We don’t mean your name, or even what you do for work or school – we mean “who are you”. The “who” that we are is the result of a combination of facets of our identity that are, in themselves, a combination of other things. Who we are today is not the same as who we were in the past, or who we will be in the future, interdependent on so many other things within and outside of ourselves. What is important to you in terms of your identity and who you are is different from who someone else will be and what is important to them. Of course, it is sometimes easy to fall into the trap of looking at the world through the narrow lens of our own experience; we see the world in a particular way, and we see identity in a particular way, which can mean it becomes a challenge to understand the perspectives of others who experience the world and navigate identity differently to us.
Identity is shaped by our life experiences – how we are brought up,...
Every June the world celebrates Pride Month, marking the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots and reflecting on how far we have come towards LGBTQIA+ rights and where we still need to go. At AnimalConcepts, we are celebrating LGBTQIA+ inclusion and championing diversity in the zoo and aquarium community with a brand-new free resource addressing the ways in which animal care and other facilities can support staff, students, and visitors no matter how they identify. You can download the free resource HERE
While we wear the rainbow flag for June, it is important to remember as a community that Pride is not something we think about only for one month of the year. There are always things we can do year-round, whether it is day-to-day changes like sharing your pronouns or using inclusive language, or systemic changes like rewriting our DEI policies or building new gender-inclusive infrastructure.
We presented a webinar on gender diversity and...
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