For those with shopping still to do

[drwex]

HRC, the Human Rights Campaign (a big supporter of marriage equality, among other things) has published its latest list of what it rates as GLBT-friendly businesses. (*)

http://www.hrc.org/buyersguide2010/

You can do some limited browsing of the list online, or you can download the whole thing from their site. There's also a link from that page to a description of the criteria they used to rate businesses.

If you're still out there shopping, for winter holidays or whatever, give this guide a look.

(*) As noted in comments, a business that is ranked as GLBT-friendly may have other human-rights or problematic elements to it.

Comments

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

The HRC is a big supporter of marriage equality? News to me. What exactly was their role in fighting Prop 8?

And who would have thought that buying Nike supported human rights. Go figure.

I do not know if they were involved in the Prop 8 fight

[drwex]

They have been involved in the MA, NY, and ME campaigns, at least to my observation.

Nike is on the list? Ugh.

Re: I do not know if they were involved in the Prop 8 fight

[drwex]

They list a lot of major corporations, many of which have problematic elements to them. You can click through to see detail pages like http://www.hrc.org/issues/workplace/organization_profile.asp?organization_id=1247&search_id=1&search_type=Quick

Bottom line it does appear that Nike is a GLBT-friendly business, which is what they're advertising this as a list of.

Re: I do not know if they were involved in the Prop 8 fight

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

Another bottom line is that they call themselves the Human Rights Campaign and endorse Nike. Strongly, even, because Nike gives them money. They strongly endorse a lot of large corps who give them money, and they call themselves a grassroots organization despite never (that I've seen) encouraging people to support local queer-owned businesses instead of the giganticorps.

I can't say I actually know what they did for the campaigns you mention, either (one way or the other). But my impression of the HRC is like a tapeworm in the belly of the queer rights movement. They take in much of the money but do little to strengthen (and overall, probably weaken) the whole. It is a catchy logo, though.

[entrope.livejournal.com]

HRC is a big supporter of GL rights. I think that they wouldn't know B if it bit them, and I am quite positive that it it's T friendly than HRC wants no part of it.

That having been said, thank you for the list! This is actually really useful - It gives a really good starting point.

Hunh

[drwex]

The HRC people I've talked to at Pride have been pretty B-friendly.

Guess that's the difference between the field organization and the corporate.

Re: Hunh

[srl.livejournal.com]

The field organization is usually a bunch of young and enthusiastic proto-activists. The corporate organization has proven itself willing to not mention Bs and to sell out Ts for the benefit of GLs at the drop of a hat, over and over. It's also stunningly institutionally white, committed to policy priorities that make sense to white middle-class GL people.

(A few examples: within the last few years, HRC's corporate equality index, which you're linking to above, made no mention of which companies on its list had insurance policies with trans-specific-healthcare exclusions—yet they trumpeted their attention and sensitivity to transgender issues. And HRC had to be pushed, hard, to support a trans-inclusive ENDA meaningfully. Ensuring queer and trans prison inmates' civil rights, or looking at the impact of federal welfare "marriage incentives" programs on low-income lesbian mothers? Not a peep.)

(ETA: Here's a history of the revision of the CEI criteria around trans healthcare coverage. The "3.0" version of the criteria, which are actually pretty decent, won't go into effect until next year's report.)