5 Ways to Create More
LGBTQ-Inclusive Events
In the age of ever-evolving gender diversity acceptance and recognition, creating warm and welcoming experiences for all attendees
is becoming increasingly important as meeting
professionals.
At MPI’s 2018 World Education Congress, held
in Indianapolis June 2-5, 2018, a packed session
entitled “Cisgender, Transgender & Gender Fluid: Welcome Environments in the Age of Diversity” shed light on tools to confidently sell, market
and serve the LGBTQIA (lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender, queer or questioning, intersex and
asexual) market and avoid misgendering or
displaying unconscious bias.
The session was presented by Bernadette
Smith, founder and president of the Equality
Institute and award-winning author of three
books. In 2004, Smith started 14 Stories, a
wedding planning firm with an LGBTQ specialty. Several years later, she took this passion
for equality and started the Gay Wedding
Institute to share her expertise with her peers
in the global wedding and travel industry.
She expanded her training offerings and
now consults on LGBTQ issues with retail,
restaurant and other industries with frontline
employees.
“First, you should know that the future is
fluid, and there are plenty of folks who do not
identify as male or female,” Smith said. “They
might feel somewhere in between—gender
fluid or non-binary or transgender.
“It’s crucial to pay attention to these guests
because there are more and more of them,
with up to 12 percent of our community identifying in this way,” she added.
Smith offered the following action steps for
creating LGBTQIA-inclusive meetings and events.
1. Train frontline employees
It’s imperative for frontline
employees to understand the
fluidity of gender nowadays in
order to adequately serve guests
whose presentation might not
match their ID, according to
Smith.
“For anyone who has an impact with a customer or a guest,
train them to understand that
it’s not just male and female and
straight and gay anymore,” Smith
said. “The future is fluid and they
should be using more inclusive
language. Train them not to say
sir or ma’am anymore.”
2. Offer pronoun identification
Giving a way for people to
self-identify their pronoun is
one of best inclusion practices,
according to Smith.
“Even many LGBT conferences have not figured all of this out yet, but
Google has,” she said, citing an example from
one of the company’s developers conferences
that had stickers with various pronoun choices
that attendees could put on their badge.
“It’s really important to understand the
diversity and to offer your guests that option,”
Smith added. “It could be done prior to the
event on name badges on-site with stickers at
the registration desk.
“It’s a great practice to show inclusion.”
3. Create an inclusive restroom policy
Allow guests to choose the restroom of their
actual gender identity and creating at least
one gender-neutral restroom in the event
space is one of the best ways to incorporate inclusion and make attendees feel comfortable,
according to Smith.
“Even in every Target in the U.S., there is
at least one gender-neutral restroom,” Smith
said. “For conferences and conventions that
usually have restrooms with several stalls,
having a sign outside that directs folks to a
gender-neutral restroom elsewhere is a best
practice.”
“If you want to be really bold and really
brave and really inclusive, you can rebrand
multi-stall restrooms as gender-neutral as
well,” Smith added. “That is the extreme case
but it is the future.”
4. Update forms to reflect gender diversity
If you have registration forms that require
attendees to choose male or female, it’s important to offer a third gender option and titles
beyond Mr., Mrs. or Ms., according to Smith.
“You can include ‘Other’ as an alternative
gender option, and gender-neutral honorifics
such as Mx.,” Smith said, which indicates no
gender or gender other than male or female.
5. Promote the event and yourself as
LGBTQIA-welcoming
Including the LGBTQ community in event
marketing images and using inclusive language are two ways for meeting professionals
to reflect inclusion, according to Smith, who
also stressed the importance of meeting planners positioning themselves as inclusive in the
event bidding process.
“The LGBTQ market is huge, and there are a
lot of events we are looking for bids on,” Smith
said. “So if you’re submitting bids and filling
out RFPs, make sure you demonstrate that you
have the awareness and are doing all of these
things and have a plan in place to create a
gender-neutral event.”
By Lori Tenny
the agenda
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BERNADETTE SMITH ONSTAGE AT MPI’S WEC 2018
“PRONOUN STICKERS” USED BY GOOGLE
FROM BERNADETTE SMITH’S PRESENTATION
AT MPI’S WEC 2018