Does Pride Still Matter?

Tris Reid-Smith00:00:00

Let's also be realistic about this. We are selling something here. You could call it love, you could call it liberation, but in a sense, we're selling something.And there might be times when to get to a target audience with a target message, we need to use some ads. We shouldn't be ashamed of that either. We can't take on the world on our own. We need other people to be good at that as well.So we're going to give the skills back to the community. We're going to be teaching other campaigners how to do this. Foreign.

Timothy R Andrews00:00:31

Welcome to another edition of Talking Hospitality, hosted by me, Timothy R. Andrews. And today, we are going to be speaking to Tris Reid Smith, founder of Pride Wide Charity.In today's episode, we are going to discover why Pride still matters, how equality impacts the bottom line, and why we in hospitality should continue to support the LGBTQIA community. This episode was filmed in front of a live audience and on what was probably the hottest day of the year. And also, my microphone failed.So have fun watching or if you're listening, listening to the show, and I hope you find it as educational and as inspirational as we did. Enjoy. So for those of you who don't know what is pridewide and what inspired you to launch it.

Tris Reid-Smith00:01:29

So, like, we have been in queer media for forever, Scott and me, and we always recognized how much change you can make through the media for telling people stories, how you can change lives, how you can change society, how you can even change the law. And we were running a company before, which was a news publication. I think we're going to come to that.And we thought when that closed, that would be the end of it.But then we looked around at what was happening to our community, like, here in this country and around the world, and we were, like, really worried that things were going to turn for the worst. This is going about.Back about four years ago, we were really worried that things were going to be, like, going downhill rather than keeping on improving. And in any case, in, like, almost six out of 10 countries around the world, 57% of countries, we've made no progress on LGBTQIA rights.In the last 40 years, we've made no legal progress, we've made no progress in how society views people from our community. So there was work to be done.And when we scouted around, what other charities, what other nonprofits do, who do change making around the world, they all do policy work and litigation work. So they take cases to a high court or Supreme Court, try and change a law around, say, homosexuality.Or they, like, try and persuade politicians or sort of even policymakers in the business. And that's great work. But what they are rubbish at is mass communication to the public, winning hearts and minds, shifting public attitudes.And the result of that, now for our community is we're in a place where, well, it's maybe not surprise to you, but the Daily Mail doesn't exactly like us, but nor does the Telegraph, the Times, even the Guardian has been quite transphobic recently, let alone in places like the US where you got Fox News. And Fox News looks like a picnic if you live in Uganda and you have red pepper, right?And then on our social media platforms, which at one point looked like they were trying to be quite woke. Now we're in a place where on meta platforms. So, you know, Insta, WhatsApp, Facebook, et cetera, if you call a trans person it, that's okay.If you say they're mentally deranged, that's okay. That's no longer considered hateful. And of course, X as well.So while we've been not communicating well with the public as organizations, other people have been going out there and investing hundreds of millions of pounds in working out messages which they say are common sense, which is about how they want to talk about our communities. And that's why the trans debate in this country has gone so toxic.That's why they're successfully persuading Americans that books in schools which recognize same sex relationships exist are dangerous to kids, apparently.And we really believe that we'll keep on losing a narrative and therefore society will keep on getting worse until we get good at mass communication to the public. That skill set just didn't exist within our sector around the world. So we decided there needs to be an organization which does that. And I'll just.Because you really wanted me to explain it, Tim, I'll just like explain what pridewide does. We don't make it up ourselves.We gather together people from all around the world as our community to shape what the messages should be, shape what the stories we should be telling are. And just to say, our board is incredibly diverse.We have got people from the US and the uk, but we've also got people from China, from Uganda, from Nigeria, from Barbados, from Brazil. So literally all around, all the way around the world, involved and more.We then tell, you know, create stories we do in journalism, but we'll also be doing things like comedy, like art, anything which will shift public attitudes. But fact checks, exclusive investigative content from a journalism side, great storytelling, relatable human interest stories.Because if you've got something where you can see a person in someone, you know, it's much harder to hate them after that. And that's what shifts public attitudes. Obviously, we know that one platform won't make a change, change on its own.You can't change the world from one little corner of the Internet.So we'll be amplifying those stories across other media, getting them to pick up on what we're doing, working with social media content creators, working with brands and businesses. And like, let's also be realistic about this. We are selling something here.You could call it love, you could call it liberation, but in a sense, we're selling something. And there might be times when to get to a target audience with a target message, we need to use some ads. We shouldn't be ashamed of that either.And then finally, we know that we are just brand new, which is why you guys haven't heard of us yet. We expect to ramp up pretty quickly.But even if we get to what we consider our sort of minimum viable proposition for the organization, when there's about 25 people, which we expect to be at sort of maybe by the end of next year, or if we get really big, we can't take on the world on our own. Like, we need other people to be good at that as well. So we're going to give the skills back to the community.We're going to be teaching other campaigners how to do this. Many campaigners in sub Saharan Africa who advocate for our community, they don't know what it's like to do a TV interview.They face a very hostile media environment. They don't know how to get their messages into the press. So we can help them.We can help content creators who are already involved in the game, including journalists, to understand what it takes to understand our community and to talk about them fairly and with confidence.And we can help businesses and brands as well, because they quite often wave a rainbow flag around this time of year was that they really understand us and do they really have the skills to communicate with their talent, but also with their clients and customers about our community? And we think mostly they don't have those skills. They need to be trained and given those skills. So that's what we'll be up to.

