 | Big victory: Thalys' CEO has replied to our petition with a strong commitment to tackle homophobia. Chip in for more victories like this one: | |
Dear Luc,
We won big time! Thalys' CEO has directly replied to the 60,000 of us who signed the petition to support Mirjam, an All Out member who was bullied by a Thalys employee, just for kissing her girlfriend goodbye on the train platform.
Thalys replied to our petition announcing an update of the full company staff training. They will even use Mirjam’s unfortunate homophobic experience in future trainings, to make sure that no customer is ever treated so shamefully again.
That's how powerful our movement is. Can you chip in now to help All Out continue the fight for love and equality – so we win even more amazing victories like this one? Click here to make a secure donation: go.allout.org/en/a/more-victories All Out doesn’t take money from corporations or governments who might try to influence our work. Instead,victories like this one happen thanks to small donations from amazing people like you Luc.
If all of us make a small donation of any amount right now, we would have enough money to supercharge our budget for the next few months – and win even more amazing victories.
After getting an anti-gay rant from the Thalys employee, Mirjam complained on the company website. Thalys has marched against homophobia and put giant gay-friendly ads in Paris' subway. So Mirjam expected the company to take her complaint seriously. But they didn't - they gave her a vague answer and took no action to help.
Mirjam emailed All Out about her story. Our small team immediately jumped into action. Here's what happened:
In just 2 days, 60,000 of us signed the petitionasking Thalys to stand up for equality.
Thousands of us tweeted at Thalys and within hours they responded. They condemned homophobia and said they were looking into the matter. We generated a huge media storm and increased pressure.
Mirjam and the All Out office team used our massive petition to push Thalys to take concrete action. One day later, they did, agreeing to update their training and use Mirjam's example in all future trainings.
By coming together, we made Mirjam's voice loud and clear. Both the CEO and Deputy CEO took the matter into their own hands. These kinds of amazing victories only come from working together. Can you help keep our small team ready for action?
This victory and all our movement's victories are made possible thanks to All Out's tiny office staff: they read every single message from members (like Mirjam!), scan the global news, get the expertise from human rights defenders around the world – all to turn the power of all our signatures into concrete victories.
All Out is just 4 years old, but together, we’re winning concrete victories every week. Here is some of our most recent work:
- Pushing back on Northern Ireland anti-gay law:
In February, All Out joined the fight against a bill to make discrimination towards gay, lesbian and bi people legal in Northern Ireland. 230,000 of us spoke out against the bill and 900 of us gave a small donation to fund a huge billboard van with our message: stop this anti-gay law. We'll send photos of the van very soon – and we're continuing to push inside and outside the Assembly.
- Countering anti-gay Manif pour tous:
A few months ago, we heard that powerful French anti-gay group La Manif Pour Tous was planning a huge mobilization in Paris. To counter their negative, anti-equality dialogue, we launched our own media moment. We asked families of all shapes, sizes and make ups to come to Place de la Republique in Paris - thousands of us came together to show that France is made up of a variety of families.
Thanks for going All Out,
Andre, Jeremy, Guillaume, Oscar and the rest of the All Out team.
P.S. All Out is member-funded – that means every individual donation goes to powering groundbreaking global campaigns. It also means governments and corporations can't tell us what to do because we won't take their money. If we want to be 100% independent and running on individual donations AND funding amazing, grassroots groups on the ground, changing lives – we all need to step up and chip in now: go.allout.org/en/a/more-victories 
