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Out at work: Interaction not always straightforward if you’re LGBTQI+

How open to be is a constant consideration for LGBTQI+ people in workplaces, where we can experience discrimination, conscious or otherwise, writes Peter McGuire

It’s not enough for companies to use simply LGBTQ+ employees for advertising once a year. Photograph: iStock

Fri Oct 13 2023 - 00:00

When did you come out? It’s a common question that LGBTQI+ people face. It’s one we ask each other. But it’s an odd question: coming out is not a single process like getting your passport renewed or tying your shoelaces.

It is a constant, ongoing process. With every new group that straight people meet, every new situation, every new workplace, they don’t have to even think about mentioning a funny anecdote about their partner or what they did at the weekend. But for us it’s always something of a consideration: should we mention our partner or that we were in a gay bar at the weekend?

It’s not necessarily that we think someone will be rude or unpleasant but more that a lifetime of accumulated shame, judgment and second-guessing makes us wary that they will be quietly judging us or that it could impact how we are treated in our workplace.

After several years working in marketing, Ciáran retrained as an interior designer.

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“I’ve been open and out since I was 18, and was always open about it in the workplace,” he says. “People know my partner is a man and I don’t have to hide that part of my life. When I was in my 20s, however, I would always make up an excuse to tell people I was gay. Now I am much more comfortable in myself and just act the way I am.”

An interior design office based in Cork city is hardly going to be an entirely heterosexual workplace. But Ciáran also has to go out to construction sites and these, he says, can have a quite different atmosphere.

“I’ve never experienced any abuse or harassment on site,” he says. “But it is a very traditional, masculine atmosphere and there can be a sense of everyone trying to prove they are the alpha. For a gay person this can be a little intimidating and tense. It’s not that I feel unsafe or embarrassed but I imagine it might not be the easiest place to be a gay employee and it reminds me that there must be many other workplaces like that.”

Luke McLoughlin is corporate engagement lead at Dublin Pride. His job involves not just securing sponsorship for Pride but also working with companies to ensure that they are supportive spaces for their LGBTQ+ employees.

Over recent years, many within the community – including this journalist – have questioned why Pride has become so corporate. It’s a criticism that McLoughlin takes on board but, he says, there wouldn’t be a Pride parade without corporate sponsorship.

“Certainly not to that capacity anyway,” he says. “We have to cover the costs of a lively parade as well as security and road closures. Without funding it would be more like any protest march – and although Pride is a protest as well as a celebration it would be a very sombre event in comparison.”

However, McLoughlin says it is not enough for companies to simply use us for advertising once a year.

“Any company that wants us to be in the parade has to sign up as a Pride partner,” he explains. “This means that they must run a minimum of two organisational-wide training sessions, which can help to change attitudes within that workplace but are also very beneficial for LGBTQ+ staff.”

Earlier this year software firm Intercom announced that it was withdrawing its support for its employee resource groups, including its LGBTQ+ group. It was widely seen as a sign that the company did not understand the issues LGBTQ+ people might face at work and many of us wondered if it was just the start of businesses getting nervous about being seen to support their LGBTQ+ staff and the wider community.

McLoughlin says Dublin Pride has not seen a drop-off in corporate support but it is going to offer companies the option to march in Pride 2024 without branding.

“It’s not great if an organisation is acting on fear but it’s important to encourage them to participate for their employees and prospective employees,” he said. “And, more importantly, keeping them on board means that they have to be a Pride partner and that means that they commit to supporting their LGBTQ+ staff.”

The Pride training addresses issues including the fact that not all LGBTQ+ people are the same, that we tend to earn less than straight people and that we can experience discrimination – conscious or otherwise – in the workplace. It also addresses allyship and helps support straight people to support us, McLoughin says.

It feels more necessary than ever. The growing online hostility to trans people has not only seeped into the media but has also, unsurprisingly, led to a wider backlash against the community, manifesting in protests at libraries that have seen age-appropriate LGBTQ+ books targeted.

Professor Maeve Houlihan is associate dean at the UCD Quinn School of Business and covers diversity at work as part of her teaching and research.

“I am worried about the growing pockets of hate and it is important that we use our voices and visibility to make the public square safe,” she says. “It is important to protect the LGBTQ+ community – particularly, at the moment, those of trans and non-binary identities in Ireland. There is a profound need to ‘calm down’ – to borrow from the comedian Mae Martin – the current public discourse about trans youth, to continue to educate ourselves and, foremost, to love, support and protect human beings.”

Houlihan adds: “Being out at work is truly valuable but in some ways asks more than ever of the individual.

“The workplace and, particularly, global corporations have been a truly important actor in the progress of human rights and the greater appreciation of diversity. For instance, firms got behind their people and made sure they felt safe to use their voices during the Yes Equality campaign – although, as Pride became highly corporatised, many wondered if it was a Faustian pact.”

Ultimately, she doesn’t believe it is. “It strikes me that every single time I meet a managing partner of a professional-service firm, or a senior executive in a tech company, sporting a rainbow-coloured lanyard, how powerful this coding is in its simple and radical message of inclusion,” she says.

“Generations of us know the true costs of being shamed or rejected for differences in Ireland, so I don’t think it can be underestimated.”

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