“I Love Homosexual Individuals”
I as soon as had a coworker I’m going to name Maggie. And Maggie cherished homosexual folks. I do know that, as a result of she explicitly informed me when she realized I used to be homosexual, most likely six months into working collectively.
As much as that time, Maggie and I had collaborated on a number of initiatives, however had been in several departments and didn’t socialize exterior of labor. “I can’t consider you didn’t inform me you had been homosexual!” she exclaimed, earlier than sharing how a lot she cherished going to tug reveals, buying, and watching Bravo with “her gays.” She then demanded to know my favourite Actual Housewives franchise, and appeared genuinely shocked I didn’t have one.
Maggie began stopping by my desk each morning to share gossip and relationship tales that I actually by no means requested about. Our collaborations, which was productive, changed into her giving me present or ebook suggestions her homosexual pals cherished. I gritted my tooth till I couldn’t.
I attempted to politely clarify to Maggie that whereas loads of homosexual males love drag, Bravo, and her relationship tales, they weren’t issues that me—and that whereas I don’t doubt good intent, the best way she assumed all homosexual persons are the identical was frankly reductive.
In response to a 2024 examine from the Williams Institute on the UCLA Faculty of Legislation, which researches sexual orientation and gender id in legislation and public coverage, nearly half of LGBTQ+ employees have skilled discrimination, harassment, or stereotyping at work. Almost half aren’t out to supervisors at work—a share that’s elevated prior to now yr.
Extra information from the Human Rights Marketing campaign means that development could also be worsening: 47% of LGBTQ+ respondents report they’re less out in at least one area of their lives than they had been the yr earlier than.
I wish to make it very clear: I’m not saying Maggie harassed or discriminated in opposition to me by any means. Stereotype, completely—however there wasn’t malice. If something, in that individual workplace, the incident made her look silly. (After this all went down, my then office-mate would Slack me issues like, “Fast Pat, Maggie’s arising, get in your mesh tank high, stat!”).
Nevertheless it illustrates one thing that always will get misplaced once we discuss in regards to the LGBTQ office expertise. It’s not simply open bigots or textbook chauvinists. It’s typically well-meaning colleagues—and even LGBTQ+ people themselves—who inadvertently perpetuate the concept that shared id means shared expertise.
And I assumed that Pleasure Month—which Maggie, whom I nonetheless observe on Instagram, is celebrating with fervor (and, good for her)—is pretty much as good a time as any to make a PSA: the LGBTQ+ expertise is just not a monolith.
Shared Identification Isn’t Shared Expertise—the LGBTQ+ Expertise is Huge
In the USA, roughly 31 million adults determine as something other than straight, together with greater than 5 million homosexual People.
On the job I had after Maggie, I labored carefully with one other homosexual colleague I actually favored, however his expertise as a Gen Z homosexual man—and, by extension, his relationship to his sexuality and the world—could be very totally different than my millennial one. Once I was his age, “homosexual” was nonetheless a extensively accepted pejorative. However at the moment, almost 1 / 4 of adults underneath 30 determine as one thing aside from straight.
“Our brains are wired to take shortcuts, or what sociologists name schemas,” sociologist Dr. Travis Speice, who research sexuality and gender, informed me. “These are psychological frameworks that assist us course of and recall advanced info extra effectively. The issue is that once we apply these shortcuts to complete teams of individuals, we cease seeing people. We flatten them into caricatures.”
Whereas folks might have good intentions, lumping people into teams is a misstep.
How Individuals Grow to be Sorts
“Shared id doesn’t imply shared expertise. A cisgender lesbian and a transgender lady might need little in frequent past being members of the LGBTQ+ neighborhood,” licensed marriage and household therapist Chris Tompkins informed me. “Treating them as interchangeable, even with good intentions, sends a refined message that they’re seen as a gaggle quite than as people.”
