Sexual Identity on the Job

Issues and Services

Alan L Ellis, Ellen D Riggle

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317764380
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Sexual Identity on the Job provides academics and practitioners with a solid resource for addressing sexual identity concerns and issues in the workplace. It offers corporate trainers, managers, and policymakers suggestions for creating a positive psychological environment of inclusion for all workers through policies of nondiscrimination, the availability of domestic partner benefits, and solid efforts to eliminate on-the-job discrimination toward lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender individuals. It educates social service providers about company actions of which they need to know in order to effectively support their gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgenderedclients.As a compilation of scholarly and applied perspectives, Sexual Identity on the Job covers such topics as multicultural identity (multiple identities) development; legal and policy issues of employment; career development issues for lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgender persons; and how inclusion improves productivity among all groups. By including both perspectives, this unique volume offers both academics and practitioners a broader knowledge of the field and relevant issues, and possible solutions for sexual identity concerns and questions in the workplace.Chapters in Sexual Identity on the Job address a diverse set of issues relating to ways in which those concerned about the psychological well-being of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender workers can address their needs while recognizing their desire to lead productive, fulfilling lives. The contributors, in promoting workplaces that offer all workers inclusion, safety, and a place to thrive psychologically and emotionally, cover such topics as:

• gay, lesbian, and bisexual career development and counseling issues
• managing multiple identities (race, gender, sexual orientation) in the workplace
• current trends in economic discrimination toward lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals and relevant legal concerns
• domestic partner benefits
• the relationship between inclusion and productivitySexual Identity on the Job chronicles the development of research, specific concerns which have been addressed, and where current research leaves this situation. It also provides some interpretation of the past and current research and its implications for lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgender workers and their co-workers. It betters relationships among gay and straight workers, administration, and management by promoting equal and fair treatment, in regard to both legal and policy issues and in interpersonal relationships, to all employees. Corporate trainers of all levels, academic researchers, career and other counselors, and the general public will find its pages filled with applicable and helpful information.

Employment and Sexual Orientation: Disclosure and Discrimination in the Workplace

M. V. Lee Badgett

SUMMARY. Economists, sociologists, and other social scientists have begun to study the influence of sexual orientation on individuals in the labor market, particularly with respect to employment discrimination. The conceptual framework developed in this paper connects lesbian, gay, and bisexual workers’ disclosure of their sexual orientation to the economic and social characteristics of the workplace. Disclosure creates the potential for discrimination by employers and coworkers. The framework shows how sexual orientation operates independently and in interaction with other important characteristics such as race and gender. A review of existing research supports the hypothesis that discrimination against gay workers exists. Both workplace groups for gays and lesbians and those who work with gay and lesbian workers (such as supervisors, personnel managers, and counselors) need to understand the relationship between disclosure and discrimination in order to make workplaces supportive of lesbian, gay, and bisexual workers. [Article copies available from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1–800–342–9678.]

Introduction

For many years, social scientists have worked to understand how social forces influence individuals in the United States labor market. Economists and sociologists, in particular, have long studied labor market discrimination against women and people of color. In expanding our view to apply similar methods and questions to discrimination because of sexual orientation, however, we must proceed carefully to avoid the overgeneralization that the sources and effects of discrimination are identical for all oppressed groups. When we inquire into the existence of discrimination against lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals, we increase our understanding of forces that influence an individual’s labor market position, forces which include race, gender, and class. This paper develops a conceptual framework that shows how a worker’s sexual orientation may have independent effects within the workplace and interactive effects with other socially and economically relevant characteristics, mainly race and gender, as well as how the awareness of these effects is relevant to those who work with lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals.

