Pride Month: Making it Easier for Professional Women to “Come Out” in Corporate America
Nancy, a manager of a creative group in a large financial company in the Fortune 500, was facing a dilemma that an estimated 21% of employees in the workplace also face. Soon after joining the company, she had to figure out how to “out” herself as a lesbian to her boss who had “no clue” about her sexual orientation.
“It was very uncomfortable for me to figure out how to say something to him,” she said, “The idea of actually having to tell him was so weird. I hadn’t had to think about it [when I was running my own company] and all of a sudden I was in a position where I had to choose to explain.” She decided to “come out” to her boss in an indirect way, through an offhanded mention of her same-sex partner in casual conversation. And, she added, while her boss was noticeably surprised, it was “no problem.” She continued, “It was just a very interesting sort of experience from that social/work perspective.” To avoid the same awkward situation in the future, she decided to head up the company’s LGBT initiative. “I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone,” she laughed. “I was excited about the opportunity to lead the group. And it was an easy way to “come out.” I just say, ‘Oh, by the way I lead the Pride group.’”
But for lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT)-identified individuals who have chosen not to “come out” as LGBT in the workplace, simple coffee break conversations represent a potential minefield. While heterosexual couples comfortably discuss their significant others, LGBT employees who choose to remain closeted may not be as comfortable.
Anika K. Warren, co-author of “Building LGBT-Inclusive Workplaces,” the recently-released Catalyst report on LGBT employees in corporate Canada, says that even the simple question of weekend plans, posed to a LGBT co-worker who is not “out” can cause significant added stress: s/he may have to edit activities that might “out” her/him or must be particularly conscious of the pronoun used for her/his significant other.
Warren, a scholar with over 10 years of work on LGBT issues, says that the “hetero-normative assumptions” of heterosexual co-workers is one of the main stumbling blocks. “The everyday assumptions that people make create a hostile work environment for people who don’t have similar experiences or who don’t necessarily want to share their experiences.”
So what stops people from disclosing to co-workers that they are LGBT? Warren said, “Although there are diverse perspectives among the LGBT community in general, we’ve identified for the purposes of our research that employees who were not out in the workplace were not out for one of two reasons: either they have a preference to keep their personal and professional lives separate or they fear potential repercussions. For those employees that are out at work, they cited a range of reasons—personal and professional—including the desire to (1) be authentic (2) form stronger relationships, (3) become role models, and (4) combat homophobia directly.”
Warren said, “[The Catalyst research] suggests that LGBT employees have to self edit or self disclose their sexual orientation. Of course, we are not advocating in any way whether someone should or should not disclose their sexuality. We are suggesting, however, that the workplace should be so inclusive that it wouldn’t matter what your sexual orientation is.”
The question remains how to get there.
To quote the Catalyst report: “Providing LGBT employees with an environment in which they can achieve their full professional potential requires more than anti-discrimination policies. Including LGBT employees fully and fairly in recruiting, development, networking, advancement, and leadership opportunities requires a comprehensive set of programs and policies with strong senior leadership support.”
According to Out and Equal, the pre-eminent national organization devoted to the LGBT community in the workplace, several things are key, including:
- the creation of a LGBT employee resource group so LGBT employees and their allies can network and create strategies for issues faced;
- the offering of domestic partner benefits;
- inclusion of LGBT protection in the company’s EEOC policy; and
- ensuring a growing understanding through LGBT workplace diversity training.
This has been done particularly well at Ernst and Young, recently named Diversity Inc’s #1 company for LGBT employees. Their LGBT efforts started just 6 years ago, when Christine Crespo, now Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Allies Inclusiveness Strategy Leader at the firm, raised the question as to why nothing was being done about this at E&Y. “LGBT is an invisible minority. Some people question whether LGBT really has workplace implications so that’s where we were starting from [when we started the LGBT efforts at E&Y, i.e.,] why talk about this in the workplace? It was much more of a grassroots effort that the other diversity efforts that E&Y has underway. This was a contingent of our own people saying ‘we recognize the need here and we want to help the firm be a better place. And we want to feel like we fit in better as well.’ A win-win for both of us.”
And there is a clear difference between the E&Y workplace of today and the one that existed 6 years ago before the establishment of the bEYond employee resource group. “We have a seat at the table now for discussion,” said Crespo, “Our whole thing is to make sure we are being inclusive in every aspect, not only in our workforce but in all the processes that reflect our workforce. We have incorporated it into our learning programs now. We’ve incorporated it into our business development processes. When looking at all internal processes for the firm now, we have been able to sit back and look at whether we have a gender or ethnicity component that we can duplicate for LGBT as well. For example, we had a supplier diversity program which worked with women and ethnic minorities and we were one of the first companies to add the LGBT component…we happily support LGBT-owned businesses as well.”
Of course, challenges remain, but at least now there is a strategy for handling matters that arise. “It is amazing how many challenges come up around language,” said Crespo. “For example, we still have folks— mostly newer folks from campus—who say ‘That’s so gay’. They don’t realize what it is conveying. But the key is creating that environment where you can safely talk about it is really what we are striving for. We know people are going to slip up, that people are going to use the wrong words at times, but if we have the environment where we can have these conversations and open dialogues that’s really what we are hoping to achieve.”
An expert in LGBT inclusion, Warren advocates open discussion as well, although she is hesitant about co-workers making the LGBT employees the “go-to educational opportunity.” She does recommend “getting to know someone and asking appropriate questions without making assumptions about how they live their lives.” She admits that can be a challenge though because of the diversity of experience, perspectives and needs in the LGBT community. “There is no one-size-fits-all answer. The best you can do is develop better interpersonal skills and develop more inclusive workplaces so you can start to figure out different ways of negotiating. It’s like asking a woman who looks like she’s pregnant if she’s pregnant or not. It’s awkward whether or not she is if she hasn’t shared the pregnancy with you yet. It is about being interpersonally savvy in the workplace and inclusive in environment so that you are treating everyone as if they are respected even if they are different. The challenge is that since it is an invisible minority; you can step into it and not know it. It’s a risk you take as an individual in the workplace.”
But despite the difficulties, experts say the creation of an LGBT-inclusive workplace is a business imperative. “Even in Canada, where there is national regulation and legislation to protect LGBT and where there are trends consistent with inclusion, there are still barriers to career advancement for LGBT.” Ms. Warren stated. “And if there are still challenges in Canada, we can easily extrapolate that the challenges in the US [because of the lack of legislation and regulation] are at least as profound as we perceived in Canada.”
According to the Catalyst report, “research has shown that job satisfaction and commitment are connected to higher productivity and profitability and lower absenteeism and turnover.” Crespo agrees, “You can spread the business case out over a whole bunch of different things but the simple business case is that the more people can be themselves, the more productive they will be, the more successful they are going to be and the more they are going to help the company succeed. It goes through everything from recruiting, morale, retention and even business development. [In relationship-based businesses like that of E&Y], there is much more trust and relationship building, understanding of the business and understanding of the people you are working with that has to happen and the more that you have the ability to talk and build those relationships, the greater business success you have. And if you are withholding a part of who you are –not bringing your full self to work—it is much more difficult to form business relationships.” And that has repercussions for everyone in the workplace, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identification.
