A Rainbow Flag On Your Door Makes A Promise – What Should Businesses Do To Keep It?

A rainbow flag in a shop window is a lovely, welcoming sight for us. But if the welcome falls apart the moment a queer customer mentions their partner, well, we’ve got a problem.

Oxford Street Rainbow Precinct is inviting NSW small business owners and operators to work on exactly that, with a free online workshop during NSW Small Business Month on 13 October.

Led by executive coach, facilitator, and Rainbow Precinct’s President Shane Warren, Creating Welcoming Businesses: Practical Strategies for LGBTQIA+ Inclusion will explore how everyday language, facilities, marketing and workplace culture shape whether queer people actually, genuinely feel comfortable walking through the door.

Warren says he loves a rainbow flag – but when he sees one, he expects the business to follow through.

“Symbols matter. They tell people something about the values a business wants to represent, but the flag is a promise, not proof,” he tells Star Observer.

A form recognising only one kind of family, an unchallenged joke or staff making assumptions about someone’s partner can quickly undo that reassurance.

“Where businesses often fall short isn’t necessarily prejudice. More commonly it’s the gap between intention and practice.”

For many of us, that gap is familiar. You’re trying to get a haircut or book a table, and suddenly you’re deciding whether correcting a stranger about having a girlfriend rather than a boyfriend is worth the bother, whether it’ll get awkward, whether you should just let it slide.

“Interestingly, I don’t think most of us consciously walk into a business with a checklist. We read the room,” Warren says.

“For me, that’s probably the ultimate test of inclusion when people don’t have to spend energy working out whether they belong.”

A little less guessing, please

His advice starts with small, achievable changes. Listen to staff language; asking whether someone’s partner – rather than gendered terminology like wife, boyfriend, etc. – is joining them, leaves room for an actual answer. Walk through your forms, booking systems, signage and website, checking who fits easily and who has to explain themselves.

And if staff assume something about a customer and get it wrong, Warren’s advice is refreshingly straightforward: just acknowledge it, correct it and keep going.

“What doesn’t help is a five-minute performance of mortification,” he says. “Suddenly the person who was misgendered is reassuring you.”

Owners can also consider whether single-person toilets need gendered signs, and ensure accessible facilities are clearly signposted. 

Plus, use imagery reflecting different couples and families – and do it all throughout the year.

“Mardi Gras is wonderful, and businesses should absolutely celebrate it. But LGBTQIA+ customers don’t disappear when the glitter is vacuumed up.”

Quite. When Pride Month in June is over, we all still need accountants to do our taxes – just like everyone else.

The welcome has to reach the staff room

Warren also urges owners to examine their employees’ experiences: whether they can talk about partners, raise concerns safely and trust management to challenge inappropriate comments.

The Oxford Street Pride Business Charter, he says, provides a framework covering customers, staff and community connections.

“It isn’t intended to be another sticker for the window.”

If you attend the ‘Creating Welcoming Businesses’ workshop, participants will trace a customer’s journey through their own business, from the first thing people see about the business online, to making a purchase or dealing with a problem, identifying assumptions and opportunities to do things better.

Warren says he wants you to leave ready to make a handful of practical changes.

“If participants leave the workshop noticing things in their businesses that they hadn’t noticed before, and feeling confident enough to change them, then we’ve achieved something worthwhile.”

Creating Welcoming Businesses runs online on Tuesday 13 October, from 1pm–3pm AEDT. It’s free, but registration is essential.