Not Just A Rainbow Logo: A Final Pride Month Reflection On Systemic Inclusion

Why tech needs a queer inclusive lens year-round—not just rainbow logos.

Many corporate logos will quietly shed their rainbow overlays this week as Pride Month in the U.S. draws to a close. The few campaigns we have seen will pause along with a clearing of minimal merchandise from shelves. We will move on to the next celebration, the next cultural moment, the next benchmark of performative inclusion. However, if we are serious about equity, innovation and building a tech culture that is ready for the future, we all have to resist the temptation to return to business as usual. Not just for the sake of diversity metrics—but because LGBTQIA+ inclusion can be a part of leadership strategy, not just seasonal campaigns.

Tech is a space where ideas speak louder than identity, but we know that is not the full story. Access to opportunities, visibility into roles, even the specific use cases of technological innovation remain uneven. Those of us with intersecting identities across race, gender, class and disability often do not fit into the archetypes of leadership. And yet, when queer-identified leaders are given space to lead authentically, the results are more than equitable. Often, they are also innovative.

Innovation In Action: Two Leaders Creating Change

Take for example Arlan Hamilton (she/they), founder of Backstage Capital. Her venture fund was born out of a glaring omission in the tech industry: the lack of capital flowing to underestimated founders, particularly those who are Black, brown, women and LGBTQIA+. Hamilton launched her fund from the ground up. At one point, while experiencing housing insecurity herself, she knew that venture capital needed more than disruption. It also needed redistribution.

Hamilton has famously said, “I am not asking permission. I am extending an invitation”— emphasizing that equity in tech requires more than inclusion; it requires reimagining who gets to build, lead and own.

By investing over $30 million into more than 200 startups led by underestimated founders, Hamilton’s work reveals what’s possible when we center those historically excluded. It’s not altruism; it’s visionary leadership. Her success is a reminder that the tech industry does not suffer from a shortage of talent, rather we suffer from a lack of intention and limited perspective.

We can also consider Jon “maddog” Hall (he/him), a name known well in open-source and Unix communities. Since the 1970s, Hall has been both a fierce technologist and advocate for access and inclusion. He serves as one of the earliest openly gay figures in tech, modeling what it means to lead with both technical excellence and a social conscious. He’s spoken candidly about the power of community in tech, long recognizing that inclusion is critically important for innovation.

“We have to accept that there are people different from us and that even if those people are small in numbers, their contributions to all can be immense,” Hall shared in a 2022 interview during LGBT History Month.

That mindset is foundational to the open-source movement and to the future of tech leadership. It is a reminder that the people who are overlooked because of identity, background, visibility or other social affiliation are frequently the ones with the most transformative ideas. By creating spaces where those individuals are safe to lead with their full identities, we expand what gets built as well as who builds it.

Both Hall and Hamilton provide more than personal stories. They both give us strategic lessons. When we talk about systemic inclusion, we are talking about removing the structural barriers that keep talented people in the margins. It is in the rethinking about how we recruit, promote and build teams that allows for inclusion to move from months of celebration to being intertwined in the fabric of our corporate cultures. Here ERGs are not just extracurriculars, but innovation incubators shaping the future of leadership in our organizations.

Keep Pride Alive

As we move from June to July, let’s take time to shift beyond identity politics and think about system design. When we understand how systems of suppression compound and intersect, we are better equipped to build technologies, cultures and companies that serve more people. Here intersectionality is not a buzzword—it’s a blueprint for resilience.

As this month closes, the question is not when, where or how you celebrated Pride. The question is how have you created a workplace that is safer, more equitable and more innovative because of it? Did you move beyond the rainbow logos and actually invest in culture change?

Here’s the call: Keep Pride alive in your hiring practices. In your boardrooms. In your vendor partnerships. In your VC portfolios. In your data ethics. In your open-source AI tools. In your product development pipelines.

Because true innovation doesn’t come from fitting in. It comes from those brave enough to stand out while building something better for everyone.

The Inclusive Leadership Newsletter is a must-read for news, tips, and strategies focused on advancing successful diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in technology and across the IT channel. Subscribe today!

Photo by Ray Donnelly on Unsplash