Friends,

Today is Transgender Day of Visibility (TDOV) and I invite you to celebrate with us. More than just visibility, TDOV gives us all an opportunity to honor and elevate the stories of trans resilience, joy, love, and strength.

Progress for the community is afoot. Earlier this year, we celebrated the long-awaited reversal of the US Transgender Military Ban. The world’s largest employer, the US Department of Defense, is demonstrating that qualifications for a job supersede prejudice. Dr. Rachel Levine became the first openly transgender person to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. And a record number of companies supporting the Equality Act – legislation that is crucial for the transgender community. America’s leading businesses are calling for the Equality Act to be passed into law not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because they know equality is good for business.

Even with this forward momentum, we can’t lose sight of the challenges we must still overcome: Anti-trans violence is a persistent, deadly reality for far too many people– especially Black and Brown transgender women. Access to healthcare, housing, employment, and other key areas of life is still a challenge. Additionally, a record number of anti-trans bills have been introduced in state houses – with many of them targeting vulnerable trans youth.

For 25 years, Out & Equal has been dedicated to transgender inclusion. And we are rolling out additional programming, in large part thanks to generous new funding, that will ensure that trans and gender expansive people are able to show up to work and thrive as their full authentic selves over the next 25 years and beyond:

  • We will shortly announce new professional development opportunities for trans and gender-expansive employees across all career stages.
  • We are stepping up our investments in transforming the workplaces so that they are prepared to welcome transgender employees. This effort includes developing diagnostics, toolkits, resources, and trainings for employers.
  • We just concluded a multi-part global initiative to bring meaningful change for trans and gender expansive employees, clients and customers, and promote broader inclusion and culture shifts. In the past month, we hosted global forums for Brazil, India, and China in partnership with business leaders. And we are now gearing up to release regionally tailored resources to offer practical, region-specific guidance for supporting these employees.
  • And just one week ago, we released a TDOV resource and social media toolkit to help your organization engage in today’s celebration. It is also a helpful guide for year-round internal efforts for transgender and gender non-conforming inclusion.

TDOV is a day of celebration and triumph. I feel lucky to have so many amazing trans and gender non-conforming people in my life that help make the world a better place. Please join me in celebrating the transgender and gender expansive community today and commit to continuing to support inclusion efforts year-round.

Thank you for your continued support and all that you do to create workplaces and communities where everyone belongs.

Sincerely,

Erin Uritus
she/her
CEO
Out & Equal Workplace Advocates