I repent: I talk about my husband Jonathan too much! Okay, yes, I am incredibly fortunate to have married a man who is worth talking about; true to his name, he is a gift from God. That said, I recognize that talking about my husband has become my way of "coming out" and "staying out".

Being out is hugely important to me: living openly as an LGBTQ person is a privilege that many people have fought for and too many people had to die for. Many within my lifetime! I honour this struggle by taking up my space.

The practice of fully embracing who we are and each other is a muscle. Like any other muscle, it can fail under pressure. Pressure challenges us to give up space, shrink, and contract. I practice my "being true" muscle daily by making it a habit to talk about my amazing husband. In doing so, I not only celebrate the amazing person he is but also the fantastic person I am. I take up my space!

The invitation to take up space, which many of us benefit from today, was hard won: first by the enslaved people, then the black people, then the Jewish people, then women, and then the gays — step by step through many non linear permutations of embracing "otherness". Much within my lifetime!

I see the real possibility of this space being lost: first, the gays will lose their space, then the women, and so on — step by step, in small ways and big ways. We cannot allow ourselves to disassociate from the struggle. Progress won in my lifetime, can just as easily be lost in my lifetime.

The recent backtracking within the Fortune 100 away from diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives scare me. If an organisation's commitment to building a better world is this reactive and opportunistic, and if it's values are this negotiable, then it's commitment could not have been authentic in the first place. Doing the right thing and standing up to systemic injustice go beyond "the political environment" and "regulatory landscape." I see your lack of integrity!

When Hitler queued up Jewish people in front of the gas chambers, he didn't do so in isolation. A whole society, and in reality, an entire world, systemically participated in co-creating an environment where this was able to happen. First, a few people colluded, then a few institutions, and then a few countries. It happened, first in the small things, and then in the big things. Though this didn't happen in my lifetime, the lived experience of this reality still walks this earth. How easy do we forget?!

My wish for 2025 is that we will find the courage to embody activism. We need activists now more than ever. I love Jesper With-Fogstrup's perspective on everyday activism in this article¹: If you see something wrong, speak up; don't just accept that bad things happen. Dont give up your space!

Notes

• This post respond to several fortune 100 companies, for example, Meta, Target, McDonald
• An early version of this reflection was posted on LinkedIn.

References

Related tags

social justiceactivismdei