Heterosexism in our workplace by Tony Green

Image of a lesbian wedding

I attended a workshop in the City of San Francisco earlier this week. As with most workshops the facilitator directed the participants introduce themselves before the meeting. One of the attendees happened to be an accountant who also admitted to being a lesbian.  Since the San Francisco Bay Area is famous for its large number of its residents who are either gay, lesbian or transgender this was not surprising.

The workshop involved addressing the challenges the participants expected to encounter while seeking employment.  The facilitator asked the accountant about her challenges and when she reported her primary challenge to be homophobia and/or hetero-sexism after overhearing anti-lesbian rhetoric after working hours from the HR team at her firm. I found this surprising and alarming.

The backlash has two separate versions. The first one version, homophobia involves an unjust fear of gay/lesbians while hetero-sexism can be described as those who are dogmatic about the superiority of the traditional male/female relationship.

Our facilitator mentioned this blatant case of discrimination violated employment laws and inquired why the incident failed to be disclosed to her manager or any one else. She did not want to bother with the stigma being a whistle blower. Even more alarming was, in her view, no action could be taken against the employer due the perceived superiority of management in the legal system.

The thought which stuck in my mind was, if I am in the San Francisco Bay Area which is well-known for its tolerance and these statements are coming from HR people what is being said in other “less opened- minded” parts of our country? What does this say about how tolerant we (or aren’t depending on your perspective) toward those who are different from us.

I am not lesbian but as a minority, an African-American this makes me nervous. Does this make you uncomfortable?

Image courtesy of fototalia.us