Talking about diversity in the context of sexual orientation is steadily becoming less of a taboo subject, although there’s still a long way to go before equal rights are achieved. Techint Engineering & Construction champions diversity and the protection of human rights. Find out more about our Transparency Line.

June is Pride Month, when we commemorate efforts to raise the visibility of the LGBTQIA+ community and its struggle to achieve equal rights and a peaceful life to be lived freely without judgment.

Although a great deal of progress has been made in the battle to overcome discrimination and violence related to sexual orientation and gender identity in many different professional and social fields, much still remains to be done, and the engineering and construction industry is no exception.

Techint E&C advocates diversity and equal rights, and is a signatory to the United Nations Global Compact, which means that the company is committed to aligning its business operations and strategies with ten universal principles in the areas of human rights, labor, environment and anti-corruption. This includes support and respect for the protection of internationally declared human rights, and eschewing any involvement in human rights violations.

Thousands of different Pride events are organized during the month of June each year, involving exponentially greater numbers of people. The celebrations take the form of marches, parades, artistic expressions, festivals and talks, held in cities and communities around the world. However, Pride activities are not limited to June, as the members of the community develop collective and individual actions as part of their activism on a daily basis to achieve an impact at a more local level.

The choice of the month of June has its roots in a pivotal event, the Stonewall Inn riots which broke out on June 28, 1969, at this iconic gay bar in Greenwich Village, New York. An early-morning police raid intended to round up some of its members escalated into a clash with the bar’s patrons, soon joined by other village lesbian and gay bars, who fought back when the police became violent.

The riots spread through other districts where protests continued to erupt during the next few days, and within a short time, Village residents had organized themselves into activist groups, demanding the right to live openly without fear of arrest. A year later, the first Pride marches were held across the U.S. to mark the uprising, a term popularized by the bisexual activist Brenda Howard, who was involved in the organization of these events.

What does LGBTQIA+ mean?

The letters LGBTQIA refer to:

• Lesbian: A woman who feels sexual and affective attraction to other women.
• Gay: A man who feels sexual and affective attraction to other men.
• Bisexual: A person who feels romantic, affective or sexual attraction to more than one gender, be it their own or a different one.
• Transgender: A person whose gender does not match their biological sex as assigned at birth, regardless of whether they undergo any treatment.
• Queer: person who is neither heterosexual nor cisgender (where gender identity matches sex assigned at birth), and who refuses to be defined by their sexual practices or gender.
• Intersex: Individuals born with any of several sex characteristics that do not fit binary notions of male and female bodies.
• Asexual: A person who is not sexually attracted to any other sex.

The acronyms LGBT or LGBTI are also often used.

Techint E&C is committed to making the world a fairer and more sustainable place, where human rights are respected. The company has a Transparency Line, a confidential channel where employees, suppliers, customers and the community in general can report situations or behaviors that threaten or discriminate against any person, or run counter to the principles enshrined in the company’s Code of Conduct.

Sources: UN Global Compact