Together with Marcus Brieskorn from radioSUB PROUT AT WORK Board Member Jean-Luc Vey talked about the Rainbow Chat Deck.

“The idea behind the Rainbow Chat Deck was to develop a tool, through which people can get into an exchange about LGBT*IQ. Through the questions and individual answer options, the cards are also meant for people who have had very little to do with the topic so far.”

You can find the whole interview here (GERMAN):

Rainbow Chat Deck

At the PROUT AT WORK Foundation’s 6th DINNER BEYOND BUSINESS, hosted by Deutsche Post DHL Group in Bonn, the focus was on the commitment of companies and their leaders to the LGBTIQ community. “We are all united tonight by the desire for people to be able to come to the workplace with their authentic selves and not have to hide a significant part of their personality.” – said Dr. Thomas Ogilvie, Member of the Board of Management and Labor Director of Deutsche Post DHL Group in his welcoming speech. More than 35 senior executives from major companies and institutions accepted the invitation, including representatives from BASF, Clifford Chance, Continental, Commerzbank, Ergo, IKEA, ING Diba, NTT Data, Oracle, Otto, Robert Bosch, Sandoz, Sodexo and UniCredit. In the immediate vicinity of the Rhine, the participants of the top-class information and networking event enjoyed an exclusive dinner. Albert Kehrer explained the background of DINNER BEYOND BUSINESS in his welcoming speech: “We believe that there is a business case behind the support for LGBTIQ: an individual one for the people who come out, but also on a corporate level – whether B2B or B2C.” The highlight of the evening was the “Fireside Chat” by the CEO of the host PROUT AT WORK Foundation, together with keynote speaker Dr. Shivaji Dasgupta, Out Executive and Chief Data Officer at Unicredit on diversity, responsibility and leading by example.

At the beginning of the 45-minute talk, Dasgupta shared private insights as an out executive: “99% of the reactions to my coming out have been overwhelmingly positive. Having the freedom to be who you are gives you so much more agency, and allows for so much higher productivity because you don’t have to hide anything.” At the same time, it has a clear impact on the professional environment: “People then know they can trust you on other issues – you get an extra trust bonus as a leader if you’re completely open and honest.” According to Dasgupta, companies also benefit considerably from their commitment to LGBT*IQ equal opportunities, whether through better results due to more diverse teams or when recruiting talented employees.

Also highlighted in the “Fireside Chat” was the influence of Allies: “Executive Allies are so important because they send a very strong signal in the organization that discriminatory behavior will not be tolerated.” Against the backdrop of different legal realities for LGBT*IQ around the world, the Indian-born executive is also concerned about valuing and taking advantage of freedoms here:

Drawing of the talk with DR. SHIVAJI DASGUPTA

More information about the event is available on the Rainbow Day website (German):

Informationen für Besucher*innen – RainbowDay

RECAP

We were pleased to welcome Maxi Pichlmeier as a guest at our PROUT PERFORMER Lunch Talk on Thursday, May 4, 2023.

Click here for the recording of the conversation (German):

about Maxi:

How can i join the campaign?

• Inform yourself and speak to lesbian persons both inside your Network and outside, to raise awareness for the campaign.
• Take a portrait photo, orienting yourself on our examples, with your Tablet. It doesn´t matter if it is printed or digital. You´re welcome to use shades of grey instead of color for your portrait. (Make sure you´re allowed to use the logo of your company with your employer. If not, you may also use the company name, or hand your photo in without it.)
• Post your own campaign-photo on April 26 2023 at 10:00 AM, including the hashtags and taggings of your primary Social Media Channels.

Position your company as a supporter of the campaign and for Lesbian Visibility, and animate employees to take part.

This campaign was initiated by the PROUT AT WORK-Foundation and LGBT*IQ business-networks.

Tips for lesbian persons:

A Lesbian Coming out can still be tied to discrimination and hardships. If it helps you,

• look for Allies / Role Models in the company.
• network with the LGBT*IQ-network.
• look for support in dealing with discrimination and ill-fitting comments.
• always remember: You pick the time and place for your Coming Out.

Tips for companies:

• create sensibility for unconscious bias
• create clear expectation profiles
• anonymize applying for jobs
• Build/Strenghten internal LGBT*IQ-Networks

More information to the listed points can be found in the study “The L-Word in Business”, which deals with the situation of lesbian women in a work environment-with tips for employers.

TIps for Allies

• Inform yourself about lesbian topics.
• Use gender-inclusive language.
• Do not fetishize lesbian relationships.
• Stand up for the rights and against discrimination of Lesbian People. For example support the action nodoption, which works against the adoption of stepchildren and for the acception of Parentage in Rainbow Families.