Timothy R Andrews00:07:39

Thank you very much. So actually, you talked about mass communication and storytelling and you've been in the LGBTQ media for 10 years. So, like pink paper.And then you see your company. Both founded Guest Star News and now Pride Wide. What do you think? Or how has storytelling Evolved.And what do things missing now which you're going to use it?

Tris Reid-Smith00:08:15

Yeah. So first of all, this is a real compliment in a way because Tim's known me for so long, but he thinks it's only been a decade.Like I've been in queer media for 25 years. In fact.When I first became a journalist, not on the gay press, but when I first became became a journalist, we were still at a place where they weren't using the rooms where they hammered lead text into a wooden frame, but the room still existed. They're fired people who used to do that work, but the room still existed.Now, of course, we all have our ability to tell a story to effectively the whole world with a device we carry in our pockets. We used to take, you know, these. I used to walk into the newsroom on my first newspaper and.And there would be sort of like these sort of toilet rolls full of paper which had to be delivered in all forklift trucks. And the press was the size of a church.And if you think about the fact that now we have that, you know, that ability in our pockets and independent people can go out and reach bigger audiences now themselves than we did then, that's allowed us to amplify stories much, much faster. So I don't think the stories have changed. I don't think that human nature has changed. I don't think it's changed what it takes to convince people.But as I've gone, like you said, from Pink Paper and Gay Times and Diva and those kinds of publications where I was editor in chief to then starting the first truly global digital news platform for our community, Gay Star News with Scott. So just, just okay, if we're going to do Braxton a side brag about gay style news, we were very proud to literally reach every country in the world.So we reach millions of people a month. We reached. I didn't even know the word is number of countries until Google told me, but 240 countries. We used to get a hit every month in Antarctica.Presumably one of those queer penguins we hear all about seems to be children's books written about them. And we used to get amazingly one or two hits in North Korea.We can never work out if it was a real person in North Korea accessing us or sensor accessing us to show we weren't accessing them. But like, you know, we literally used to reach everywhere. But that did teach us the power that we all have, inability to do it.I know that the world's quite scary for us all at the moment. But it feels like maybe politics, maybe society is turning against us. We can swing that back really quickly. It won't just happen.I mean this is actually the most important message, right? It won't just happen. You can't just expect pendulums to swing back, you have to push them back. Right? But we all have that ability.And what I ultimately want, or Scott and I ultimately want 5 wide to do is not for us to go out and tell stories just to you, but you to go and tell stories.So when you're talking to your granny or to your colleague or to that person down the pub who doesn't understand what a non binary person is or whatever, you're much more effective messengers to those people, you know, who respect you, already trust you than I will ever be. And I want to give you the power to go away and make change as well. And you need stories and unique facts to do that.So that's what we're trying to do.

Timothy R Andrews00:11:29

So you talked about companies this time of year, they get that my black out, they wave it. But there's been a massive backlash of flowing America right where Trump is got rid of diy, dti, depending which way you have to say it.And we've seen in this country a lot of sponsors have suddenly just bought their saying, okay, actually now we don't have to do it. We're not new to it. What do you think? What do you think about that? First of, do you think there should be a call out option?And secondly, what do you think genuine support would look like?