Tompkins penned an article, How Stereotypes Inform the Way Gay Men See Themselves, that references Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie’s The Danger of a Single Story TED Discuss, which explores the results of utilizing one narrative to outline a gaggle of individuals—and the way that tactic’s typically been used to marginalize. As Speice factors out: “The thought of a singular ‘LGBTQ+ neighborhood’ isn’t essentially rooted in shared tradition; it’s rooted in shared oppression. The LGBTQ+ rights motion was born in resistance to that sort of oppression.”
I’d really discovered Tompkins’ article whereas noticing a proliferation of LGBTQ+ content material creators themselves flattening the communities they represented right into a singular narrative. Scroll any a part of the web (particularly many LGBTQ+ retailers, sadly), and also you’ll encounter videos explaining “why gay men do X,” “things all lesbians understand,” or “why LGBTQ+ people are leaving Pride.”
Algorithms reward certainty and broad claims. “Some homosexual males” doesn’t carry out the best way “homosexual males are” does. In consequence, we devour more and more slender tales about increasingly diverse populations, after which creators present their own experiences as common. Audiences hungry for easy explanations embrace them. Earlier than lengthy, we’re those telling one story, turning advanced teams into varieties.
Organizations can do the identical factor: In efforts to be inclusive, they be taught sufficient about teams to acknowledge that they exist, however find yourself erasing the individuality. Individuals turn into classes, which turn into assumptions.
“We’re wired to search for patterns and to kind folks into classes with labels, as a result of organizing the world is less complicated and extra regulating than holding its complexity,” Tomkins informed me..
In her TED Discuss, Adichie says, “The one story creates stereotypes, and the issue with stereotypes is just not that they’re unfaithful, however they’re incomplete. They make one story turn into the one story.”
The Value of a Single Story
Single tales aren’t all the time inaccurate. Loads of homosexual males do love Housewives and drag. However as soon as a gaggle turns into a kind, people turn into simpler to dismiss. False narratives turn into simpler to unfold.
Historical past is chock filled with examples of individuals taking the actions, beliefs, or behaviors of some and making use of them to complete populations, particularly with regards to LGBTQ+ populations. Whether or not it’s the stereotype that homosexual males are promiscuous (and thus, disease-spreading), transgender persons are harmful, or that we’re all attempting to groom your children, broad generalizations typically turn into the inspiration for discrimination and hate.
That’s why I feel it issues even when well-meaning colleagues or LGBTQ+ folks themselves perpetuate these narratives: Positive, the stakes might really feel decrease when a lady assumes each homosexual man needs to present her relationship recommendation than when a politician weaponizes a stereotype. However they share the identical intuition: decreasing folks to digestible soundbites.
Dr. Stefanie Ok. Johnson is a professor of Organizational Management on the College of Colorado, Boulder. “Analysis means that inclusion requires each belonging and uniqueness. Belonging means feeling accepted and valued by the group. Uniqueness means feeling that your distinct views, experiences, and contributions are acknowledged,” she says.
“When somebody experiences belonging with out uniqueness, they might really feel welcomed, but in addition stereotyped. They turn into ‘the homosexual worker’—quite than a proficient engineer, supervisor, instructor, or colleague, who additionally occurs to be homosexual.”
This helped me perceive why Maggie’s assumptions bothered me a lot. The problem wasn’t that her assumptions had been totally improper. It was that they weren’t mine. They morphed me from her coworker Pat into her homosexual coworker Pat.
And at work, those distinctions matter. As soon as folks begin seeing you as a class first and a colleague second, assumptions have a approach of multiplying.
“Probably the most inclusive environments enable folks to carry necessary facets of their id to work with out being outlined by any single one,” Johnson says. “As a substitute of assuming what issues to somebody due to their background, ask open-ended questions, hear, and take note of the pursuits, strengths, targets, and experiences they select to share.”
“Probably the most inclusive leaders acknowledge that id issues and that individuality issues. They create environments the place folks may be pleased with who they’re with out feeling boxed in by it.”
Pleasure Month is usually framed as a celebration of LGBTQ+ visibility. That’s necessary. However visibility solely will get us to date if the folks being seen are decreased to a single story. The objective isn’t to deal with LGBTQ+ staff the identical—it’s to acknowledge that they’re not.