Counseling:

Night of REalization.

It took 47 years for my life to make any sense at all. That’s how long it took before I was able to admit to myself that something very essential had always been wrong. But it was only then that I fully understood what that was.

Since then, I understand my life, looked backwards at and lived forwards, at all!

As a child, the awareness that I was different was already there, but it was more of a background noise. As time went on, however, these experiences, encounters, and thoughts that always felt so out of place and that I couldn’t really place began to accumulate. These things ran through my life like a red thread and only in retrospect did I really understand them.

For example, the first time I had painted toenails – long before my inner outing – I didn’t think, “Oh, how nice,” but “now it finally looks right!” I wondered about this thought in the same second and didn’t really understand where it came from.

When I was about 15 years old, I was, as I see it today, very close to understanding what was going on with me. For example, I was waiting for my figure to develop in the same way as my girlfriends and wondered why it didn’t. When I look back now, it was quite clear. But at that time I couldn’t and didn’t want to dig any further…

Many years later, it came to – what I call – my “night of realization.” The night when all the puzzle pieces of my life finally fell into place. The night I then had to understand that I am a woman and always have been. That night when everything suddenly and fully made sense. On the one hand, it was simply great to finally have the explanation for everything that had moved me for decades: “Hanna, you are a woman and always have been. From the first day you were born, you have always thought, acted, and felt like a woman.” On the other hand, the realization of actually being a woman was extremely difficult to master and I oscillated back and forth between euphoria and suicidal thoughts! The topic “trans*” was in the room, but I just did not want to accept that I am also trans*.

And of course, I still had doubts, so I often said to myself, “You are crazy! You are sick! That’s why I found it very special that after my coming out there were some people who told me:

That helped me to manage these permanent doubts.

The reactions in the rest of my environment were mixed. My parents didn’t find out that their supposed son was actually a daughter, because they had already passed away before I came out. I couldn’t even begin to estimate how they would have handled it. Part of my family had the most difficulty dealing with it, and they tried to completely hide the issue. It wasn’t until years after I came out that they really started to confront the situation. Today everything is fine, but the journey was long and painful.

Simultaneously, I also had to sort out some important things for myself. My internal outing was one thing, but how should I implement it – especially at work? At the beginning, I still believed that I could keep it completely out of my everyday professional life, continue to pretend that I was a man, and only live out my true self in my free time. How naive I was back then… I then looked for a new job relatively quickly. Of course, I also applied for a job as the woman I am. It took a little while, but today I’ve been with my current employer for almost 8 years, and I took over my current position about 2 years ago.

Looking back, I realized for myself that only since I’ve been truly me, I’ve had something like a career. I always knew I was a good employee, but I could never really stand up for myself. I’ve been working openly as a woman for 8 years now, and I find it amazing how far I’ve come professionally. From night auditor to reception manager and service manager within a few weeks, then site manager with a team of 21 employees and now in my dream role.

I summarize it for myself like this: I first had to understand that I am a woman in order to be able to appear as self-confident as men usually do.

My coming out and my transition have of course not only brought changes at work, but also in the relationship with my wife. We have been together for over 27 years now and we have found that despite the changes and the turbulent time during my transition, our relationship has gained in quality and depth! Most of the people who know us from the past simply accept us for who we are and should there ever be any questions, our message is: Love knows no gender!

For a very long time I was searching for myself and at times I confused this with the search for other, material things – and I had to realize that these things did not really make me happy. I have found true happiness in myself and only since I have found myself, I know what happiness really means!

DEAr Hanna, Thank you very much for YourStory!

On the occasion of this year’s TDoV, we want to present you with the books “Being Human” by Alice Oehninger and “Ich bin Linus: Wie ich der Mann wurde, der ich schon immer war” by Linus Giese, the movie “Trans – I Got Life” and the MyStory’s by Hanna Brungs and Marit Wiechmann, personal stories of trans* people, but also tips and information about trans* at the workplace via our How To Guide No. 9 “Trans* and Transitions at the Workplace”.

ICH BIN LINUS: WIE ICH DER MANN WURDE, DER ICH SCHON IMMER WAR By LINUS GIESE

Bein Human – An Autobiography by Alice Oehninger

Trans – I Got Life

Creating a trans*-Inclusive Business – How To Guide Nr. 9

Night of Realization – MyStory with Hanna

TRANS* IS SOMETHING WONDERFUL – MyStory with MArit Wiechmann

Update March 22, 2023

On March 20, the Queer Representative of the Federal Government Sven Lehmann welcomed to the launch event of the Aktionsplan “Queer Leben” in Berlin. PROUT AT WORK, together with numerous organizations, belongs to the circle of those who bring the action plan to life.

