations to show they’re doing their bit.

Where is this level of support for the disabled community ? I now have a serious illness and there is fuck all support for me and certainly I have never seen disability awareness month at my work. We did at least have mental health awareness day which is something I suppose. But certainly not an entire month nor surveys done to check we are inclusive enough via my hobby.

Thank you for this post @Orangemintcream- totally with you on this.

I am not disabled myself but disability always springs to mind when I see awareness campaigns, visibility days etc for LGBTQI+. There is never a focus or awareness raising on disability. Even disabled toilet facilities are, I imagine, often still not available/suitable for the people who need them. (Meanwhile Ts and NBs are crying about not being able to access toilets which is of course absolute bollocks).

There is still SO much more to do to enable people with disabilities to participate fully in life and access the things that everyone else can access. Those people are the truly marginalised ones. When I see a white, middle class, non-binary person witter on about being marginalised, I get the rage. How utterly self-absorbed do you have to be to look around you and not notice the people who are having a much harder time than you are?

For some of them, I suspect the whole marginalisation and oppression thing is an extended part of the fetish. Some of them seem to get a kick out of talking about how terribly treated they are and how they fear genocide. It’s the oppression Olympics thing isn’t it?

EDI?? Edinburgh airport??
It's always "something" month in our company, i zone out tbh, it's all just virtue signalling.

I think many people agree with the OP.

What may have started out with good intent has been hollowed out to become some empty performance.

And in not understanding the rationale it all too easily becomes more about being seen to be doing something in line with headlines - TRA hijacking.

Not quite the same but this comment from Young Women's Trust shows others are aware that it is more than spouting right on slogans
https://www.youngwomenstrust.org/media-centre/young-womens-trust-responds-to-kings-speech/

This post reminded me of what I've been reading from the Affinity union. They've been picking up lots of new members abandoning Unisan and the other hostile to women unions. This is what they have to say about free speech and politics in the workplace - it's interesting reading:

https://workaffinity.co.uk/freedom-of-speech-its-all-or-nothing/

Although the Young Women's Trust say they welcome "all young women, including trans young women, and non-binary people who feel comfortable using our services" so they have not managed to get away from spouting right on slogans themselves unfortunately.

I think that as has been discussed before most funded women's organisations use this trans inclusive statement. Which of course is more than depressing.

But thought it worth mentioning as they at least recognise that other people, and for them especfially young women, face barriers.

That's a very interesting statement. It seems so common sense for a business, and yet we have strayed so far from this approach. And as it says, they are really asking for trouble.

It always reminds me of scenarios where employees were required to pay lip service to certain religious beliefs to get ahead.

Even when companies do try to be inclusive, they may not get it right. My ex was sent water bills in braille. But he became blind as an adult, and has never learnt it, so it was just wasting several sheets of paper each time.

Yes, and it really is not at all obvious in many cases that individuals assigned to these categories have the same interests or preferences. Disability is an incredibly varied category, and so complex to navigate in relation to the workplace. An Asian man from a very poor family may have little in common with the views or interests of a black woman from a wealthy family. Just because two people are same sex attracted does not mean they have any other views in common.

I’m not going to rubbish the experiences of anyone else who is a minority and struggling because they are treated badly/differently. I think awareness is important…

But, it’s quite obvious that workplaces don’t treat all the protected characteristics the same. I do question why in my work place I was treated so coldly by HR and the general organisation because I developed a spontaneous and permanent physical disability very soon after joining the job (which could be supported with assistive devices that I just didn’t have access to at the time). Then I see people being celebrated in internal and socials for other reasons that are ‘popular’, but could cause them to be less ‘productive’ than myself. That’s not me placing a judgement on those people, they also deserve to be supported and not be seen just as productivity robots. It was just hurtful that when I was impacted by a physical disability, I was treated as a nuisance who could be less efficient than others, when arguably giving me support for my disability was less complex than for the ones being celebrated and the ones that were in-focus for the organisation. I felt so demonised and morally judged for something out of my control, when others were almost glorified (and HR feared them).

I think the problem (dont forget the behaviour in the NHS) that management or whoever says of course we should have equality and not discriminate.

Then some jobs worth, or even an eager beaver is signed up to some sort of training (think of the power Stonewall had in this area) and the newly trained member of staff comes back to the work place and just goes through the motions.

Probably has no sympathy for the purpose, let alone understands.

And sadly those who need the help or just equal opportunity to be part of the work place will not get the support they need if it means actually having to think about and discuss what to do.

They think it is just flags and virtue signalling.

I think it is such a shame that what started out as just being about providing Equal Opportunities has been hijacked by cliques and bad management practices.

