recruitment
an office outing Y
ou spend more time with them than anyone else, but they still don’t know you’re gay. We explore the tricky prospect of how to come out to your
colleagues.
Opening up about your sexuality to friends is one thing, but you know them well, and (assuming you’ve chosen some decent pals) they’re going to be cool with it. But what about coming out to near strangers? Not just someone you met in a bar and won’t ever see again, but the people you see nearly every day. Coming out at work can be uncomfortable at best… and, in the worst situation... job-threatening. Twenty-three-year-old Londoner Gemma
revealed she was a lesbian during an interview for a job in sales: “The interviewer made a casual, sarcastic comment about her husband. She was being friendly, but I was really nervous and I just blurted out, ‘God, men! I’m so glad I’m gay sometimes’.” The woman’s face soured at once. “She sort of flinched,” says Gemma. “She looked very uncomfortable and said ‘ah, right’, then immediately changed the subject. I went bright red and couldn’t focus for the rest of the interview.” Gemma didn’t get the job, and she feels that
revealing her sexuality may have had something to do with it. She instantly got the feeling that her interviewer was on the conservative side, and says that, in some way, by telling her that she was gay, she was testing her boundaries. So coming out in a formal situation is certainly one way of assessing what the general feeling is about gayness and your potential workplace’s environment. “Coming out may have cost me that job,” says Gemma, “but I wouldn’t have wanted to work in such an intolerant environment in the first place.” But what if you do end up in a job where your
sexuality is an issue? Katie, 21, was temping in an office just outside Brighton when she came out as a lesbian to one of her colleagues. “It was a very macho office,” she says. “It was mostly guys, and they could be a bit full-on.” She continues: “I’m
very feminine, and I clearly didn’t fit in with their idea of what a lesbian should look like.” So when one of her co-workers, let’s call him
‘Kevin’, asked her out for a drink, he was shocked when she told him that she was gay. “I told him that I couldn’t go for a drink with him after work because I was seeing my girlfriend. He just gawped!” After coming out to Kevin, Katie felt there was a
weird atmosphere: “He’d clearly told all the other guys that I was gay. Whenever I walked past a group of them, there would always be muttering and laughter. I don’t think anyone believed [Kevin] about me being a lesbian; they thought he was just making an excuse for why I rejected him. That’s why it was really insulting when one of Kevin’s friends in the office asked me out!” But coming out is not all bad. If you’re anxious about how to go about being honest with your workmates, there’s plenty of inspiration, help and support out there and remember, since the law changed in 2003 with new Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations, gay people are now better protected against harassment in the workplace. Stonewall campaigns hard on the issue of
workplace equality, encouraging good practice with its Diversity Champions programme and its Top 100 list of gay-friendly employers. The charity also offers advice to anyone who feels they have been discriminated against at work. It’s worth checking this list if it’s important to you that you can be yourself at work, as it contains over 600 employers who meticulously ensure that the working environment is a sound one for gay employees. You may also want to find out if the company you might be working for has a LGBT network; and if it’s a small company, it’s sometimes a good idea to find out who else is gay there. Coming out at work is a brave move. Sure,
you risk the judgment of your colleagues, if they happen to be homophobic; but it’s also important to for your wellbeing to be open at work. As Stonewall says: “People perform better at work when they can be themselves.”
work Pride
If you are a victim of homophobia
in the workplace, keep a record of
any incidences. Try approaching the
perpetrator, to discuss it but if you can’t,
tell HR or your line manager. If all fails then go to a solicitor.
london 2011 • 93
Text: Eleanor Margolis
CoNtaCts
www.www.stonewall.org.uk
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