What is important is that we start by changing the conversation.
Attitudes take time to change. Policy changes can take even longer. What is important is that we start the conversation. When we open people’s minds; when we illuminate a problem where they thought there was none before; when we help administrators see that UN policies and systems cater to heterosexuality and the gender binary, and not to diversity amongst UN personnel; we have taken a big step forward and are closer to our goals of equality and inclusion.
UN-GLOBE is an all-volunteer association with a Board, a wide network of duty station and entity-based Coordinators, and thousands of members around the world. Together, we strive to bring equality and inclusion to UN policies and duty stations, and to ensure that LGBTIQ+ personnel, LGBTIQ+ dependents, and all UN staff and their families can carry out their work with the support they need and the dignity they deserve. The UN system rarely changes overnight, but we are dedicated to advocating for our causes until changes do come.
In a rapidly transforming UN, our work is as critical as ever. We invite you to learn more.
Explore UN-GLOBE’s 2026 priorities below. We also welcome you to read our 2025 annual report, learn about the people who make up UN-GLOBE, join our membership or mailing list, support our work, and access our collection of resources.
2026 UN-GLOBE Priorities
UN Photo/Rick Bajornas
bias- & discrimination-free un workplaces
All personnel deserve dignity and equal opportunities. Core to UN-GLOBE’s mission is ensuring inclusive, safe, and dignified workplaces for LGBTIQ+ personnel, and especially for transgender, non-binary, and gender diverse personnel who face particularly widespread barriers in accessing safe and equitable working conditions in the UN system.
Background
Despite positive steps forward in many UN offices with the inclusion of LGBTIQ+ personnel, the system has a long way to go in order to achieve full inclusion and workplaces that operate with full safety and dignity. Personnel with diverse sexual orientations continue to report discrimination, stigma, and bias in UN offices, a lack of support from their leadership, and a sense that working for the UN requires keeping your identity and family structure obscured. Gender diverse UN personnel around the world routinely face the added difficulties of getting their names correctly reflected in personnel systems, keeping their national document information private, performing their professional duties in stigma-free offices, and accessing basic medical care afforded under insurance to other personnel.
In 2025, UN-GLOBE members were invited to share feedback with the association on their workplace experiences in light of increased political rhetoric against diverse sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics (SOGIESC), and especially violent rhetoric against transgender people. Around the world, members reported increased experiences of bias, stigma, and insecurity in their offices, with a number of colleagues reporting an uptick in instances of homophobic and transphobic comments or bullying. The majority of respondents said the status of their mental health was worse as a result of the rhetoric and their experience in the workplace. Colleagues also reported decreased support from their organizations, some of which internally or publicly erased years of critical work on SOGIESC issues, including reports, guidance, and training packages developed for UN personnel.
UN-GLOBE Recommendations
To promote the elimination of bias, discrimination and inequities, and ensure the UN workplace is free from homophobia, biphobia and transphobia, UN-GLOBE advocates for positive and supportive messaging from leadership; awareness raising campaigns; practical and operational training for personnel and administrators; close review of workplace premises, guidelines, and cultures; swift responses to incidents of discrimination and abuse; updates to HR and recruitment systems; the protection of LGBTIQ+ personnel data; and necessary policy changes.
Guidance on Gender-Inclusive Health Insurance
In 2026, UN-GLOBE is releasing critical new guidance on inclusive health insurance coverage for transgender, non-binary, and gender-diverse personnel and will be offering related training for HR teams. We advocate for inclusive health care that includes equitable insurance addressing the needs of LGBTIQ+ people, including in relation to gender-affirming care and reproductive support. We want every UN personnel in every duty station to be able to access dignified health care and necessary medications without stigma or the potential for harm.
Guidance on Inclusive Workplaces
In 2026, we are also revamping and re-releasing our guidance on workplace inclusion for transgender, non-binary and gender diverse personnel aimed at workplace leadership, administrators, and HR personnel and releasing a UN-GLOBE training module on SOGIESC workplace basics for UN personnel.
