The Quiet Death of Workplace Acknowledgment

A few weeks ago, I was flying out of Dulles Airport and noticed a TSA agent who appeared to be trans. My stomach dropped as I stared into their eyes. I found myself wondering: What is it like to be them right now, in this climate, in the federal workforce? At best, I imagined they felt invisible. At worst—unsafe. And still, they were there. Doing the job. Showing up in ways their leaders aren’t.

June is Pride Month, but you wouldn’t know it at the federal agency where I work. Ditto for Mental Health Awareness Month in May. More broadly, moments of collective recognition—farewells, birthdays, even simply naming the grief and stress—seem to be fading. It’s just business as usual.

And that’s what I worry about. Over time, missed chances for leadership to say we see you start to add up and it becomes the new normal. And that quiet disappearance has a human cost.

When We Stop Noticing

I’m realistic. It’s Pride Month in a Trump administration. I’m not expecting a rainbow balloon drop in the atrium—or even a Pride flag, though that would be nice.

But we can’t be indifferent. Even if recognition months aren’t a leader’s thing, they’re part of the vocabulary of how workplaces can show care for their diverse employees. So when leaders stay silent—especially in D.C., this year’s World Pride host—it speaks volumes.

A Cry for Humanity

This isn’t just about Pride. It’s about how workplaces have let go of the small things that made us feel human. Goodbye parties don’t happen. Elephants in the room go unnamed during town halls. Simple gestures—like letting people leave early before a long weekend or when people have been working to the bone—get cut. These moments aren’t extras. They’re signals that someone in charge understands—or is at least trying to understand—what it feels like to be you.

It’s also, it pains me to say, birthdays. This week a colleague celebrated her own birthday because she didn’t expect anyone else to. She literally—this is not a joke—wore a plastic tiara that said It’s My Birthday, sat alone in the breakroom with her laptop and three trays of cupcakes (including a dairy-free option), offering them to passing coworkers.

This doesn’t happen in a healthy workplace. Or a healthy world. Former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has said, “Connection is not just a luxury, it’s a necessity. It’s a fundamental human need, as important to our well-being as food, water, and air.”

Being Seen

It matters whether we mark Pride Month, birthdays, farewells, and hard periods for employees—or don’t. These moments where employees either feel recognized or ignored are prisms, revealing whether a workplace sees its people as full, proud human beings—or just boxes on an org chart.

Priya Parker writes, “The way we gather matters. It matters because how we gather is how we live.” And in the workplace, gatherings and focal points for acknowledgement are everyday chances to notice an employees world, and respond.

I’m not asking leaders for grand gestures. Just small signals that they’re paying attention. Maybe it’s Pride Month. Maybe it’s Father’s Day. Maybe it’s imagining the courage it takes to be trans at a security checkpoint—or to sit in the breakroom wearing a birthday tiara, quietly hoping someone will say something.

Because this story isn’t just about Pride or cupcakes. It’s about what disappears when we stop noticing each other and treat that as normal.

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