Many LGBTQ workers are still closeted

The percentage of LGBTQ workers who say they are closeted at work has only decreased by four percentage points since 2008.

That’s according to a new study on workplace climate for LGBTQ employees published by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation. According to the study, 51 percent of LGBTQ workers hide their identity from most or all of their co-workers.

While societal and cultural changes — including the Supreme Court’s legalization of same-sex marriage in 2015 — have broadened LGBTQinclusive business practices over the past decade, millions of employees still do not feel comfortable being out at work.

Moreover, there are no consistent federal laws banning discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Deena Fidas, director of the HRC’s Workplace Equality Program, said she would have been encouraged in 2008 “if you had told me that 10 years from now, there will be marriage equality, there will be transgender people in top-rated shows and movies — all of these really significant markers of social and legal change.”

But, still, one in five LGBTQ workers reported having been told, or had co-workers imply, that they should dress in more feminine or masculine styles, according to the report. Fifty-three percent of LGBTQ workers reported hearing jokes about gay people.

And one-quarter of LGBTQ workers say an unwelcoming environment distracts them from their jobs.

The top reason LGBTQ workers don’t report negative comments to human resources or a supervisor: They don’t think anything will be done, and they don’t want to damage relationships with their co-workers.

The data came from a sample of 804 LGBTQ respondents and 811 non-LGBTQ respondents in February and March.

Fidas highlighted the “persistent double standard” faced by these workers. LGBTQ employees are often met with subtle or overt messages that their own stories are best kept to themselves.

Some of the results exposed that very double standard: 78 percent of non-LGBTQ workers say they are comfortable talking about their relationships or dating to co-workers, but 59 percent of non-LGBTQ workers think it is unprofessional to talk about sexual orientation and gender identity in the workplace.

“The perception is that to be cisgender, that that’s ‘normal,’ and to be LGBTQ is somehow so different as to make your everyday contributions in the workplace to be perceived as overly personal or inappropriate,” Fidas said.

There are signs of change: In 2012, 43 percent of nonLGBTQ workers agreed they would be uncomfortable hearing about the dating life of an LGBTQ co-worker. And back then, 75 percent thought it was unprofessional to talk about sexual orientation and gender identity at work.