Disclosing One’s Non-Heterosexual Sexual Orientation at Work in 2020: A Survey of Quebec LGBQ Workers

ABSTRACT

Concealing one’s non-heterosexual orientation (NHO) remains a protection strategy against workplace discrimination used by many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ+) individuals. This article explores four sets of correlates (identity and individual trajectory, social support, professional position, and structural and cultural work context) relative to three levels of outness (total, partial, and null). Online cross-sectional data of 2,106 LGBQ+ participants from Quebec (Canada) showed that 27% reported total outness, while 64% reported partial outness, and 9%, null outness. Multinomial hierarchical regression analyses revealed that each set of correlates significantly contributed to levels of workplace NHO outness. The two sets of variables making the largest contributions to levels of outness were those pertaining to identity and individual trajectory (14% of the variance) and structural and cultural work context (9%). Compared to partial outness, null outness was associated with an unaccepting work climate, while total outness was more likely in contexts with organizational support (e.g., with the presence of an inclusivity policy). Without trivializing the influence of non-workplace factors on outness levels, the present findings support the need to develop an inclusive and accepting work climate for LGBQ+ individuals.

KEYWORDS:

• LGB
• visibility/invisibility
• workplace
• sexual orientation
• coming out
• levels of outness
• concealment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

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Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.