Extending the scope of labor market research to include the topic of sexual orientation has obvious academic appeal as more widespread interest in lesbian/gay/bisexual studies grows. But this expansion is more than an academic adventure into uncharted territory, as discrimination against gay and bisexual people has become the subject of intense policy and political debate, mainly focusing on whether discrimination against gay people truly exists. In the 1992 elections, opponents of lesbian and gay civil rights forced referenda that would have repealed local gay rights laws in Oregon, Colorado, Tampa, Florida, and Portland, Maine. (At the time of this writing, the Colorado gay rights law was reinstated by the courts.) These campaigns, which were successful statewide in Colorado and citywide in Tampa, shared the argument that such civil rights laws granted gay men and lesbians “special privileges” or “special rights,” a claim which clearly challenges the notion that gays and lesbians face discrimination in the labor market. Furthermore, literature published in the Colorado campaign asked:

Are homosexuals a “disadvantaged” minority? You decide! Records show that even now, not only are gays not economically disadvantaged, they’re actually one of the most affluent groups in America! On July 18, 1991, the Wall Street Journal reported the results of a nation-wide marketing survey about gay income levels. The survey reported that gays’ average income was more than $30,000 over that of the average Americans’ [sic]. (Colorado for Family Values, 1992)

The basic argument, then, seems to be that lesbians and gay men do not encounter discrimination since they seemed to have achieved unusual economic success without civil rights protections. (The serious flaws in this argument, mainly statistically biased samples and incorrect comparisons, will be discussed further.)

In addition to the academic and policy needs for an understanding of discrimination and its relationship to disclosure, those professionals working with lesbian, gay, and bisexual workers also need to recognize the complex set of influences that shape those workers’ work lives and decisions. As gay issues become more prominent in the workplace, supervisors, counselors, and personnel managers must consider new questions: Should we encourage gay workers to come out, i.e., to disclose their sexual orientation within the workplace? Do our employment practices discriminate against gay workers in any way, and is discrimination illegal? How does dealing with sexual orientation fit in with other diversity issues? In seeking answers to these and other questions, human resources professionals must grapple with many of the same conceptual issues as social scientists.

In the next section, this paper offers an overview of the legal situation faced by lesbian, gay, and bisexual workers and shows that most of them have little legal protection against discrimination. Then a conceptual framework of the labor market role of sexual orientation is developed, which will help structure future empirical research and guide helping professionals. The framework connects gay workers’ disclosure of their sexual orientation to workplace characteristics, including the workplace social climate and economic incentives, creating the potential for discrimination by employers and coworkers. This framework also reveals points of divergence in the workplace effects of sexual orientation for different race and gender groups. The last section examines existing evidence of discrimination and suggests several other research strategies.

Current Legal Situation

The legal position of lesbian, gay, or bisexual workers differs between public and private employees. Gay and bisexual people have no explicit protection from employment discrimination at the federal level in the private sector. Eight states have civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination by private employers on the basis of sexual orientation: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Vermont, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia. Many city and/or county laws also provide such legal protection. Estimates vary as to the number of private employers who have a nondiscrimination policy toward lesbians and gay men, but many large companies do have such policies (Martinez, 1993).

When not bound by a collective bargaining agreement or by civil rights laws, employers have traditionally been able to hire and fire employees at will. This employment-at-will doctrine has recently come under attack in a variety of contexts as courts increasingly find that implicit contractual limitations allow employers to fíre employees only for cause (Editors of Harvard Law Review, 1991). This notion of an implied contract has been used with mixed results against employers who have fired employees because of their sexual orientation (Editors of Harvard Law Review, 1991). In a recent case, a California state judge found that Shell Oil wrongfully discharged an employee because of his homosexuality rather than for job performance, the criterion that Shell claimed guided all dismissal decisions (Shao, 1991). But this protection, like that afforded by union contracts, only protects those who are already employed.

Other laws limiting private employers’ actions, particularly Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, have provided little protection against anti-gay discrimination.¹ The effect of existing local antidiscrimination ordinances in overturning discriminatory acts against lesbians and gay men is still unclear. Such ordinances often face rescission (as evidenced by the referenda noted earlier) and “may be unenforceable when they conflict with federal interests or constitutional rights” (Editors of Harvard Law Review, 1991).

Public employers operate under additional constraints not faced by private employers. Employees of 18 states are protected from discrimination by executive orders or state law (Ten Percent, 1993). Perhaps more importantly, the government’s ability to hire and fire employees is limited by certain constitutional requirements. For federal employees, the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee due process and equal protection under the law, respectively. Until recently, these constitutional principles have provided little employment protection for lesbian and gay public employees. Lower tier due process or equal protection review of a government action based on an employee’s sexual orientation would require the government to show a “rational relationship between that person’s sexual orientation and the efficiency of governmental operations” (Editors of Harvard Law Review, 1991). Courts have accepted numerous unsubstantiated rationales in upholding discriminatory actions against military personnel and against those seeking security clearances, but the rational relationship requirement provides some limited protection for civil servants (Editors of Harvard Law Review, 1991).

