SEC Reflects 50 Years After Stonewall, Celebrates LGBT Pride Month

Throughout the month of June, SEC staff held various events and activities to promote fellowship among coworkers while also noting the LGBT civil rights movement’s accomplishments and ongoing work.

Highlights included a discussion with Stacey Friedman, General Counsel for JPMorgan Chase & Co., who talked about diversity and inclusion in the workplace at an event co-sponsored by the SEC’s LGBT Committee, as well as the Diversity Committee of the SEC’s New York Regional Office.  Friedman also discussed some of her own work fighting for the rights of LGBT families.  In addition, NYRO members attended a happy hour at the historic Stonewall Inn, a national landmark that denotes the location of the uprising 50 years ago that paved the way for the modern LGBT rights movement.

The LGBT Committee also paired with the SEC Women’s Committee to support homeless youth nationwide by collecting and donating toiletries during Pride Month to local shelters, observing that LGBT individuals and young women make up a disproportionately high share of the homeless youth across the country.

“Fifty years after the Stonewall Uprising marked a major turning point in the struggle for the civil rights of LGBT Americans, this month we celebrated the advances in equality we have witnessed for our LGBT friends and family,” said SEC Chairman Jay Clayton. “The SEC remains a workplace that is open to America’s best and brightest, no matter your sexual orientation or gender identity.”

Commissioner Elad Roisman, the SEC LGBT Employee Affinity Group sponsor, echoed Chairman Clayton’s sentiment. Commissioner Roisman remarked: “I am proud to be the sponsor of the SEC LGBT Employee Affinity Group. I am so impressed by the group’s dedication not only to the SEC and our mission, but also to their coworkers and to the broader LGBT community. This shines through in the way they promote inclusiveness and understanding throughout the agency.”

The SEC’s LGBT Pride Month events spanned the country, including a LGBT investor education roundtable event in the Los Angeles Regional Office, while the LGBT Committee also hosted a “Night OUT” event in early June where staff attended a Nationals baseball game as a group in Washington, D.C.

Pamela Gibbs, Director of the SEC’s Office of Minority and Women Inclusion (OMWI), remarked, “Pride Month once again brought together our staff in offices throughout the country and offered a chance for us to embrace and celebrate our diverse and talented work force.”