Reunited for Pride at Docusign

This blog was contributed by the Docusign Pride employee resource group (ERG).

Docusign Pride is a celebration of our LGBTQIA+ community. Pride is our promise to connect through shared experiences and to encourage each other to come to work just as we are – to always respect each other’s true identities, pronouns and chosen names. With core values of acceptance, visibility and education, our goal is to build and nurture a more inclusive culture at Docusign.

For Pride Month 2022, our theme was Reunited. The Reunited theme is important to us because this was our first opportunity to reconnect in-person with our ERG after the traumatic experience of the pandemic. Life moves fast, and a lot of us haven't even met in real life before. This is the first time in over two years when we could put faces to names that we've connected with online in an attempt to build some sort of safe community.

There are so many people at Docusign that are passionate about inclusion, but there aren’t a lot of spaces where they feel safe enough to talk about it in a public setting. While Slack is great, still, a lot of people can't be as open virtually as they could be in person, where you can build confidence with another person.

That’s one of the main reasons Pride parades still exist today - so that we can be out in public together, holding hands, being seen as our queer selves and being able to express ourselves safely. Some of our members never had the chance to walk in a Pride parade before the pandemic and were able to walk for the first time this year.

It’s important for us to feel that connection.

Here are some of the activities Docusign employees enjoyed this Pride Month:

• Seattle Pride Walk - Docusign Pride members celebrated the return of the Seattle Pride Parade!

• Fireside Chat with Chris Mosier - Docusign Pride welcomed Chris Mosier for a fireside chat with Chief Diversity and Engagement Officer, Iesha Berry. Chris is a trailblazing athlete, coach and the founder of TransAthlete.com. In 2020, he made history by becoming the first transgender athlete to compete in the Olympic Trials in the gender with which they identify.

• Professionals Do Pride (Chicago) - Docusign Pride partnered with Professionals Do Pride to raise money for Center on Halsted, the Midwest's most comprehensive community center dedicated to advancing community and securing the health and well-being of LGBTQIA+ people of Chicagoland.

• Living with Pride & Making Change panel discussion - Chief Diversity and Engagement Officer, Iesha Berry, hosted a conversation with Rebecca Tallon de Havilland, Founder & CEO of Trans Project Bootcamp UK & IRL and Dublin Pride 2022 Grand Marshall, Veda Lady, Dublin drag superstar, and Dr. Robbie Lawlor, Co-Founder of Access to Medicines Ireland and second runner up Mr. Gay World.

• Queer Trivia - Pride members and allies gathered on Zoom for a queer trivia night!

• Docusign Pride Happy Hours - held in our offices in San Francisco, Seattle, and Chicago.

Docusign Pride has also identified and asked for donations to several nonprofit organizations around the world that support LGBTQIA+ communities, including:

• Trans Life, a grassroots hotline offering direct emotional and financial support to trans people in crisis—for the trans community, by the trans community. Trans and non-binary people have suicides rates over eight times higher than the overall population. Trans Lifeline is a national trans-led organization dedicated to improving the quality of trans lives by responding to the critical needs of our community with direct service, material support, advocacy, and education. (North America)

• Point of Pride - a trans-led 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, operated entirely by volunteers, that helps the most vulnerable members of the trans community feel seen and supported through access to life-saving health and wellness services.

• Instituto Marielle Franco - an organization created by the family of Marielle Franco—a city councilwoman in Rio who fought for the rights of women, the LGBT+ community and the poor. The purpose of the institute is to fight for justice in the assassination of Marielle's, protect her memory and continue her legacy. The Marielle Franco Institute inspires, connects and supports young black women, LGBTQ+ people and people from the slums who want to occupy politics in order to open the decision-making spaces. (Brazil)

• Outhouse - Outhouse is working to provide a safe space that facilitates and encourages the growth of services that support the LGBT+ community. With hate crimes against members of our community occurring all too regularly in the news, we are proud to partner with Outhouse as they work to keep the LGBT+ safe. (Ireland)

• NPO Good Aging Yells - One of the most famous Japan-wide projects by NPO Good Aging Yells is 'OUT IN JAPAN'. This project— aimed at shining the spotlight on sexual minorities in Japan—began with the goal of showcasing 10,000 portraits prior to the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games. With the cooperation of individuals, organizations, corporations and local governments, the project launched a website, an exhibition and a collection of photographs to familiarize the Japanese public with the presence of sexual minorities and to share accurate information and knowledge of the LGBT community. (Japan)

How did you celebrate Pride this year? Keep the conversation going with us @Docusign on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Learn more about our ongoing commitment to diversity, inclusion and belonging.

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