Two lower courts have considered sexual orientation as a “suspect” or “quasi-suspect” classification that requires what is known as “heightened equal protection scrutiny.” This level of judicial scrutiny requires the government to demonstrate that the classification of people by their sexual orientation serves an “important” interest (if quasi-suspect) or a “compelling” government goal (if suspect) and bears a “substantial” relationship (quasi-suspect) or is “precisely tailored” (suspect) to the issue at hand (Editors of Harvard Law Review, 1991). The application of heightened scrutiny has not been upheld on appeal, but it has resulted in one case forcing the military to reinstate an openly gay soldier (Watkins v. U.S. Army) (ACLU, 1991). The Supreme Court has yet to rule on whether sexual orientation is either a suspect classification, as is race, or quasi-suspect, as is sex (Editors of Harvard Law Review, 1991).

As this section demonstrates, when most lesbian, gay, or bisexual people arrive at their workplaces, they are vulnerable to the kind of discrimination from which heterosexual women and heterosexual people of color are legally protected. And although thirty years of federal antidiscrimination policies have not completely eliminated sex and race discrimination (see, for example, Turner, Fix, & Struyk, 1991), those forms of discrimination can be fought through administrative and judicial processes. Professionals who work with gay workers and want to integrate gay workers more fully into their workplaces must recognize this real vulnerability that makes gay workers’ situation very different from other protected categories, such as race, gender, and disability status.

Conceptual Framework

Studying labor market discrimination means drawing causal links between an individual’s sexual orientation and her/his labor market outcomes–hiring, promotion, wages, employment status, etc. This requires some understanding of the role of sexuality in the economy, an understanding that economists, in particular, are only beginning to develop (see Badgett & Williams, 1992; Posner, 1992; Matthaei, 1993). The approach here is to consider only one dimension of sexuality: the fact that some individuals’ sexual partners are of the same gender. This framework takes as given the existence of homophobia (the fear of homosexuals and homosexuality) and het-erosexism (the belief that heterosexuality is superior and should be an enforceable social norm) but acknowledges that these social attitudes vary in existence and intensity across individuals over time.² In this paper, the main question considers how homophobic or heterosexist attitudes in the workplace affect a lesbian, gay, or bisexual worker.

Identity and Behavior. While the ways that race and gender operate within the economy are complex, at least those who study these factors (and human resources professionals working with women and people of color) have the empirical advantage of studying an observable attribute.³ Because someone’s sexuality is not easily observed or inferred, the option of hiding it in some or all social contexts is often chosen by lesbian, gay, or bisexual people to avoid the potential for social ostracism, physical violence, or other sanctions imposed by an unaccepting society. To further complicate the issue of observability, the development of a lesbian, gay, or bisexual identity is a process that can occur at any stage of life and at different rates (Garnets & Kimmel, 1991). This hiddenness, whether from oneself or from others, makes standard research techniques (such as random sampling) extremely difficult and has impeded social scientific progress on issues of sexuality.

But hiding one’s sexuality may also dampen the extent of social or economic sanctions faced by an individual, including employment discrimination. In this framework, the connection between sexuality and labor market outcomes hinges crucially on the issue of disclosure of lesbian, gay, or bisexual behavior and/or identity. And since hiding is associated with avoidance of sanctions, disclosure is likely to be at least partly determined by workplace factors.

Before further developing the relationship between disclosure and the workplace, at least some discussion of the thorny issue of the relationship between behavior (sexual practices) and identity (considering oneself lesbian, gay, or bisexual) is in order.⁴ The assumption in this framework is that both behavior and identity are sufficient to trigger sanctions. For instance, the act of sodo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Sexual Identity Issues in the Workplace: Past and Present
• Multicultural Existence in the Workplace: Including How I Thrive as a Latina Lesbian Feminist
• Employment and Sexual Orientation: Disclosure and Discrimination in the Workplace
• Domestic Partner Benefits: A Bottom Line Discussion
• The Impact of Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Workplace Issues on Productivity
• Gay and Lesbian Career Counseling: Special Career Counseling Issues
• Index