Updates on the Work of UN-GLOBE

As the UN Secretariat moves from the Lotus e-mail system to the Outlook e-mail system, we have become aware that for the e-mails of trans staff, the name you identify with is being replaced by your legal name. This means that those you communicate with see the latter. This is a serious problem, and UN-GLOBE has immediately worked with the Office of Information Communications Technology (OICT) to find solutions

I wanted to announce to you that starting tomorrow, we’ll start the elections for the UN-GLOBE Board (which is made up of a President, two Vice-Presidents, a Secretary, and a Treasurer). Speaking for the Board, I can say that it has been a really substantial two years. UN-GLOBE has managed to substantially advance or complete the objectives I had spoken of at the beginning of this two-year term.

The work of UN-GLOBE is about changing minds and attitudes within the UN, on parental leave, on mobility, on peoples of diverse sexual or gender identities, or expressions… And I can say that on this front, we have managed to see concrete progress.

As you know, UN Secretary-General António Guterres has made gender equality one of his priority issues, which will have a domino effect on the rest of the organizations of the UN system. Well, UN-GLOBE wants to make sure that in the UN system, when we speak of gender, we do not speak in the binary only, but also address the diverse range of gender identities and gender expressions that exist in the world.

The UN-GLOBE Task Force on Gender continues to work on its recommendations to the UN system on more inclusive workplaces for trans individuals, as well as intersex individuals. We are nearing the end, and hope to be able to share our draft recommendations with trans rights groups, and intersex rights groups, before we publicize them and make an all-out push for them.

UN-GLOBE calls on António Guterres to be a strong advocate as Secretary-General for the equal rights of LGBTI people and for their safety, and stresses that this advocacy is made stronger when the UN’s own LGBTI staff have full access to their rights. Equality called for around the world must be practiced at home.

In previous messages, I have already written to you about the workshops we conducted on sexual and gender identity issues targeted to UN senior leaders. These workshops were attended by the Executive Director of UN Women, and one of the Under-Secretary-Generals of Peacekeeping, among others.

For the first time in UNHQ, at the invitation of UN-GLOBE, Under-Secretary-Generals (USGs), Assistant Secretary-Generals (ASGs), and senior managers of the UN system attended 3 workshops dedicated exclusively to LGBTI issues, to concepts such as gender expression, gender identity and the meaning of queer,.

IDAHOT 2016 is coming up, to be commemorated next Tuesday, May 17. UN-GLOBE has picked a theme for the day: the cost of hiding one’s sexual or gender identity in the UN workplace. We aim to highlight the cost to the UN of homophobia and transphobia, and bring attention to the issues faced by LGBTI staff in the field, in particular.