‘I had to pretend to be someone I wasn’t’: The reality of LGBTQ workplace discrimination
metro.co.ukSee Change Happen – an initiative that provides equality, diversity and inclusion advice to organisations that specialises in LGBTQ+ and gender non-conforming awareness and education.She came up with the idea after hearing colleagues make transphobic comments about someone else.
As a transgender person herself, Joanne realised she would also face the same sort of abuse if she came out, and wouldn’t be able to transition in her job comfortably, so she decided to leave her successful career in IT to launch the service.
Now, Joanne runs workshops, mentoring sessions and face-to-face consultancy to help businesses become more inclusive for LGBTQ+ staff.
She says that casual homophobia, transphobia, and microaggressions are prevalent in many work environments, but because they’re subtle and often laced in lighthearted humour, they’re rarely perceived as discrimination. ‘LGBTQ+ people feel a natural apprehension that being queer is not the norm,’ she says. ‘Trust and safety have to be built in different environments, so managers have a responsibility to recognise discriminatory behaviour against employees in all of its forms, and hold a zero-tolerance policy towards it.’For some people, there might not be clear physical or verbal abuse in terms of how they feel discriminated against.
