Coming out in the workplace

By JULIE MIDDLETON.

Heterosexual? You routinely display your sexual preference without thinking twice - talking about lovers and spouses, displaying photos on your desk, bringing partners to social events.

Orientation is irrelevant to job performance - but it's an integral part of the private world staffers bring to work.

Here's a task, then. On your next day at work, make an effort during every conversation to suppress the fact you're straight.

No matter what you're asked, don't say anything that identifies your sexual orientation. (I can tell you now, talking about your life while accidentally-on-purpose leaving out names is hard work - "he" or "she" will trip you in minutes.)

If you had to do that all the time, how would it affect your mood and morale, your performance, your attitude towards your company and your sense of belonging?

This covering up, driven by fear of harassment and discrimination, is something many gays and bisexual people grapple with daily.

The cumulative stress can impact on emotional and mental health and performance to the extent, says gay diversity consultant Eugene Moore, that it can trigger "prolonged duress stress disorder" - a relative of post-traumatic stress disorder, characterised by symptoms ranging from panic attacks to insomnia.

Despite the fact that to be unfair on the grounds of sexual orientation is illegal in New Zealand, and that so many companies have promulgated noble anti-discrimination policies, there is often a yawning gap between the rules and reality.

The gay community itself is divided over whether one should be out at work. Some, like Natalie, who is training in finance, bisexual and married, say firmly: "Sexuality is not workplace information."

In contrast, says Gaelyn Taylor, a former Aucklander who is now operations manager of Melbourne's Coffee HQ, "some people consider that if you don't come out to every single person ... then your silence is encouraging homophobia.

"Others see homosexuality as such a small thing - who they sleep with - that it hardly matters and isn't something to tell everyone about."

Either way, says Taylor, "people need to be comfortable with their own sexuality before telling anyone else about it".

But fear means "the closet is the reality [at work] for most gay people", says Moore, whose sexuality awareness work with the Navy led it to an Equal Employment Opportunities Trust award in 2001.

Research published in the excellent book Straight Jobs, Gay Lives, by Annette Friskopp and Sharon Silverstein (Scribner, 1995), found that gays who worried about disclosure performed at lower levels than those who didn't.

They also found that those who successfully came out at work reported an increase in professional and personal happiness.

Taylor admits she was "uneasy most of the time" she was suppressing her orientation at work in her late teens.

"I felt bad not being able to discuss my partner, and not being able to bring her to social functions."

She was outed "subtly" at 18 by a colleague who twigged "that I talked about my 'friend' a little too much for her to be just a friend".

But from that point on, says Taylor, now 27, "it was a non-issue. I was totally out in my private life, so coming out at work was a weight off my mind.

"I enjoyed my work ... and felt as if I had kept something from colleagues or was deceiving them in some way".

Taylor says some colleagues "were a little shocked, but politely covered it up. I was a little scared but politely covered it up."

Bisexual Geoffrey Vine, the Otago Daily Times production editor and also an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church, agrees. "As more gays have come out ... homosexuality blends in as part of the background and not something to jump up and down about.

"It's a matter of being yourself and being natural. Then [orientation] ceases to be a matter of comment or vilification."

There's another barrier: "homophobiaphobia" describes the sort of "joking" gay labels that straight men give their friends - "poof", "faggot" and all their cruder cousins - which act to assert the speaker's heterosexuality.

The spat over what Act MP Rodney Hide said to ACI Glass trade union delegates on Waiheke Island a few weeks ago is a classic case of homophobiaphobia in action, says Moore.

Hide apparently hasn't denied calling the men "gays"; he said it was a joke. But the ACI men were insulted.

The seeds of homophobiaphobia are sown in school, says Moore, when bullying kids don't understand issues of sexuality but do know that they can upset people by calling them "faggot' or "dyke".

Those gay people who are sure they want colleagues to know about such an important part of their identity, says Moore, should start with a careful assessment of their workplace culture - they need to know that their careers won't be harmed. And they need to gather supporters. Important, too, he says, is that they are aware of their rights.

They need to ensure they are performing well, and should choose a time when work isn't too busy.

Occupational therapy lecturer Andrew Metcalfe came out at work in 1996 when he was working in a community mental health team by "just talking about what I did ... so it was quite clear that I was gay. No one batted an eyelid.

"Whatever anyone shares on a deeper level makes for better working relationships and trust."

Contacts:

* Various Human Rights Commission leaflets explain the Human Rights Act: (0800) 4 YOUR RIGHTS (496-877) or HRC

* A useful booklet on workplace rights is available from Eugene Moore at Full Spectrum: (09) 846-7133 or Fullspectrum

* To arrange a New Zealand Aids Foundation anti-homophobia workshop contact the national office on (09 303-3124.

* The Council of Trade Unions' gay network is Out@Work. Contact Sarah Helms on 375-2680 or Email

* Office of the Privacy Commissioner, (0800) 803-909 or Email