Connections LGBTQ+ Pride Month June 2020 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR PMB Administrative Services AVSO CADR IBC OFAS OHA Our Vision: To Deliver Outstanding Products and Customer Service While Acvely Creang and Sustaining a Respecul Focus Welcome Rise and Shine In 1980 when I was 21, I applied for a GS‐3 Clerk/Typist the dreams and hopes of posion with the U.S. Department of Jusce. Since I generaons of individuals would be handling grand jury material, it required I who simply could not receive a top secret security clearance, which in those experience the most basic days was conducted by agents of the FBI. of life’s joys: an honorable opportunity to serve their I was asked to disclose in wring if I had ever engaged in country and marriage to homosexual acvity. My relaves were asked the same the person they loved. queson, and so were random neighbors I didn’t even know who later stopped me on the street to tell me Fieen years later, loud and proud and sll with the about it. If any of us answered in the affirmave, I could Jusce Department, I was in the Seale Gay Men’s be denied a security clearance because at the me it was Chorus when Dr. Maya Angelou was our guest. At our thought that my “perversion” (or its concealment) first rehearsal the 200‐member chorus burst into meant I was vulnerable to blackmail. thunderous applause and sang to her an a cappella version of “We Shall Overcome.” Dr. Angelou graciously When the Connecons magazine team considered this accepted this spontaneous tribute with regal dignity. month’s beauful cover featuring DOI employees Maria She understood absolutely that her story, indeed her and Ana [read their story on pages 13 & 14], who were life, inspired those of us in the LGBTQ+ community as the first same sex couple deployed to a war zone by the much as it did everyone who has felt themselves on the U.S. Army, I thought immediately of Dr. Maya Angelou’s outside looking in. great poem, “Sll I Rise,” and in parcular the last line: Thank you for spending a few moments perusing “I am the dream and the hope of the slave Connecons magazine, and for celebrang with us and so I rise, I rise, I rise.” remarkable stories of the LGBTQ+ community, for it was I couldn’t see into the future far enough back then to not very long ago when these stories could not be told. imagine that one day members of the LGBTQ+ With warmest regards for a bright future, community could marry and have successful careers as open federal employees. But Maria and Ana exemplify ‐ Steve Carlisle (he/him) , Connecons Editor 2 Welcome: Rise and Shine 3 From the DOI Office of Civil Rights 4 Introducon to LGBTQ+ Pride Month 6 Focus on LGBTQ+ Icons: Bayard Ruston 7 Focus on LGBTQ+ History: Stonewall 8 Spotlight: Ash Richardson‐White 10 Non‐Binary: A Parent’s Perspecve 11 Pronouns and Respect / Title VII 12 Why Pride? 13 Maria and Ana: A Story of Public Service 15 Full Circle: Gary Bremen 17 Symbols and Identy 18 Meet DOI’s LGBTQ+ Family 19 Shout‐Out: FWS Pride in the Wild 20 Listening with Empathy 21 Voices for Change 2 From the Department of the Interior June 19, 2020 based solely on sexual orientaon and standing for those beliefs, sll exists. The June is the month that our Naon and the fight for dignity and respect for the LGBTQ+ Department of the Interior celebrate community connues as advocates and allies Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and relessly fight to forge a more inclusive Queer+ (LGBTQ+) Pride. It is a society. Efforts of the community have commemoraon of the heroic efforts of spurred sweeping progress by changing Americans within the LGBTQ+ community hearts and minds, and by demanding equal and how they have strengthened our naon treatment under our laws, from our courts, through their incredible talent and creavity and in our polics. to create awareness and goodwill. The Department has taken acon as well In the United States, the last Sunday in June when then Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt was inially celebrated as “Gay Pride Day,” issued Personnel Bullen 18‐01 in 2018, which but the actual day was flexible. It is for the first me in the Department’s history celebrated in June to honor the 1969 “The fight for dignity shielded employees from harassing conduct Stonewall Uprising in Manhaan, whereby and respect for the based on the employee’s sexual orientaon, as patrons and supporters of the Stonewall Inn well as other protected bases such as race, staged an uprising to resist police LGBTQ+ community marital status and polical affiliaon. This harassment and persecuon of LGBTQ+ policy gives Interior employees greater Americans. The Stonewall Uprising was a connues as advocates protecon from abuse than provided for catalyst for the Gay Liberaon Movement in under federal employment law, and it exceeds the United States. and allies relessly any previous Departmental acon. In major