GLEAM also lobbied for Microsoft to offer insurance and other benefits to same-sex domestic partners. Lobbying intensified after Lotus offered these benefits to its workers.The Advocate: Gay and lesbian at Microsoft, March 4, 1997 by Sally J. Clark Microsoft added this benefit in 1993.Microsoft: Official GLEAM page.

GLEAM became more formally organized in 1993 under Microsoft's Diversity Advisory Council, along with Blacks At Microsoft (BAM), the women's group Hoppers, and similar groups.Microsoft: Official GLEAM page.

More recently the group influenced Microsoft to add gender identity and expression to its anti-discrimination policies in April 2005 and in 2006 to progressively extend health coverage benefits to cover transgender care, and some surgery. The Human Rights Campaign, an American gay rights group that focuses on transgender issues, updated Microsoft's Corporate Equality Index rating to 100%. The Corporate Equality Index is a set of metrics used by the Human Rights Campaign to measure a company's compliance with its goals of gender identity neutrality in the workplace.

Washington state gay rights legislation

GLEAM also pushed to secure Microsoft's support of gay rights legislation in Washington state. During legislative hearings on Washington's H.B. 1515 bill, which would extend the state's current anti-discrimination laws to people with alternate sexual orientations, two Microsoft employees testified as private citizens on behalf of the legislation. A conservative religious group took this to mean Microsoft was actively supporting the legislation as an organization and demanded the company reverse its support.

In an April 22, 2005 e-mail, company CEO Steve Ballmer explained to Microsoft employees that earlier in the year, the company had decided to focus its lobbying efforts on issues more directly related to its core business (e.g., computer privacy). In the same e-mail, he affirmed the company's commitment to diversity and encouraged individual shareholders to get involved in the issue, but said that no one on either side should represent themselves as speaking for the company.

In response, seven days later, the GLEAM board of directors sent an e-mail that proposed, with specific timelines, various steps that Microsoft should take in order to repair its public image and the "lack of trust" created by the Ballmer e-mail on April 22. Among the proposals was that Microsoft should acknowledge its neutral position was a mistake (including a proposed press release and a seven-day suggested timeframe for the dissemination of the release) and partner with GLEAM as "subject matter experts" in reaching out to the LGBT community, beginning with a sixty day "intense outreach" period. Meanwhile, a petition of employees asking Microsoft to support the bill topped 1700 signatures.