Many Pride Amsterdam sponsors and partners have workplace policies that benefit LGBTIQ+ people to a greater or lesser extent. This is evident from a tour of NU.nl. Of the 74 companies contacted, 39 responded. Eight did not have a defined policy.

In the past, companies that volunteered to sponsor or participate in the Pride were accused of pink. This term is used when companies raise a rainbow flag, but otherwise don’t care about LGBTQ+ rights within their organization.

For example, Shell Corporation came under fire a few years ago. The company carried the colors of the rainbow at its gas station, but did not make any other contributions to the LGBTQ+ community. Uber also took part in the boat parade through Pride after the company’s driver refused to take the drag queen.

Primark was rejected for several years in a row because the clothes were produced in LGBTQ+ friendly countries.

Transitional leave and gender-neutral toilets

This does not seem to be the case this year. 31 companies have even included some LGBT rights in their personnel policy. This relates, for example, to adoption leave that lasts as long as maternity leave, which is not the case by law. It is also about transitional leave for transgender people who want to make the transition.

A number of companies have the latter option specifically in their collective labor agreement. For others, this falls under special leave or can be chosen in consultation.

It can also relate to gender-neutral toilets or involve the use of language in the workplace. In a number of companies, people can also choose their pronouns in IT systems.

And it goes far beyond just Holland. For example, Heineken helped eight hundred transgender Brazilians to register under their chosen name last year. “We are now looking into whether this can also be applied in other countries, but this is not yet complete,” a company spokesperson said.

But it doesn’t have to be just about personnel policy. The hotel chain Accor, for example, helps LGBTQ+ people who live on the street because they have been driven from their homes and work because of their sexual orientation.

Small businesses do not have the resources

Eight of the companies contacted do not have a specific policy or initiatives related to LGBT people. Four of them are small businesses, which do not always have the resources to implement such schemes.

However, there are also large multinational companies among those companies. They have lhbtiq+ networks where people talk about the topic, but they don’t do much more than that. Some companies also give money to LGBTQ+ organizations.