Many companies have signed up to Time for Change to support those with mental health problems, are proactively supporting their LGBTQ+ communities and more. An inclusive, compassionate culture may start at the top but it has to run through the entire organisation. Caroline Paige’s experience as a transgender officer in the forces and as an equality and diversity advisor and mentor is relevant to corporate life. “The military is a big corporation. It was very hostile towards LGBTQ+ people and is now openly supportive; and it took a long time to change people’s opinions, inside and out, and the perception that the military was an exclusive, white, masculine, macho environment.
“That was done through someone at the top saying, ‘This is crazy, we need to introduce this policy, this is wrong.’ But just introducing policy doesn’t work, you have to show people why it’s wrong and the best way to do that is to show people you’ve given a hard time to in the past as positive role models: ‘Look at what this person’s done, they have risen up the ranks of the company like everybody else, they were not given preferential treatment’.”
LGBTQ+ people need support through this process, whether that comes from HR, line managers, peers or other people going through the same experience. Advocates are also vital, says Paige: “As much as I shout out, ‘This is me and I have the right to be me’, a lot of people switch off because they’re not interested. But if a heterosexual, fixed gender advocate stands up and says, ‘What you are missing is that Caroline is this and that’, people listen because it’s not me defending myself.”