In a showing of solidarity with The UK Pride Organisers Network and other UK Pride organisations we have removed all colour from our logos.
The month of June often sees corporate entities and businesses add rainbows to their logos inrecognition of Pride Month. To organisations such as ourselves who Celebrate, Educate and Connectthe LGBTQI+ community, this can often feel like a cynical attempt to both appear "woke" and cash inon our fabulous pink pound.
Whilst we welcome organisations showing their support for our community, we feel that this wouldbe better achieved by ensuring they have diverse workforces, offer the same level of benefits toLGBTQI+ employees in terms of parental leave, pension rights and access to preferred washrooms.
We know that many companies wholeheartedly support our community and do so throughout theyear, both by making donations and ensuring they have safe and accepting work places. We haveremoved our rainbow today as a statement to those companies who will remove their rainbows atthe earliest opportunity, now the month of June is over and the bandwagon has disappeared intothe sunset.
Charlie Watts, Pride in Surrey's CEO will be overseeing the removal of our colourful rainbowbranding from our shop and safe space in Woking today, to highlight the issue of the disappearingrainbow.
Charlie said "We have removed our rainbow today to draw attention to the fact that manybusinesses will remove their pride logos from their online and physical presence. We are here for ourcommunity every single day and we feel that the commercialisation of Pride Month dilutes themessage and reason we celebrate in June. To those who are unaware, June is the anniversary of theStonewall riots, which were the catalyst for the gay rights movement"
Lisa Finan-Cooke, Pride in Surrey's Chief Operating Officer commented "Visibility of the LGBTQI+community is important and necessary 365 days a year. We are not a trend for June, we deservevisibility and respect every day and sincerely hope that the businesses who display Pride logosthroughout June will begin to boast about their diversity and support all year round. It's easy to adda rainbow to your logo, to show real support and inclusivity in your workforce and business everyday is the hard task"