Become a Certified
Queer-Affirming Business™

A queer-affirming business goes beyond being LGBTQ+ friendly. Being affirming means understanding the unique experiences, needs, and concerns of queer clients and proactively creating systems, policies, communication practices, and customer experiences that help people feel respected and included. Our certification programs help business owners learn industry-specific LGBTQ+ best practices through real-world training developed by queer professionals who work in those fields every day.

Not at all! This course is open to any business owner or contractor who is willing to do the work. You don't have to be queer, and you don't even need to know what allyship means in your industry yet. You just have to be willing to grow. Some of the most impactful businesses a queer client can work with are allies who simply cared enough to learn how to show up for them.

Think of getting certified like getting a degree in something you already have experience in. You know how to show up for your community, and becoming a Certified Queer-Affirming Business™ gives you the credential to back it up. Plus, we learn something new every time an instructor builds a course with us, especially when it comes to the intersection of queerness and the actual work, so we suspect you'll learn something too!

On top of training, your listing in the Affirming Business Directory reaches queer people who have never met you. The badge tells them you've been trained on the specifics of your industry and that you’re a business they can rely on before they’ve ever met you.

We offer discounts for queer-owned businesses. Email hello@affirmingbusinesses.com with the subject "Queer-owned business" and a link to your business website, or DM us on Instagram @affirmingbusinesses with a link to your website, and we'll send you the code!

Trying is the right starting point, but trying without knowing what queer clients actually experience in your industry means you're likely missing things you aren't trained to see yet. Most harm in service industries doesn't come from bad intentions; it comes from inherited systems, default assumptions, and gaps in knowledge that nobody ever pointed out. This course highlights the gaps specific to your industry and provides real examples you might even recognize from your own work. Most people who take it are good people who care, and that's exactly who it's built for.

Generic DEI training is built for everyone, which means the scenarios, examples, and guidance rarely reflect the specific situations that come up in your work. Your course was designed specifically for your industry. Every scenario, every skill, and every best practice comes from real situations you will actually encounter. Nothing was repurposed from a corporate HR module or adapted from a different industry. Our courses are built from the ground up by a queer expert who works in your field.

Most directories of queer-owned businesses don't differentiate between those who have done the work and those who simply identify as queer. The Queer-Affirming Business certification does. By getting certified, you're not just learning how to better show up for every member of the LGBTQ+ community, you're joining a directory of businesses who have done real training on how to create affirming experiences for queer clients. Your directory listing and badge tell queer clients that you're certified as queer-affirming, not just queer-owned or queer-allied.

The Affirming Business Directory is built to be found, and queer consumers are actively looking for credible signals beyond a pride flag or a rainbow logo. The more businesses that earn certification, the more the directory becomes the first place queer people go when they're looking for a business they can trust. When you join now, you're getting in early, which means you'll be one of the first certified businesses queer clients find when they go looking.

Queer clients are actively searching for businesses who have done this work, and your certification gives them a reason to choose you before they've ever spoken to you. We can't promise you a number of contacts, but queer networks are tight, referrals move fast, and a business that knows how to show up for the queer community becomes the business that queer people talk about and refer their friends to.

Yes. Once you're certified, your badge is yours to use anywhere: on your website, in your storefront, in your marketing materials, on your social profiles, and in your merch. The more visible your certification is, the easier it is for queer clients to find you.

The choice to build in renewal was intentional. The queer community is constantly evolving, and the businesses serving them should evolve too. Language shifts, community norms change, and what it means to show up for queer clients today looks different from what it meant two years ago. The renewal cycle exists so that when a queer client sees your badge or finds you in the directory, they can trust that your training reflects where the community actually is right now, not where it was two years ago. Our commitment to you is that we update every course continuously. When you renew, you're getting the most current training out there, not the same material you already went through.

The Affirming Business Directory at affirmingbusinesses.com is a searchable directory of certified queer-affirming businesses across the USA. You can search by industry and location to find LGBTQ+ inclusive businesses near you.