Gay and Transgender Issues in the Workplace

      I waited in line at the grocery store for my favorite checkout person. She’s Middle Eastern, I believe, and always has the nicest smile and the cheeriest disposition of any other checker. Those are among my major criteria in picking friends and people with whom I want to spend time – smiles and cheery dispositions.

     “You’re very popular,” I said as I finally got to unload my cart.

     “Sometimes that’s not so good,” she laughed.

     As she carefully scanned my items and passed them to the man packing my groceries, I eyed his name tag and said “Thank you, Paul. How are you today?”

     “Good, sir, good,” he replied with an accent that suggested to me his country of origin was not the United States.

     I cringe when I’m called “sir” particularly by a black man who is in my age group. In fact, I don’t like to be called “sir” by anyone of any age.

     “It’s ‘Brian’,” I replied.

     “Okay, Brian,” he smiled.

     Just then, an older white woman shopper dropped several coins of change on the floor at a nearby checkout counter.

     “M’ am, m’ am,” Paul said with great concern, “You have dropped your money. I will get it for you.” Wherein, he left me for a moment and scrambled to pick up the pennies, nickels and dimes that had scattered. Too flustered or perhaps embarrassed to stop, the woman pushed her cart quickly away acting as if she couldn’t see or hear Paul in his efforts to help her. But another black male checker saw what was happening and swooped in to gather the change, which he promptly deposited in his pocket.

     “That’s for the church,” Paul pleaded, realizing the woman didn’t want the small change but that his coworker David did. David, though, was unmoved by Paul’s plans for the money. Finder’s keepers.

     “That David,” Paul complained to my checkout person. “He’s good for nothing. He’s lazy.”

     “What did you say?” David asked as he aggressively approached our counter.

     “I said that David came in early this morning,” Paul replied.

     “I got a dime,” David said to no one in particular.

     “I give it to the church,” Paul said under his breath.

     As I approached my car with my groceries, Paul was collecting empty carts in the parking lot.

     “That David is a good for nothing,” he said to me. “He’s lazy. He doesn’t do anything. He saw me get that money. It’s for the church.”

     “Have a good day, Paul,” I said with a big smile as he continued crossing the lot to build his long train of intersecting empty grocery carts.

     Lessons I Learned:

1.)    In these very challenging, and for many people devastating financial times, more and more people will be fighting over spilled change on the street and policy change in the corporation. Out of fear that the pie is not big enough to feed everyone, many people will be far more inclined to be selfish, fearful of difference, and threatened by the unknown. And it is only going to get worse. The angry feelings created between David and Paul over the small change dropped on the grocery store floor will intensify and the older white woman customer will be more inclined to pick up what she has dropped.

2.)    No one should assume that just because people share skin color or economic status that they see each other as allies, much less friends. Valuing diversity requires that we acknowledge that each individual represents a value that is unique to him or to her and not to the group in which they’re categorized by sexual orientation, gender, age, race, ethnicity, disability, or religious beliefs. Not all Middle Eastern checkout women will be friendly, not all black baggers go to church, and not all white gay men prefer not to be called “sir.”

3.)    Kindness to another human being goes a long, long way toward building bridges that cross the differences in economic status, gender, race, nationality, physical ability, age, and religion. Just as I go out of my way to stand in line at the grocery store or post office for the person with whom I can share a moment of human decency, so too do those people look forward to having me in their line, for they know I see them as no better nor less than me and that I’m eager to make them smile or better yet laugh. Now more than ever, we need everyone to try to be kind to one another. We’re all frightened and we all want to believe that we’ll be okay. That means that we smile not just at Paul but at David too. What really binds us to each other and what groups us as human beings is not our physical or philosophical differences but rather our experience and expression of love and of hatred, and of kindness and of selfishness.

   Does the Invisible Man cast a shadow?

     Yes, and that’s how people know him. They can see that he’s there but their only memory of him will be that he was dark and without substance.

     Gay people who hide their true identity cast a shadow too, and that’s how their family, friends, and colleagues know and will remember them – as somewhat dark, and without much substance.

     Conservative, sometimes gruff, Utah Republican State Senator Chris Buttars only knew the unfriendly shadows of gay people until one recent Saturday morning, as he was standing in his driveway, he encountered Eric Ethington and Elaine Ball, founders of a grassroots group called Pride in Your Community, who brought him a loaf of freshly-baked pumpkin bread. He then invited Eric, Elaine, and two other gay activists into his home where the five of them talked for over an hour about the discrimination gay people face in the state.

     “That group has been hostile to me for many years,” the Senator later explained. “They said ‘Hi’ and it was easy to recognize they weren’t there to argue or to condemn me. They were there to talk.”

     I had a similar experience when I lived in Naples, Florida, and accepted an invitation to have lunch with one of the most outspoken, conservative religious voices against gay people in the town, who was often a one-woman campaign of letter writing and testifying before city commissions about the dangers of homosexuality. My friend Mark Benson and I went to lunch with her and the director of her church’s youth group. After over an hour of listening to us talk about our lives, the woman said, “I’ve never met a happy homosexual.” I’ve since moved from Naples, but Mark tells me that she has not written one negative letter to the editor about gay issues since we met with her.

     We all have similar stories to tell. Exposure to the true life of gay men and women, as opposed to only knowing the shadows of homosexual stereotypes, dramatically impacts how heterosexuals feel about equal rights. The conservative fundamentalist Christian businessman of whom I have written and spoken often, said to me on the plane at the end of my life story, “I will never think about this in the same way again. You have put a face on the issue for me.” The Invisible Man has no face. That’s why he’s so feared.

