{"id":224,"date":"2023-06-15T13:52:50","date_gmt":"2023-06-15T17:52:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/diversityandinclusion\/?p=224"},"modified":"2024-06-14T11:27:09","modified_gmt":"2024-06-14T15:27:09","slug":"pride-and-privilege","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/diversityandinclusion\/2023\/06\/15\/pride-and-privilege\/","title":{"rendered":"Pride and Privilege"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0 By Kristopher W. Peters<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Grappling with your sexual orientation isn\u2019t really fun, easy, convenient, or conducive to long-term happiness. At least for me it wasn\u2019t. I\u2019d characterize the whole experience as rather anxiety-inducing and stressful. I\u2019m sure many of my LGBTQ counterparts would agree. I tackled coming to terms with being gay by eventually waking up one day and saying enough already, who cares? I was exhausted with grappling with that identity crisis and decided I had enough. But I was lucky; I confronted coming out of the closet from a position of privilege. Many members of our community don\u2019t have that luxury.<\/p>\n

After all, I\u2019m a white man, from an economically stable and relatively progressive household. My mother, a native New Yorker, has long-been an outspoken advocate for LGBTQ rights. During the Windsor and Obergefell years, when I think LGBTQ rights really started gaining national attention and public support, she would always rant about it and ask, \u201cwhat\u2019s the big deal?\u201d So while coming out was incredibly liberating and transformative to me personally, I also didn\u2019t have to grapple with any sort of significant reckoning with key people in my life. A lot of LGBTQ folks, including some close friends, can\u2019t say the same.<\/p>\n

This matters when we talk about representation, which I think is what Pride month is about. It\u2019s about being out, loud, and proud, and celebrating the pretty incredible strides that the LGBTQ community has made. But it\u2019s also a reminder of how much work there is left to do. I\u2019m especially mindful of this because of what we\u2019re seeing happening across our country right now. There\u2019s a real intransience to a significant part of the LGBTQ community, particularly transgender and non-binary individuals. We see it in government actions (mainly on the state and local level), but also in businesses, and in the places we work. And these issues only get exacerbated when you add in other characteristics like race, sex, national origin, socio-economic class, or religion. That\u2019s the tricky part about our community \u2013 there\u2019s layers to it.<\/p>\n

As lawyers, we are in an incredible position of power and privilege to help. Especially at a firm like Duane Morris, which so openly and vigorously supports DEI. So this Pride month, let\u2019s check in with the LGBTQ people in our lives and ask how we can help. It could make all the difference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 By Kristopher W. Peters Grappling with your sexual orientation isn\u2019t really fun, easy, convenient, or conducive to long-term happiness. At least for me it wasn\u2019t. I\u2019d characterize the whole experience as rather anxiety-inducing and stressful. I\u2019m sure many of my LGBTQ counterparts would agree. I tackled coming to terms with being gay by eventually … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Pride and Privilege”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":490,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[142,90,109,141,10,108,140],"ppma_author":[47],"class_list":["post-224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-diversity-equity-and-inclusion","tag-dm-pride","tag-duane-morris-pride","tag-kristopher-w-peters","tag-lgbtq","tag-pride-month","tag-windsor-and-obergefell"],"authors":[{"term_id":47,"user_id":490,"is_guest":0,"slug":"dmdandi","display_name":"Duane Morris Diversity and Inclusion","avatar_url":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/diversityandinclusion\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/39\/2020\/10\/dmlogo.jpg","author_category":"","last_name":"Inclusion","first_name":"Duane Morris Diversity &","job_title":"","user_url":"https:\/\/www.duanemorris.com\/practices\/diversity_and_inclusion.html","description":"Read about Diversity & Inclusion @ Duane Morris<\/a>"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/diversityandinclusion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/diversityandinclusion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/diversityandinclusion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/diversityandinclusion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/490"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/diversityandinclusion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/diversityandinclusion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/diversityandinclusion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/diversityandinclusion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/diversityandinclusion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/diversityandinclusion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}