By Jill Stark
It is the international symbol of gay pride – an iconic image of diversity and acceptance.
But as the push for equality gathers momentum, the rainbow flag is being co-opted.
Telstra "disco phone boxes".
It is being waved proudly by corporate giants in the race to position themselves on the right side of history.
Last week more than 50 businesses took out a full-page advertisement in a national newspaper, pledging support for marriage equality.
An ANZ GayTM in Oxford Street, Sydney.Credit: Keren Dobia
It comes as a growing number of corporations are setting up internal "pride" groups to support lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) staff and customers.
Some say the focus on diversity is long overdue and the increased visibility will help challenge discrimination.
They argue that without major corporate backers such as ANZ and NAB, community events including Melbourne's Midsumma Festival and Sydney's Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras might go to the wall.
But others fear it is "pink washing" – an attempt to cash in on rising public support for equality by appearing gay friendly.
Ben and Jerry's contribution to the marriage equality debate.
"We're talking about multinational corporations who do big business with a lot of other countries around the world that are not LGBTI supportive, or more than that they're actually openly discriminatory if not violent," said Nic Holas, a queer activist and writer.
"It's all very good to say 'yes, we're inclusive and yes we're pro marriage equality and we love the gays' but if they're directly profiting off work with other nations that are doing the exact opposite that's pink washing. Marketing is effective when it comes to making corporates appear more human but the profit will always drive the decision-making process."
The Burger King pride whopper - viewed by many as a marketing stunt.
As part of this year's Mardi Gras celebrations, ANZ installed "GAYTMs" in Sydney, New Zealand and Daylesford in country Victoria, winning the bank a slew of local and international marketing awards and attracting media attention in more than 70 countries.
It prompted Telstra to create "disco phone boxes", while Carsguide.com.au produced a range of "MardiCars". Ice cream seller Ben and Jerry's "I DOugh" campaign in support of marriage equality involved an "Equality Calling" rainbow coloured London phone box.
In Melbourne, Yarra Trams turned two tram stops into "glam stops" to support Midsumma Festival, using rainbow colours and the image of drag queen Dolly Diamond. In the pre-season competition, NAB sponsored and drove the AFL's first Pride game between Sydney and Fremantle.
While many of these campaigns have received widespread public support, the commodification of a civil rights movement has had pushback.
When a Burger King outlet in the United States last year released a "Pride Whopper" in a rainbow wrapper printed with the words "We are all the same inside", it was condemned as a stunt.
This week, Pizza Hut UK was ridiculed for trying to gain brand recognition through a tweet to Caitlyn Jenner, saying that the former Olympian and reality TV star who came out as transgender was "Welcome in Pizza Hut any time."
In New Zealand, a GAYTM was vandalised by "Queers Against Injustice" activists, who claimed the bank had "co-opted gay symbolism for commercial purposes."
However, Andrew Purchas, president of the Bingham Cup – the gay rugby world cup, staged in Sydney last year, with sponsors including the Commonwealth Bank, Lendlease and Telstra - said most corporates recognised their support for equality had to be authentic and meaningful.
As part of its sponsorship, Lendlease invited Purchas with Wallabies star David Pocock and head of the Australian Rugby Union, Bill Pulver, to visit its building sites, educating workers on homophobia and encouraging LGBTI employees to be open in the workplace.
"Once upon a time it was corporates trying to buy the pink dollar whereas now it's about them genuinely seeing that diversity is a positive in terms of supporting their employees and their customers and actually being good corporate citizens," Purchas said.
"No longer can they just whack an ad up at an event or put a rainbow flag on a pamphlet. Our community is intelligent and will only respond to things that are genuine."
Pride in Diversity – a national support program to help employers make their workplaces more welcoming for LGBTI people – ranks its 90 members annually on inclusiveness, through the Australian Workplace Equality Index.
Director Dawn Hough said when the organisation began in 2009 there were eight members, with many businesses reluctant to sign up for fear of losing conservative customers.
Now, competition to top the league table is fierce. This year, six out of the top 10 companies indexed were Australia's major banks or financial services companies.
Next year an index will be launched for the country's top sporting codes.
Hough said competitively, there is a corporate imperative to be inclusive.
"When we first started, one particular bank just really did not want to come on board but then it got to the stage where they were the only one in their industry that wasn't signed up so suddenly they were interested. That has become one of our top performing members," she said.
"We don't mind what the reasoning is for bringing us on board, once we're in the door we can really make a difference and we start to see change."
After an organisation joins they are offered training and given assistance to set up diversity networks, overhaul policies and address bullying and harassment issues.
Hough said companies now recognise the business case for diversity, not only in terms of attracting customers but in retaining the best staff.
Research from Out for Australia – a mentoring organisation for young LGBTI professionals – shows that 39 per cent had experienced or witnessed discrimination based on an employee's gender identity or sexual orientation and 49 per cent felt forced back into the closet at work.
Melissa Tandy, chair of ANZ's global Pride Network, acknowledged that diversity was good for the bottom line but said it was also positive for staff.
"If you've got a proportion of your workforce that isn't out, and is using an extreme amount of energy to hide who they are at the workplace, that's energy that they could be putting into other things whether it be their day job or volunteering."
Nic Holas warned that the focus on inclusion can often be quite narrow.
"What are the corporate policies on transgender bathroom access for example? If all we're seeing is that we're very friendly and open and accepting of our white, gay male employees who all have MBAs and live in Potts Point or Prahran, that's not really equality that's just holding up a gay puppet."
However, Tandy, who with the help of Pride in Diversity recently assisted the bank's first employee to go through a male to female gender transition, said they had policies to support transgender employees and are currently updating guidelines for branch staff on how to manage transitioning customers.
"John presented last week as a male and now he's presenting this week as a female, how do we support them? At what point do we change our systems from male to female? We're also looking at how do we acknowledge intersex or non-binary genders in our systems," she said.
Dawn Hough said the challenge was often convincing executives, particularly in the conservative public sector, there was a business case for diversity.
"There's still a fear out there that if we start doing this type of inclusion then we're going to have people running around with rainbow flags in fishnets. They still see it as being about who you sleep with and it's a personal issue, you don't bring to work, but that's just ignorance," she said.
"Employers who say we've lived, breathed and dreamed diversity but we're not ready for LGBTI inclusion yet are fooling themselves."
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