Marjolein Dennissen

158 The Herculean task of diversity networks Appendix 3: Continued Discourse Illustrative quotes The fact that currently you are still in a box, could be your strength. (..) You have to think about it with each other. How do you take up ambassadorship? (..) I don’t know if everybody wants to openly express it like that. Some people would not.. not feel comfortable with that. I think that – while I think we really need them – I think that our more senior members, who are more experienced, have already proven themselves, not because of their background, but because of their performance, because of their quality, we really, really need them. While, I get the feeling, that particularly that group, does not really, because they are in the next fase of their career, directly associated, or the label diversity. In the long term, I do not want to be known as [Glenn] whose parents were born in [foreign country] and a great advocate for diversity, but I just want to be known as [Glenn] who is just doing his job well, and who is just a good person. (Glenn) To commit to our ideas and be enthusiastic, well, for me that is a quick win. That is something you can work with. Somebody who does not want to speak up.. Because sometimes that is something as well, right? What you often have, if you commit yourself to a network like [the ethnic minority network], you quickly get a sort of label. (..) There are people who do not want that. I once had a colleague who said: is that the migrant network [‘allochtonennetwerk’ in Dutch]? Look, then you quickly get those sort of labels. And some people do not want that, so they are less pronounced. (Marvin) Discourse of visibility I think to create an LGBT friendly environment, where it is self-evident that there is diversity, that there are heterosexuals, homosexuals, uh... everything. [Interviewer: And how do you think to accomplish that?] By means of creating visibility, by organizing events as network, presentations, conferences or that sort of things. We then also invite heterosexuals and with that we create some visibility. (Evan) That when two or three years ago on World Coming Out Day the rainbow flag flew for the first time on top of the [building of the organization]. That helps enormously. (..) That helps for the people themselves. Visibility and acknowledgement actually. Acknowledgement. In the sense that everybody.. or, it is completely accepted and normal in all levels within [Finance] and no manager or even no one within the [organization], very rare I think, who dares to make a negative remark about gays and quality. (Martin) It has to be a safe environment, where everybody feels at home. And we could only do that by making it visible and to discuss it openly. (Amy) We should keep expressing ourselves and show that, look: we are here, we are here to stay, and we are gay. (Rachel) Discourses of normalization and professionalism Because it is, in the media it is very.. uh.. when it is about gays, there is a photo of one of those Pride Parades with all those partying transvestites and those sort of things, but then I think, that is not.. is that always the association with gays? No, it should not be that way. So therefore, I want to be an example that it can be otherwise, the common perception should not be that they [employees] are only confronted those sort of images in the media when it is about gays. (Evan)