Celebrating Pride 2021

This week as Wales celebrates Pride, the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences would like to celebrate and support our LGBTQ+ colleagues and students.

The month of August is an exciting time in Wales, dedicated to celebrating our LGBTQ+ communities, building allies and supporting LGBTQ+ projects and organisations. Although there are initiatives within the School and the wider University running continuously throughout the year, our efforts will be amped up during Welsh Pride season.

We will be running an Earth Pride campaign on Twitter from 16-20 August 2021 to take part in celebrations, raise internal awareness of LGBTQ+ social movements, and bring attention to some of the challenges that LGBTQ+ people face in science fields. Please follow the campaign on our Twitter account using #CUEARTHPRIDE to show your support.

The School of Earth and Environmental Sciences will always affirm and be accepting of lesbian, gay, bi, trans, and other LGBTQ+ individuals. We continue to challenge homophobia, biphobia and transphobia, and seek to provide a positive and inclusive working and learning environment that allows our LGBTQ+ colleagues and students to be respected in their identity and expression.

The first step towards shaping an inclusive culture is developing mutual respect and understanding. We equip our staff and students with up-to-date knowledge through training sessions hosted by the Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity Committee.

The training day planned to take place in November 2021 will focus on gender equality, particularly:

• Trans identity
• Useful language and terms
• Trans equality in law and policy
• How organisations can work to be trans-inclusive

The training session will be an opportunity for staff and students to learn about gender equality and consider how they can make a difference for their trans colleagues and peers.

The School also plans to host an LGBTQ+ Picnic in the Park event for community networking in the Autumn term of 2021. Dates are not yet confirmed but please look out for an email invitation.

We are proud that Cardiff University was named one of the top ten most inclusive employers in Britain by LGBTQ+ equality charity Stonewall in its Top 100 Employers list for 2020. Take a look at our recently updated Trans Policy for guidance about how the whole Cardiff community can offer support.

To demonstrate your commitment to making positive progress for our LGBTQ+ community, we hope you will be able to attend the upcoming events and show your support for Welsh Pride on our social media channels.