Welcome to the CivicPRIDE Resource page! This page is intended to provide tangible resources and information to local government professionals looking to create more inclusive environments for their LGBTQIA+ residents and employees.

These terms specifically came out of the Inclusion Summit that CivicPRIDE held virtually in June 2021.

• Centering - Framing perspectives, forming cultural norms, and representing in the media based on the dominant narratives in society (heterosexual, male, cisgender, white, white-passing, etc.) 
• Diversity - The practice or quality of including or involving people from a range of different backgrounds (race, gender, sexual orientation). The “composition” of an organization
  • Primary Diversity - traits that an individual typically cannot alter
    • Race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity
  • Secondary Diversity - traits that could be changed
    • Personality type, economic status, geographic origin
• Inclusion - How we take these unique differences and incorporate them into an organization. Diverse organizations that are also learning-centered that value and incorporate diverse perspectives and views and incorporate those views into all aspects of the organization
• Intersectionality - The interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage
• Normatives - The designation of some actions or outcomes as good, desirable, or permissible and others as bad, undesirable, or impermissible

Take implicit bias tests, even semi-regularly to check in with yourself - https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/

In addition to taking tests, some questions you can ask yourself to assess your biases professionally are:

• Do I typically hire the same type of person?
• When I say a candidate is not the right fit, what do I mean?
• What does my slate of candidates look like? Do I speak up if it is not sufficiently diverse?
• Who do I like to assign to work on—and lead—project teams? Do I have the same go-to people all or most of the time?
• Who do I encourage to lead or speak out at meetings? Am I creating opportunities for those less extroverted to demonstrate their capabilities?
• How do I identify candidates for promotion and succession?

Add preferred pronouns to your email signature and social media accounts.

• Consider organization-wide call for pronouns in email signatures
• Why it’s important (https://divethru.com/add-your-gender-pronouns-in-your-email-signature/) 
• Examples of signature lines (https://lgbt.ucsf.edu/signature-samples)

Use gender neutral language.

• Spouse or Partner vs. Husband/Wife/Boyfriend/Girlfriend
• They vs. He/She

Don’t Assume - Ask questions, but only if you have a relationship with that person and stay appropriate. Research on your own if you can.

Take interest in your colleagues - bring up queer culture, media, icons, history, etc. (but stay appropriate!)

Listen - If someone says that something makes them uncomfortable, take that seriously and try your best to accommodate them/improve 

• Take space/make space
• WAIT - why am I talking?

Be Welcoming - It should be your goal to create a safe environment where employees and colleagues feel comfortable bringing up difficult topics

• Recognize the effect of your power (real or perceived) in different spaces
• Be mindful of how to mitigate power imbalances in discussions with others

Improve forms.

• Provide more gender selections than just male/female, if necessary at all 
• Remove gendered language (he/she, husband/wife) 

Improve bathrooms.

• Turn all single bathrooms into gender neutral bathrooms - If one has a urinal, just include that on the sign!
• If there aren’t single bathrooms, this will take more creativity, time and money, but it is still important

Consider internal and external policy:

• Dress Code
  • Remove gendered language and policy from dress code.
  • Examples:
    • https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeshumanresourcescouncil/2018/09/28/gender-based-dress-codes-human-resources-diversity-and-legal-impact/?sh=7b809bb34f53
    • https://elgl.org/dress-code-policies-the-hairy-dilemma/
• Benefits
  • Do your benefit packages cover gender nonconforming and trans people?
• Employee resource groups - Consider creating one or further supporting ones that exist.  
  • https://www.hrc.org/resources/establishing-an-employee-resource-group 
• Offer trainings to teach about different cultures, allyship, bias/microaggression, and more
• Involve the community through programming like:
  • Drag queen story hour at the library
  • Book clubs
• Host or support Pride events
  • Display symbols of support, especially in June
  • Hang a Pride flag (and consider other flags throughout the year too!)
  • Consider a Pride Month Proclamation
    • Examples:
      • Carol Stream, IL (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Jx8TtJLbQdUbe3yGi3ZuTowAcmSby6Fc/view?usp=sharing) 
      • Buffalo Grove, IL (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TtFQPMSI7jJ5QW2EBmX8GYXDpX2P__mn/view?usp=sharing) 
      • Geneva, IL (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NNB15B0-wsLTbJRUcEY_nhQtODaOUDfq/view?usp=sharing) 

Assess/improve your organization using the Municipal Equality Index - https://www.hrc.org/resources/municipal-equality-index