The aim of the event was to launch the official implementation of the action plan. The more than 200 participants from various associations and organizations exchanged ideas and formed working groups, which in turn will discuss the concrete implementation of the action plan’s projects in the coming months.

Prior to the event, 78 civil society organizations were selected from more than 140 applications in order to bring as many different perspectives as possible to the working groups. We are very pleased that PROUT AT WORK is also one of the selected organizations and will be represented by our board member Albert Kehrer.

The launch event as well as the formation of working groups represent the first necessary steps towards the implementation of the action plan for a queer-friendly society and we are looking forward to placing important topics around LGBT*IQ in the workplace there in the future.

THE AKTIONsPLAN IN THE WORK CONTEXT

In addition to topics such as the Self-Determination Act, the reform of the Parentage Act, and blood donation, other issues important to the work context were also addressed under the heading of “participation”. These include the following measures:

• Expansion of the diversity topic pillar as part of the “New Quality of Work (INQA)” initiative of the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (BMAS);
• Research projects on the situation/discrimination of LGBT*IQ in the world of work as well as improving the promotion of projects for acceptance;
• Development of a guideline for employers that includes the recommendations for action of two studies on the “Third Option” in a comprehensible way for use in everyday work;
• Sensitization of employers, trainers, employee representatives for the concerns of LGBT*IQ employees and applicants;
• Support for raising awareness of LGBT*IQ issues in in-company training;
• Establishment of a dialogue process (federal government, states, collective bargaining parties, church employers) on improving the working conditions of LGBTIQ* in institutions of churches and religious communities;
• Promotion of diversity management in the federal public service;

Additional measures in the area of federal administration:

• Development of an internal federal diversity strategy (incl. creation of further training opportunities, support for the establishment and networking of employee networks and a strategy for diversity-sensitive personnel selection procedures);
• Implementation of diversity issues (incl. LGBT*IQ/gender identity) in initial, further and advanced training (e.g. qualification measures by the Federal Ministry of Defense [BMVg] in civilian and military training and by the Federal Foreign Office in training in the Foreign Service); Regularly strengthening the educational and advisory competence of the social service in the Bundeswehr on the diversity issue; Conducting systematic baseline analyses on the situation of LGBT*IQ (e.g., with the help of employee surveys);
• Sensitization of employees to implicit prejudices and integration in competence requirements/competence models;
• Sensitization and, if necessary, training of employees involved in recruitment processes;

For more information about the plan “Queer Leben”, feel free to drop by the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth.

For more information around trans* in the workplace, the third option, and other workplace related LGBT*IQ topics, we encourage you to check out our free HOW TO guides.

Long Ways.

The first time I had sex with a man, it was still forbidden – it happened in what was then West Germany. Shortly after that, rumours about a newly discovered virus began to spread. Deadly. Soon it was clear that homosexual men were particularly affected. The German magazine Der Spiegel wrote about the “Schwulen-Pest,” a translation of the term Gay Plague. We had to be cautious.

This would not have been possible without fundamental changes in our laws during the last 30 years. What seems to be nothing special today was wishful dreaming or even unthinkable back then.

It has liberated me. I came out when I moved to Berlin, quite late, at the age of 35. My life would have been different if I had been clear about who I was and how I loved earlier. I had been living with a vague idea of bisexuality far too long. Today I think this was also because at that time I could not imagine how to combine my desire to have children and my love for men.

I am very grateful to all those in my life who have encouraged me on this path and made it possible. And I am happy for everyone who clearly knows early on and I understand everyone who needs time for this. The open interaction in queer networks can help and encourage people on this way. And these networks now exist in many federal agencies, including the ministries of the Federal Government.

LGBTIQ* employees still experience discrimination in the workplace far too often. Even small talk at the coffee machine can quickly lead to an unwanted outing. Often enough, not only their well-being at work, but also their professional future depends on the reactions of their superiors and colleagues. But only those who feel at ease can deliver the best results at work. Organisations, companies and administrations can actively contribute to an inclusive corporate culture. On INQA.de you can read how networks or interest groups in companies can help to improve the situation of LGBTIQ* employees at work.

Ending discrimination requires the support of those who are not affected. Through active solidarity (allyship), companies can promote diversity in the world of work. On INQA.de you find five tips on how managers and employees can work for diversity and show: We are Allies!

DEAR ROLF, Thank you very much for YourStory!

RECAP

We were excited to welcome Wolfgang Link as a guest at our PROUT PERFORMER Lunch Talk on Wednesday, February 22, 2023.

Click here for the recording of the interview (German):

About Wolfgang: