Days of Pink sheds light on bullying in workplace
Weeklong event includes toolkit for combating homophobia and transphobia on the job
Jessica Davey-Quantick
Northern News Services
Wednesday, April 12, 2017
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The Days of Pink Outreach Festival opened for its second year with a bang on Sunday - and a workplace toolkit to help employers combat homophobia and transphobia year-round.
Jacq Brasseur, executive director of the Rainbow Coalition of Yellowknife, shows off the Rainbow Workplace Toolkit, a guide to help workplaces be more inclusive. - Jessica Davey-Quantick/NNSL photo |
The International Day of Pink started in 2007 in Nova Scotia, where students noticed a gay classmate being bullied for wearing a pink shirt and decided to take action.
A few days later, students arrived at school wearing pink to stand in solidarity against homophobia and bullying en masse.
But in Yellowknife, the day has gotten much bigger: expanding to an entire week of activities, with a focus on bullying wherever it happens, even after graduation.
"The reality is that homophobic kids turn into homophobic adults. Without bringing that discussion into adulthood I think that often LGBTQ adults are kind of left in the dark," Jacq Brasseur, executive director of the Rainbow Coalition of Yellowknife.
The Workplace Toolkit includes tips for employers to prevent homophobia and transphobia, and will be available during the Days of Pink events.
"If I walk into a workplace and I see that there are all these policies in place, and I see that managers and the admin team are really focused on making sure about inclusive language, and making sure that they're informing employees of their rights when it comes to being treated respectfully based on identity, I'm probably going to be a lot more comfortable being who I am at work," said Brasseur.
"And we know that when people feel safe at work they're going to be more productive, and they're going to probably stay longer."
The toolkit, Brasseur said, would also help employers create workplace cultures where people feel comfortable reporting or talking about issues without feeling like they'd inadvertently out themselves at work.
"There's probably a lot more LGBTQ people in your workplace than you think there are," said Brasseur.
The toolkit has been provided to all 10 Days of Pink sponsors, including SSi Micro.
SSi Micro communications manager David Veniot said the toolkit is a good place to start - as long as businesses make an effort to actually apply it.
"It's one thing to accept it and have just your HR person read through it without sharing it. That's not going to go anywhere," said Veniot, adding SSi Micro has had a lot of success with the guides more visible suggestions, like signs and fridge magnets.
Instead of just having a single ambassador for Days of Pink from SSi Micro, Veniot said they instead decided to form ambassador teams, complete with photos that were distributed company-wide.
"That in itself generated a lot of conversation around the office," said Veniot.
"That's just a small example of how you kind of raise awareness. It triggered that conversation."
Those conversations are important, said Brasseur.
"I think a lot of it (bullying) is just really subtle, people don't necessarily notice that they're doing it," said Brasseur, adding the most common forms of workplace bullying that exist in Yellowknife are harder to pin down, whether it's the dismissal of same sex partners or spouses, misgendering people, or bullying that happens between a couple people.
"When you're 15 and somebody's bullying you, you go to your principal. That's what you've been told to do. But what happens when you're 23? or 35? or 58?" asked Brasseur.
The Days of Pink has a full calendar of events until April 15.
