Preparing for Pride Month | How to avoid transwashing in business this Pride

Ahead of LGBTQ+ Pride Month in June, Joanne Lockwood, Inclusive Culture Expert and CEO of SEE Change Happen, outlines what transwashing is, and the negative effects it can have on your business...

LGBTQ+ Pride Month is dedicated to the celebration and commemoration of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people and whilst the rights and treatment of people with different sexual orientations have to some extent improved, transgender and non-binary individuals still face a lot of opposition and misunderstanding. Transgender rights have become a hot topic, but also a tick-box exercise, which has also led to a different type of discrimination similar to pinkwashing in the form of transwashing.

In the 2021 Government census 165,000 people identify as "other" sexual orientations and 262,000 people (0.5%) said their gender identity was different from their sex registered at birth but the figures are expected to be greater than that because of people not wishing to disclose their gender identity.

The negative effects of transwashing on both consumers and businesses

Transwashing is the practice of promoting trans rights for reputation purposes with a level of disregard for whether it is actually doing the trans community any good. An example of a transwashed service is one that might market itself as transgender-friendly without actually being open to having transgender staff or offering transgender-specific services.