Central Pride Employee Resource Group Celebrates Community

This post, originally published June 7, 2023, has been updated with more recent photos and information.

The St. Louis Fed’s Central Pride employee resource group, which supports LGBTQ+ employees and their allies at the Bank, has commemorated Pride Month and celebrated diversity since the ERG’s inception in 2015.

The pride flag flew outside the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis for the first time in June 2022.

Central Pride works not only with its own members to create community but also with other ERGs and groups.

For example, colleagues from Central Pride and the St. Louis Fed’s Wellness Committee again joined up for a No One Walks Alone 5k that recognized the May 17 International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia. The photo below shows 5k participants in 2024. Check out this Facebook post for a 2023 photo.

St. Louis Fed employees gather on the plaza outside the Bank’s main entrance for a No One Walks Alone 5k with LGBTQ+ flags and signs.

The sample of photos below tells the colorful story of the St. Louis Fed’s commemorations of Pride Month over the years.

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis has maintained a perfect score in the Human Rights Campaign’s Best Places to Work Corporate Equality Index since 2016 for its demonstrated commitment to an inclusive workplace culture.

Employees Create a Human Pride Flag

Central Pride in 2019 organized its first human pride flag. St. Louis Fed employees gathered in support of the LGBTQ+ community on the plaza by the Bank’s main entrance. Commemoration took a different form during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Throughout Pride Month that year, St. Louis Fed employees celebrated and showed their pride by submitting pictures of themselves wearing a color of the rainbow. In the next years, human pride flags on the plaza and in the Bank resumed—and submitted pictures were included in social media posts for “hybrid” flags in 2022 and 2023.

Human pride flags in 2019, 2020, 2022 and 2023.

Employees Share Personal Perspectives on Pride

Employees shared their thoughts on pride in St. Louis Fed social media posts. Their names and the divisions they were in within the Bank at the time of their remarks are listed.

Views from 2022

• 

  “Sometimes for those in the LGBTQ+ community, the voices of opposition and negativity can be very loud and overwhelming. Pride is a reminder that those negative reactions are not universal, and there is a community of people who see, hear and accept you as your authentic self.”

  Allison Beckmann
  Supervision

• 

  “I started my career as a high school teacher and saw first-hand how important acceptance, inclusion and advocacy are for members of the LGBTQ+ community. Though I’m no longer in the classroom, I still work hard to be an active ally. As Desmond Tutu said, ‘If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.’”

  Lindsay Littleton
  Supervision

• 

  “For me, Pride is a way to combat invisibility. It’s my way of paying homage to all the sacrifices made by those who came before me and fought to make our community more visible.”

  Ish Rodriguez
  Guest Services

• 

  “For me, Pride means recognizing that everyone should be treated equally no matter whom they choose to love. We are fortunate to work for an organization that fully supports and embraces equality for all.”

  Matt Torbett
  Treasury Relations & Support Office

Views from 2021

Shown are Eldar Beiseitov of Supervision and Denise Szala of SASTeC (Subcommittee on Administrative Services Technology Center).

Employees Participate in PrideFest

Members of the St. Louis Fed’s Central Pride ERG marched in the St. Louis Grand Pride Parade in June 2022. The parade is part of the annual PrideFest event celebrating the LGBTQ+ community.

The Central Pride ERG marched for the first time in the annual St. Louis PrideFest parade in June 2018.

Dave Sapenaro (far left), then-first vice president of the St. Louis Fed, was one of many employees supporting the Bank’s presence at PrideFest in 2017.