Gender awareness pitched to Chamber

Chamber of Commerce members had an opportunity last week to learn more about gender diversity and sexual identity sensitivity in the workplace.

At its luncheon March 16, the Chamber welcomed Laura Budd, education coordinator for the Saskatchewan Pride Network, who outlined the pitfalls for businesses of ignoring the issue and the potential benefits of being gender diverse friendly.

She said the youth of today are much more open about gender and sexual identity and much more activist. Furthermore, she noted legislation is now in place to protect the rights of the LGBTQ community, including same sex marriage laws in Saskatachewan (2004) and Canada (2005) and the entrenchment of gender identity in the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code (2014).

Budd illustrated a worst-case scenario for a business in which a Saskatoon bridal shop refused to let a transgender woman try on dresses. The shop was sued and eventually went out of business due to bad publicity.

“We do not want to see this kind of thing happen,” Budd said, outlining some “best practices” for businesses to be gender inclusive.

These included having explicit LGBTQ non-discrimination policies, providing diversity training for staff, providing a clear and accessible process for complaints, including LGBTQ persons in outreach and on committees, having information available, having visible signage of support, and making washrooms inclusive.

In addition to implementing these concrete measures, Budd asked the business leaders in attendance to be support by challenging homophobic and transphobic attitudes and behaviour.

To help businesses in dealing with these issues, she also made a pitch for the customized diversity training available through her organization.