I've remarked before, for all the millions spent on EDI in both the public and private sectors, how many wheelchair ramps (or equivalent) has it produced?

I often wonder about the productivity costs of EDI. Particularly in organisations like universities or the charitable sector. With little evidence that organisations that have these sections are actually better at treating people fairly.

Wheelchair ramps, my old college now has three or four EDI type positions for a student body of about 2000. That could be two or three FT faculty members, or better pay for the kitchen staff, or ...

The clearest example of this I can think of is LNER (the rail company) admitting it had spent £58k painting a train in Pride colours (https://www.christian.org.uk/news/lner-cries-transphobia-at-question-on-pride-train-cost/ ) in the same year Tanni Grey-Thompson had to crawl off a train. (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq5dqxzggleo )

The virtue signalling isn't always cheap and cheerful.

I think cause it's so easy, and filled with rainbows and sparkles. It makes people feel good. Supporting people with disabilities is actually hard. Supporting people with horrible chronic illnesses is hard. Not just in the actual doing of it, but also just in thinking about it. You don't want to look at that stuff. But LGBTQ+ is all about waving flags and celebrations as an "ally", it doesn't actually require any hard shit at all.

Last week I was in a meeting discussing some health and wellbeing themes we'd like to promote at work. The themes were 'men's health' (physical, mental and andropause), 'menopause', 'neurodiversity' and 'financial wellbeing'.

When someone suggested the menopause theme be expanded to include other aspects of women's health and wellbeing - menstruation, endometriosis, sandwich caring etc - the group were supportive. Until someone else suggested calling it 'women's health'. Then there was a huge discussion about inclusivity and whether LGBTI people would feel excluded.

So, 'men's health' was fine for a theme, but not women's health. I think we ended up with 'men's health', 'LGBTI health' and 'menopause' along with neurodiversity and financial wellbeing being themes.

It makes me so angry and sad at the same time.

So men and LGBTI can have health promotion but women are just reduced to menopause.

Because lots of middle-class white men are GBT, so you can be "inclusive" without actually having to change anything. Some middle-class white men are disabled too of course, but they don't get the same level of attention because including disabled people usually means making adjustments in one way or another..

I would find it othering if people reacted to me mentioning a past girlfriend in passing with anything other than polite disinterest, same as if I mentioned a past boyfriend in passing. It would make me feel less comfortable at work, not more, if people made a big deal about my sexual orientation. Obviously, someone talking about their wedding should get a more interested response because getting married is a huge life decision and the bride or bridegroom is going to be excited about it.

The fact that I've had girlfriends really isn't the most important thing about me.

Completely in agreement with this. I am a female, disabled single parent, and each aspect has had a significant impact on my life and career in a very male dominated environment. This included having to work from home for months because construction work meant I couldn't safely access my office, which actually breaks the law, but no one was interested in that.

I am also bisexual, which no one at work knows and it has had zero impact on my life or work. I am on our EDI committee so it didn't even occur to me to mention it there. But we have Pride flags, special email signatures we can use with a rainbow version of our logo and hear endlessly about how the LGBTQ+ community is under attack. It's an easy win, and we ignore the harder stuff that requires real change, and money to make a difference.

As someone with a job and a disability, I've grown pretty resentful of the self regarding rainbow crowd and their endless awareness days, months and complusory training in the workplace.

Meanwhile, as others have mentioned, there is an appalling lack of support for any disability at work.

For reasons that make absolutely no sense to me, the full sum of support for those like me (deaf) in my workplace is a graphic illustrating how to sign the sendee's name (usually alongside the pronouns) at the bottom of an email. Makes my eyes roll hard. Make it make sense.

But as other posters have explained, LGBTQIetc has nothing to do with lesbians, gays or bisexuals. It’s all about the trans, who think that same sex relationships are transphobic. (Lesbians are bigoted if they’re not open to dating transwomen with penises etc).

I think that workplaces should be focusing far more on supporting disabled staff, but of course that means actually putting work in & spending more money.

All this is true, but it's worth noting that this is possible in 2026, whereas in the not-so-distant past, a woman letting slip that she had a girlfriend not a boyfriend would definitely be 'othered', to the point of potentially losing her job, and custody of her children if she was a mother.
And of course getting beaten up in the street - although that never really went away.

It's sad that Stonewall, the organisation that led the campaign against discrimination against lesbians, is now engaged in supporting new forms of it.

Yes. I stayed closeted in my first 2 jobs in the early 90s.

And the new issue now is that I know at least 2 lesbian social groups which have had to go underground in order to stay single sex.

Because otherwise, trans-identifying men keep coming along, & when asked to leave they accuse them of transphobia. One bloke complained to the venue these women had been meeting in for months & the owner told the group to go elsewhere.