'IDAHOBLIT 2026: Building Safer Spaces' panel recap

The IDAHOBLIT 2026 panel on “building safer spaces,” hosted by myGwork and chaired by Trans in the City founder and Chief Executive Bobbi Pickard, focused on how workplaces can move beyond slogans to genuinely support LGBTQ+ staff.

Framing the day in the context of the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Lesbophobia, Interphobia and Transphobia, Bobbi stressed how “we must have a broader commitment to ensuring that all members of the LGBTQIA+ community are visible, are acknowledged, are celebrated and supported in conversations about equity and inclusion.” For her, a truly inclusive culture also recognises the exhaustion many queer and especially trans people face just getting to work, which is why she argued that “work really should be as much as a refuge to you as your home.”

Opening the discussion on safety, Ivana Bitunjac from Colt Technology Services underlined just how fundamental a secure environment is when we spend, on average, one third of our lives at work. For Ivana, a safe workspace for means somewhere people can be themselves, where they do not fear, we do not feel excluded, and they feel seen as what they are.

She described the power of psychological safety in practice at Colt: “I can be openly gay, I can be openly neurodivergent, I can be openly myself. And people take me for what I am. And that is also something that's the least we as human beings can expect in today's society.”

From CGI, Callum/Abi Fraser explored how safety at work intersects with trans experience in public space. Callum, who sometimes identifies as Abi when presenting as female, drew a stark contrast between the two experiences.

“When I'm Abi walking down the street, despite the fact I'm 6'1"… when I'm out in public presenting as Abi, I feel like a wounded gazelle on the Serengeti. You are constantly in hyper-aware mode.” That reality, Callum argued, increases employers’ responsibility.

“What we can do is we can ensure that when you cross through the threshold and you leave the public and you walk into your place of work, that it feels like a weight has been lifted from you… you are in a safe space.” Callum also highlighted the impact of small acts of allyship, recalling a colleague who quietly corrected a trainer’s language. However small a gesture may be to an ally, it could mean a lot and change a lot for the LGBTQ+ colleagues around them.

Speaking from L&C Mortgages, Amy Potter focused on how well‑designed policies and staff networks can remove pressure from LGBTQ+ employees. She described the recent cultural shift where responsibility for training and solutions is no longer left solely to LGBTQ+ staff, and is now being picked up more broadly across the organization.

A practical example was new guidance on how to support a colleague who is transitioning in a client‑facing role, covering questions such as how and when they want to come out at work and what support they need from managers and peers. Amy explained that, as a gay woman, she knows her own experience, but this structured guidance has helped her better support others in the community.

She also outlined the role of L&C Mortages Pride Not Prejudice network, which gives colleagues a space to say, “This is how we feel, and this is how we think the business could support us,” with the confidence that the company will act quickly on those suggestions.

Invesco’s Megan Weber concentrated on mental health and the importance of visible community. She argued that formal benefits like counselling and insurance are necessary but not sufficient; employers also need to “continue to foster community amongst our peers” so LGBTQ+ colleagues have spaces to connect, learn from each other and share experiences that might otherwise stay hidden.

Megan described how unconscious bias training at Invesco helped surface assumptions people did not realise they held, and how, in everyday situations, she now challenges off‑colour remarks with direct but calm questions such as, “help me understand why that's funny?” She acknowledged that saying this can feels uncomfortable even now, but believes it is essential to “stand up not only for yourself, but for your colleagues and for your community who may not be there in that moment as well.”

By the end of the session, all panellists converged on a shared picture of safer workplaces: environments where identities can be openly lived, where networks act as “critical friends” rather than decoration, where intersectionality is taken seriously, and where, as Ivana put it, organisations “chip away” at bias through consistent education and action rather than one‑off gestures.

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