The month of February marks LGBTQIA+ History Month and this year commemorates 20 years since Section 28, the law that banned “promotion of homosexuality” in the UK, was repealed.
The essence of LGBTQIA+ History Month is about remembering and celebrating all those that stood up for the rights of our community – learning from the past so we can look forward to better times in the future for everyone within the LGBTQIA+ group.
We remember the rights we currently have and how far we’ve come over the years, but also remind ourselves that there are still LGBTQIA+ people around the world that live without rights and are being discriminated against. With 11 countries in the world that impose the death penalty for private and consensual same-sex sexual activity and 14 countries which criminalise the gender identity and/or expression of transgender people-there’s still a long way to go for us and many more positive history moments to be written.
Within Just Eat Takeaway.com’s Global LGBTQIA+ Network ‘JET & Proud’, the committee strived to shine a spotlight to the community and beyond on the hidden stories from LGBTQIA+ History through events and comms so that we could celebrate and remember those people and moments that changed the history for us. Some of our initiatives include:
- On 16th February, JET & Proud welcomed the charity National HIV Story Trust to our London office for a globally streamed event to share the forgotten history of HIV and AIDS pandemic of the 80s and 90s, explain how the charity preserves the stories through film for future generations and understand the current situation and status on HIV & AIDS
- We highlighted this year’s LGBT+ Month spotlight ‘#BehindTheLens’ that celebrates LGBTQIA+ peoples’ contribution to cinema and film from behind the scenes
- Through internal comms channels we highlighted prominent and extraordinary LGBTQIA+ figures and events that were important for people in the network committee – these included:
- Marsha P. Johnson
- Calling out the dates of the declassification of homosexuality and being transgender and/or gender diverse as a mental health condition
- Lili Ilse Elvene (she/her)
We can also celebrate the achievements of the JET & Proud Network over the past year as we strive to ensure everyone at JET is represented and build our community in the business to greater strengths – for example, our shiny new JET & Proud logo has now been updated to include the latest progressive Pride flag with Intersex representation.