As women in the workplace trying to break the glass ceiling in Corporate America and professional services, we certainly have our challenges. But, imagine if, on top of those, you felt like your brain was out of sync with your body and you had to hide that fact from co-workers and friends. Today, as our last piece covering LGBT issues in the workplace, we share with you the challenges faced by a now-female executive who transitioned from being a male executive while trying to maintain a high-powered IT career.   

 

“Transitioning in the workplace is much like a chess game,” explained Meghan Stabler, an IT executive with BMC Software who transitioned from male to female while working for the company. “You are already laying out multiple game plans based on the planned results and things that are happening today.  In other words, you have to think to yourself:  I want this down the road and, to make that happen, I need to have these conversations with these people and this policy in place.  On top of that, it is like the dominos configuration. The objective of the transitioning individual is to lay that domino pattern out so that when they need to, they just tip the first domino and everything falls into place.”

 

The decision to transition from male to female was not a simple one for Meghan, although, as a young boy living a very happy childhood in England, she had always felt trapped in the wrong body.  “It was one of those things as a child – I didn’t quite know what it was but I felt there was something different about me. It wasn’t until about 10 or 11 when I saw a newspaper article about a tennis player called Renee Richards [who had transitioned from male to female] when the proverbial light bulb went off over my head.”  Puberty was even more difficult for Meghan because she felt that her body was changing in ways her brain was telling her was wrong. “I was going to bed at night praying for three things – I would wake up a girl, that my parents would still love me and that my wardrobe would change.  And then I would wake up in the morning in tears because nothing has changed.”

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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.”

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