LGBTQIA+ loud mouths (aka activists) who changed the world

Everyone has an uphill to contend with. Some have more to take on others. At quip, we’re striving for wellness and smiles (i.e. yours). And as the happy warrior-monks fighting for optimal oral health for everyone ever, we’re in it for the long haul.

As Pride Month draws to a close, we recognize the galaxy of challenges those within LGBTQIA+ communities continue to face — both within and beyond the realm of oral care.

So we’d like to shine a Pride light on a few historical powerhouses from the community. We lift their words (and our swisher cups) as part of a larger effort we’re undertaking to build more accepting and inclusive cultures.

“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation...”

—Audre Lorde

In 1988, poet and essayist Audre Lorde was writing through the lens of cultural and political representation, as a Black lesbian feminist advocating for inclusion, during an ongoing struggle to combat cancer. Her enduring insight into self-care and how it impacts the quality of much-needed work informs our own mission as wellness advocates.

Supporting All Types of Mouths

This to us means going beyond ensuring the world over in quality oral care products. (Though that is a pretty big deal in our book.) We’re putting money where our mouths are this year.

In donating to The Trevor Project, we’re helping to provide life-saving resources to LGBTQIA+ youth. The Trevor Project provided crisis intervention services to more than 150,000 LGBTQIA+ youth in 2020 alone. We can’t wait to see how far they take the support in the year ahead.

“To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.”

—Oscar Wilde

Coming also from the fellow who advocated to be yourself since everyone else is already taken, Oscar Wilde was Pride well before it was in vogue. Wilde’s unflinching acceptance of self paved a wide way for positive identification, care and self-advocacy within the LGBTQIA+ community.

Leaving No Needs Behind

For us, the words of Wilde are a reminder in our own mission to support mouths of every stripe and category. In earlier posting we addressed the state of Diversity in Dentistry and how inequality impacts the quality of oral care across LGBTQIA+ communities.

Did you know that 1 in 3 transgender people have had negative experiences with health care providers? Or that no less than one quarter of trans individuals seeking care have experienced issues with health insurance, at times even being denied routine care outright?

As care providers ourselves, that’s banana-peel-to-whiten-one’s-teeth level crazy and then some. We’re doing our part at quip to ensure no mouths fall through the cracks

By donating the National Center for Transgender Equality, we get to back those who work tooth and nail to ensure that regulations for the protection of transgender people are passed in order to provide them access to quality health care.

Gay liberation and trans rights activist Sylvia Rivera brought the matter into full view when she said, “We have to be visible. We should not be ashamed of who we are.”

As allies to all within the LGBTQIA+ community, as uncompromising providers of care, as fellow humans, we see and support you during Pride 2021 and beyond.