     The day after the extraordinarily moving inauguration of Barack Obama as the President of the United States, who made clear in his powerful address that we are past the time for making excuses for our failures, I was with a friend in the Design Center in Ft. Lauderdale, helping her to look for furniture, and I encountered two male owners of a showroom to whom I said “You guys should read my new book Are You Guys Brothers?” When I got what I took as startled looks and confusion, I added, “It’s about same-sex intimacy.”

     In the awkward moment of silence which seemed to last ten minutes, I quickly considered the possibility that they weren’t gay, but dismissed it immediately.

     “Don’t you guys get asked if you’re brothers?” I queried.

     “No, not really,” one of them replied.

     “Didn’t I just hear you say you share a home? Aren’t those pictures of your dogs on your computer screens?” I asked.

     “No, we don’t share a home. These are my dogs and that’s his dog on his screen,” the same one replied.

     “Trust your instincts,” I repeatedly told myself. A moment later, the one who was seated and had consistently made me question my assumption, finally said, “He’s going to be sure that fate brought you in here today.”

     “It’s true. It’s true,” his business partner piped in. “I don’t believe in coincidences. He and I met many years ago and became partners professionally and personally, but then we pulled back and lived very private lives and never went out to bars. I’ve never been very open about being gay. Not even here in the Design Center. Just last year, though, I started to think about it more. He and I are close friends but we’re not together anymore. But I just met a guy and I need to think about intimacy and relationships. I know that fate brought you in here. I’m buying your book.”  When I got home, there was a long e-mail from him affirming the same message.

     I surprised myself a bit by daring to recommend my book to two guys who hadn’t yet come out to me as a couple, but I’ve come to believe that if I don’t take responsibility for my life and put a face on the issue for others, straight and gay, that even after being out and vocal for 35 years, I’m still the Invisible Man to some.

     In the spirit of these remarkable and historically significant times, those of us who have more experience living out of the shadows need to help those who are still afraid to show their faces to accept personal responsibility for their lives by living in the sun, for their own sake and for the sake of us all, with or without fresh-baked pumpkin bread in their hands, to make their way in the world as people of substance who will leave a lasting impression. Yes we can.

 

  

      A chapter of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (P-FLAG) in Australia, with money provided by the Queensland government, published and distributed a brochure entitled Homophobia in the Workplace which though well-intentioned was not helpful. It states the reasons why it is a disadvantage to be gay in the workplace:

Disadvantages of many homosexuals in the workplace

Many are fearful to discuss partner and family

Fear of being verbally abused, ostracized, bullied and isolated socially

Possibly not be employed even though best for the position

Possibly passed over for promotion

Employers may retrench for trivial reasons

Be excluded from social activity with work colleagues

Be the target of gossip

     And then the brochure states the advantages of being gay in the workplace.

Advantages of being homosexual

There aren’t any advantages

     The P-FLAG group has accurately summarized many of the challenges gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people face in the workplace, but they completely missed the boat when they said there aren’t any advantages of being homosexual. There are many advantages to being gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender in the workplace, and for many people, in many parts of the world, in many corporations, they far outweigh the disadvantages.

     The mantra of most global corporations, even in this dire time of financial uncertainty, is that to succeed, they must value diversity, because if they don’t value diversity they will be unable to attract and retain the best and brightest talent. To be valued, a gay, lesbian, or bisexual person has to be out of the closet. If they are satisfied with merely being tolerated, they can stay hidden.

     Openly gay and transgender people bring enormous gifts to the table. As companies scramble to maintain or even build upon their market share, they need the guidance of their gay and transgender employees to effectively appeal to the gay and transgender buying public. To win the war for talent, companies need the help of their gay and transgender employees to maintain morale and to get the word out to others that there is no better place to work. Heterosexual employees simply cannot do that with gay and transgender people as well as gay and transgender employees can. So, there is a great advantage to being homosexual in most corporations today.

     In 35 years of working as an educator and counselor, I’ve never met a gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender person who was sorry that he or she came out at work. While all of the items listed by P-FLAG as disadvantages are true, they are not enough to make staying in the closet a good decision for the person’s ultimate personal and professional wellbeing. Closeted gay people are the subject of speculation and rumor. Closeted gay people expend enormous energy hiding their true identity at work. Closeted gay people are not seen as having the leadership skills necessary to have managerial responsibilities.

     While I don’t want any person to leave the closet before he or she is ready, I also don’t want them to stay in the closet and endure it’s horrors because they are told that there are no advantages to being homosexual in the workplace.

     If you’d like to discuss this further, please write to me. If you’d like to provide your company with the necessary resources to navigate these issues in these economically challenging times, consider suggesting my very cost-effective new Web guide for managers on gay and transgender workplace issues, available through my web site at www.brian-mcnaught.com/guide.

     Thank you for your faithful reading of this offering each week. Your interest is a gift to me.
     Unlike the other blog on same-sex relationships that I also write, I sometimes run out of new things to comment on regarding gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender workplace issues. Usually, I share accounts of what work I’m doing, interesting people I’ve met, or insights I’ve had about the workplace. But with the economy being what it is, and diversity training sidelined by many companies for the time being, I’m traveling less.
     My plan for 2009 is to use this space for questions from readers on workplace issues and responses from me and other readers. If I have an interesting insights or experiences, I’ll share them with you without needing a question, but otherwise, I’ll be waiting to hear from you.
     I think we’re in for an interesting year. I feel that President Obama will be addressing the inequalities experienced by gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people by supporting passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) and the repeal of the policy “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” That will give us lots to talk about.
     Together, lets envision a new year that is filled with understanding and affirmation of personal differences of being human and of experiencing life.
     Happy New Year.