Tris Reid-Smith00:12:01

Perhaps particular look, I think for those, there's all sorts of things have happened to DEI and I don't obviously buy into it being weaponized against our community because I think that's just one of the ways politicians try to make our community into a scapegoat for the real problems they face, which are mostly, I mean almost invariably economic and about their own failures in government. And I got to be careful because I'm a charity CEO now, so I'm not allowed to get political.And I definitely won't be saying vote this person or vote that person. But I would say when someone starts scapegoating, you need to look at whether or not they're delivering for you. Right.What I would say in terms of companies is there was discomfort in our community for a number of years. Some people were just, you know, putting a flag up the flagpole for a couple of days in June and not really meaning it.And so the question about what really makes a difference is really, you know, Important. Let me use good and bad example because you want me to talk about hospitality, I think.And there was a hotel chain which will remain anonymous to protect the guilty. We talked to them for years and years about doing something really meaningful to our community, something which will make an impact.And they consistently declined. And they decided the best way to tackle this was to put a drag queen as their concierge for two days in June of out flight.You know, and I don't think that's particularly sincere and I don't think it really convinces anybody very much because what guests want is to go into a hotel and to feel that they're respected, that they're going to be, you know, given the right kind of room, they're not going to be looked down upon.They're going to be, you know, if they're having their honeymoon, for example, as the same sex couple, they're going to be treated the same as a opposite sex couple would. That's the kind of thing they want a great experience, right.And the opportunity is huge there because like we're now at a place where 28% of Gen Z identifies LGBTQIA, right? So there's going to be a lot of consumers out there and a lot of money to be made.So there's an ROI benefit if you really take it seriously and there's a sort of feel good benefit for your customers equally. Your talent needs to be respected and they need to be treated well.A company I know did it really well at the time at least was a company called Celebrity Cruisers. So again they were know, effectively a big floating hotel, but they were taking loads of people around the world.They had these big billion pound ships they had invested in and they talked to us about an idea called Pride at Sea and we actually went to them with that and we said, look, this is a, a fun idea. You could do this because you already seem to be walking a walk, you're already putting.They really invested, which I thought was incredibly impressive, in putting women into senior positions on board ship. And in the maritime industry, like very few people on deck officers on ships are women. They're just not there.And they had the first female cruise captain. They had all of these like massively, like 10 times the number of women in senior roles.They'd really tried to work out what would be meaningful for their customers.And Pride at Sea launched a thing where they now have a drinks reception, which is the most popular thing they do on board ship for all of their cruises, which is allows LGBTQIA guests to get Together and to party and to start their holiday in that way. And we interviewed at an event we did a few months ago, the person who is the EMEA CEO of this amazing woman called Jo.And I said to her, did it work out for you commercially, all of our work? You did. And she just said, hell yeah. So you can do this in the sincere way.And it's not us begging as a community, it's saying like, treat us with respect as customers, you know, treat us fairly as talent as your, your staff. Show up for us then at Pride and we'll be happy to see you and you're going to benefit.

Timothy R Andrews00:16:15

I heard that statistic yesterday only. Thank you. Countries that have allowed equal marriage, equal rights. The economy is very much need say units. That's massive. Massive.When Thailand, when it just introduced marriage. Quality, yeah, quality have made over $2 billion in less than two years. Just probably just about that. And that is pretty.

Tris Reid-Smith00:16:41

What I loved about that is them also sharing that the Philippines had turned around and said, we want to do this too. And one of the reasons the, the minister would give them is, well, because the ties are doing so well economically out of it, right.So, you know, you should be doing this because you want to do the right thing. But there is a benefit. And that benefit is actually not just sort of to capitalists or whatever.It benefits all the society because when you raise GDP and you end up with a society where people can live together, you actually improve social cohesion, you actually improve everybody's prospects, you create job opportunities for real people. So it doesn't just benefit our community. Again, I really think we should get away from, you know, this is a becking pole for us.This is actually something where everybody can benefit.

Timothy R Andrews00:17:39

So last but not least, how can hospitality people get involved with pipeline?

Tris Reid-Smith00:17:44

Well, look, really great, great thing. So I've got a few requests, I guess first of all, as I sort of described earlier, everybody can get involved in what we do.We aren't very visible at the moment, but over the next 12 months, as we turn our plans and our incredible sort of group of people around us into operations and start building our staff team, you'll see us more and more so, you know, start to follow us and opportunities will arise, particularly opportunities, I think, just as regular people, not hospitality people particularly, to go out and share these stories and to become active agents in making change for yourselves, making change to society. That's the very most important thing.If you want to give us a few quid, I won't say no because we're a charity but I actually, I got a specific thing about hospitality. We always need venues to hold events. Venues who are genuine, want to engage in our community and that's always really welcome.And we also very specifically are looking for talent for our events team.People who have the skills, have the experience and are prepared to give a few hours here and there or help out on a particular day as volunteers to help us with those events. We've done some amazing ones.You came to our, our Samsung event which was incredible wave, you know, we interviewed some great storytellers, we played on their tech and I got people doing pictures or Scott, I got people drawing pictures on the tablets and all of that kind of stuff. But it's also a great opportunity to get people together. We've just had an amazing summit at Canada House in Trafalgar Square.Our first 1/2 day event. Incredible speakers from business, from front line of activism, from art, from the comic Rosie Jones. We had loads of great people there.So our events are really fun, they're really dynamic and we definitely need some people to who have this kind of skills you have in hospitality to come and help us out on that as well. And also can I just say you've already helped me out because coming and having the opportunity to take this out to new audiences is really important.So really appreciate people who've joined us here and you for doing this for us. Tim. Thank you.

Timothy R Andrews00:19:59

You're welcome. Big round of applause for Tris.

Joe McDonnell00:20:06

A huge thank you to our brand partners Graphic Kitchen and Leisure Jobs for their continued support of Talking hospitality. Graphic Kitchen bring creative storytelling to life, helping hospitality brands stand out in a crowded market.Leisure Jobs connects top talent with best opportunities in the industry making it the go to platform for hospitality careers. We're proud to have them both on board.