Celebrating Pride in Our Workplace and Communities

Gen Blog | Community

By Kim Allman | Head of Corporate Responsibility and Government Affairs

This month, the Gen™ family of brands, including Norton, Avast and more, joins millions around the world recognizing Pride month. This is a time to memorialize the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots and those who have lost their lives due to hate crimes, commemorate the impact that LGBTQ+ individuals have had on our collective history, celebrate the progress made in the fight for equality and reaffirm our commitment to support LGBTQ+ rights.

Gen + The Trevor Project 

We are excited to announce our new partnership with The Trevor Project, the leading organization working to end suicide among LGBTQ+ young people in the U.S. and beyond. The nonprofit operates several programs to help prevent and respond to the public health crisis of suicide among LGBTQ+ young people, who are particularly vulnerable to cyberbullying.

According to the most recent data from the Cyberbullying Research Center, more than half of LGBTQ+-identifying students have experienced cyberbullying at some point during their lifetimes. In addition, the CDC’s annual Youth Risk Behavior survey has consistently found that queer students, including transgender and non-binary students, are more than twice as likely than their heterosexual peers to be bullied online.

To combat these trends, Gen is teaming up with The Trevor Project to bolster the organization’s TrevorSpace platform, an affirming online community for 400,000 LGBTQ+ young people to safely share interests and make connections. Gen is also supporting the creation of an educational resource that speaks to how LGBTQ+ young people can stay safe online and how we can all promote more inclusive and welcoming digital spaces. We look forward to providing more details on this initiative over the next year.

Gen Team Pride Month Activations 

During Pride month, Gen will co-host an employee Lunch & Learn with our PROUD employee resource group (ERG) and The Trevor Project. Gen teams will learn more about the urgency of The Trevor Project’s mission, get access to the latest data and insights on LGBTQ+ mental health and hear more about how support and affirmation for the LGBTQ+ community is crucial year-round.

Gen and PROUD will also host our third annual all-employee virtual Pride Parade, featuring a guest speaker from The Trevor Project.

Additionally, PROUD plans to offer a TED Talk discussion while WONDER, our women-focused ERG, is running an #IamRemarkable workshop on intersectionality.

The Social Impact team has set up an #AllInThisTogether Pride Challenge in our Giving Hub, hosted by Benevity, so that employees can learn, share and participate by taking actions each week to support LGBTQ+ people at Gen and in our community during Pride Month. Employees that complete the challenge will receive a reward to donate to their favorite cause. Employees will also get the chance to learn more about our corporate nonprofit partners – The Trevor Project, Out & Equal, and The Pride Forum in Czechia – and give to these and other causes supporting LGBTQ+ communities and vetted by our PROUD ERG.

These June activations are complemented by two recent employee training co-hosted with Out & Equal. The organization is renowned for its work to make the world’s workplaces as inclusive as possible for LGBTQ+ professionals. Out & Equal provided resources at the Nonbinary & Beyond training focused on pronoun usage and other nonbinary allyship topics. An additional training, on Intersectional Allyship at Work, took place to help employees develop a greater understanding of their own dimensions of diversity, learn what “intersectionality” is and expand their own capacity for allyship, through interactive and dynamic group exercises.

While we are happy to be celebrating Pride this June, we focus on equality year-round at Gen. We will continue to partner with high-impact nonprofits and will work within our own company walls to promote LGBTQ+ equity and inclusion.