cies across the naon, the “day” During LGBTQ+ Pride Month, the Office of Civil soon grew to encompass a month‐long fight to forge a more Rights encourages supervisors, managers, and series of celebratory events. Today, inclusive society.” employees to parcipate in the myriad of celebraons include educaonal acvies, acvies that are held naonally in pride parades, lectures, workshops, symposia, picnics, fesvals, recognion of LGBTQ+ Pride Month. Your parcipaon and concerts, all of which aract millions of parcipants around supports connuous learning and appreciaon for the many the world. An essenal characterisc of the acvies are the contribuons made by the LGBTQ+ community. Addionally, it memorials held in recognion of those members of the fosters knowledge and understanding of the many employees community who have died to hate crimes or HIV/AIDS. The within the Interior that are proud members of the LGBTQ+ purpose of the month is to commemorate the impact Lesbian, community. Let us connue to work together to maintain the Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer+ individuals have had in Interior's reputaon as being an employer who educates, the shaping of our history locally, naonally, and honors, and recognizes all employees that work to further the internaonally, and to show forth their connual efforts to DOI mission. further the Department's success in achieving its mission objecves. Thank you, Despite the extraordinary progress the LGBTQ+ community has Erica White‐Dunston made to actualize equity, diversity and inclusion, discriminaon Director, Office of Civil Rights Employees who differ from most of their customers and crical to succeeding in a global colleagues in religion, gender, sexual market. It’s the inclusion part that eludes them Did orientaon, socioeconomic background, and — creang an environment where people can generaon oen hide important parts of be who they are, that values their unique themselves at work for fear of negave talents and perspecves, and makes them want consequences. We in the diversity and inclusion to stay. community call this “identy cover,” and it you The key to inclusion is understanding who your makes it difficult to know how they feel and employees really are. what they want, which makes them vulnerable to leaving their organizaons. ‐ Karen Brown, founder and managing partner of Bridge Arrow, a diversity and know? Most business leaders understand the diversity inclusion management consulng firm. part of diversity and inclusion. They get that having a diverse workforce is important to 3 3 About LGBTQ+ Pride Month Telling All Americans' Stories: Introduction to LGBTQ+ Pride Month Courtesy of Naonal Park Service American doctors aempted to diagnose and treat what they considered pathological sexual behavior. At the Selling Building "The world changes in direct proporon to in Portland, Oregon, Dr. J. Allen Gilbert treated paents for the number of people willing to be honest “sexual inversion." Here, gender nonconformists like Alberta about their lives." ‐‐ Armistead Maupin Lucille Hart underwent some of the earliest sex‐reassignment procedures in the United States. These medical professionals As America’s storytellers, the Naonal Park Service (NPS) is worked through a period when homosexuality had been commied to telling the history of all Americans in all of its understood as sexual deviance, then slowly came to understand diversity and complexity. For many years, the rich histories of homosexuality as an outward expression of an individual’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Americans have internal identy. By the mid‐tweneth century, sex researchers been erased through punishing laws and general prejudice— like Alfred Kinsey at The Kinsey Instute in Bloomington, appearing sporadically in police proceedings, medical reports, Indiana, began to challenge popular percepons of "normave" military hearings, and immigraon records. sexuality. Yet for many LGBTQ+ groups, preserving and interpreng their Such histories show that gender and sexual idenes are not past has been an important part of building communies and fixed. The labels and categories different instuons have finding mutual support. Because of their efforts, we can retrace created to label different idenes change over me and never LGBTQ+ histories across the United States—from private encompass the full spectrum of personal identy. Because of residences, hotels, bars, and government agencies to hospitals, this, historians must study the past without assigning the parks, and community centers. From the mujerado of the people of the past with an LGBTQ+ identy that they would not Acoma and Laguna tribes to the drag queens of the Stonewall have understood. Interpreters face this challenge at Hull House riots, discover their stories in our naon’s parks, homes, and in Chicago, Illinois. Here, pioneer of the selement house historic sites.