What Pride Month Means to Me

Written by: Nikki Katz, Head of Digital Design & Delivery at?Bank of?America

For me, Pride month brings many happy memories: my first Pride Parade after I came out as a lesbian in high school, leading my parents and siblings through San Francisco on a tour of rainbow flags and Pride marches a year later, bringing my oldest daughter to Dolores Park in San Francisco to experience Pride,?and many more.?

These memories are not representative of everyone’s experience, however.?Pride month is also a reminder of my own privilege?as a white, cisgender woman born to a liberal family and living in a progressive geographic area. As an example, here’s a telling and unfortunate reality: Even now, in 2021,?Black trans people in America are four times as likely as the general population to be unemployed and five times as likely to have been homeless.??

There is much work to do and I believe I have the ability and responsibility to help drive progress towards equal LGBTQ+ rights by being visible, educating myself, and using my platform for impact.?

Being Visible

My grandmother, an Auschwitz survivor who lost her entire family in the Holocaust, always?taught me to be proud of who I am and to wear my authentic identity on my sleeve?or, in her case, forearm. Even in winter, she insisted on keeping her sleeves rolled up to expose the Auschwitz identification number tattooed into her forearm. She was proud to be a survivor and dedicated her life to preserving a record of the atrocities of the Holocaust.?

Visibility and pride matter.?I am committed to being visible as a member of the LGBTQ+ community and of every other aspect of my intersectional identity – as an immigrant, a Jew, a descendent of Holocaust survivors,?and a mother to two amazing multiracial daughters.?I am fortunate to work for Bank of America, where I can be my authentic self and be supported at every level of the organization.?

Educating Myself

My own experiences have taught me about some of the issues facing the LGBTQ+ community, but left me woefully undereducated on many others. Books, videos,?news, and research have helped.?The openness and generosity of many of my Bank of America colleagues?have helped?– especially members of our LGBT+ Employee Network who have shared their personal stories. My daughters and the lens through which they see the world have helped. My 5-year-old was recently asked how she knows whether someone is a girl or a boy. She answered, “they’ll tell you if they’re a ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘they’, or something else and then you listen.” I’m taking her advice and listening.?

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Using My Platform for Impact

I have the privilege of leading our Digital Design & Delivery organization here at the bank. With that comes the?responsibility for leveraging my position to ensure that teammates in my organization feel supported and empowered to be their authentic selves, knowing that they will be respected for who they are and evaluated purely on the “what” and the “how” of their work product. I also have a responsibility for ensuring that the 40 million plus (and growing) digitally active clients, who regularly use the digital experiences my organization helps create, are?treated fairly and respectfully?in their digital interactions with us. Beyond that, I am responsible for showing up as a leader in my community and advocating for equality and justice where it’s lacking.?

Most important to me personally, though, is my responsibility to use my platform as a parent to equip my daughters with the tools to themselves become educated, be visible,?and make an impact; to raise them in their great-grandmother’s image: proud, unbreakable, compassionate, and loved for who they are.