Staff Surveys
UN-GLOBE continues to advocate for a survey to measure the satisfaction of LGBTIQ+ personnel in the UN system, and to measure attitudes towards LGBTIQ+ issues. Having hard numbers can benefit us all, personnel and administrators alike. While discussions about a system-wide survey continue, we are working with UN-GLOBE chapters at the entity and duty stations levels to initiate local and entity-wide surveys or add LGBTIQ+-specific questions to existing surveys.
UN Photo/Logan Abassi
Safe, Equal & dignified duty stations
UN-GLOBE calls for the UN system to ensure that all LGBTIQ+ personnel are able to access the same levels of safety, equality and dignity in UN-classified duty stations as other personnel, or to revamp the duty station classification system so that it truly represents all UN personnel and their families, not just some.
Background
The UN is long overdue in revising its classification of family duty stations to reflect the reality that there are many “family” duty stations in which personnel are unable to obtain the necessary visas and residency permits for their spouses, and in which it is unsafe for same-gender couples or LGBTIQ+ dependents to live. To mitigate the current issues with family installation and the reality that for many LGBTIQ+ personnel, family duty stations are de facto hardship duty stations, UN-GLOBE urges all UN entities to adopt administrative measures to compensate such personnel accordingly, examples of which are already in place in several large UN agencies.
UN-GLOBE Recommendations
UN-GLOBE also urges UN offices to recognize the lack of dignity and security afforded to LGBTIQ+ personnel and their families when they are forced to hide their identities, ask their children to lie about their family structures, or continually host their families on temporary visas in “family” duty stations. These circumstances are not only demoralizing, stressful, and damaging to health, but can result in the loss of experienced personnel from the UN system or impede the family-building plans of personnel.
UN Photo/Arran Skinner
equitable mobilty & career opportunities
UN-GLOBE strongly believes that the UN benefits from the full range of diversity being represented in its personnel, that the essential and often lifesaving work being performed the UN system is greatly enriched by the contributions of LGBTIQ+ personnel at all levels and in all areas of expertise, and that the current approach to mobility - which privileges heterosexual and cisgender personnel, their lived experiences, and their family structures - can negatively impact the diversity of UN teams.
Background
In the context of UN80, multiple decentralization exercises ongoing in various UN entities, including to duty stations that are not family-friendly for same-gender spouses, and the release of new mobility policies in the UN Secretariat and several UN agencies, UN-GLOBE continues to call for a fair mobility process that fully recognizes some LGBTIQ+ personnel will have concerns about their ability to move to certain duty stations - typically due to family unity, safety and security, or essential healthcare access.
In sum, we believe the UN should recognize the concerns and the barriers that exist with the current duty station classification system and mobility processes, and take steps to support personnel and mitigate harm during mobility. UN-GLOBE actively advocates to UN entities to support them in this process through reviewing their policies and procedures and making recommendations that take into account the needs of the organization and of its personnel.
UN-GLOBE Recommendations
Because mobility is essential to so many UN careers, UN-GLOBE strongly advocates for mobility policies and practices that include measures to ensure LGBTIQ+ personnel are able to engage with mobility exercises in safe and dignified ways. We also urge UN entities to ensure that experienced personnel will not be faced with career decisions that their peers would not have, such as whether to decline an offer in family duty station because it means separation from their family and related undue financial burden. Finally, we advocate for entities to ensure LGBTIQ+ personnel are not passed over for career advancement because of entity concerns that the identities of those personnel could result in security issues for the mission.
UN-GLOBE also urges UN entities to become educated about what the mobility concerns of personnel are and how inequities in information sharing and burden sharing can exacerbate bias and negatively impact LGBTIQ+ personnel and their families. We also urge entities to learn how mobility challenges can be addressed in partnership with local UN leadership, RCOs, UNCTs, and government partners.