How Your Non-Discrimination Policy Can Support Psychological Safety

Everyone deserves to feel protected by the company they work for.

For a long time, Queer people were forced to remain in the closet at their jobs, but we were granted protection from discrimination in the workplace as a result of two landmark decisions by the Supreme Court of the United States in 2020. While this was a great step for LGBTQ+ equality, many companies aren’t clear how to implement this change. 

In this episode, I provide exactly what needs to go into your company’s non-discrimination policy to make sure you are compliant with protecting Queer people and your business. 

I discuss the psychological harm that comes from having to hide who you are and reflect on how teachers being forced to remain closeted left me with limited support when I came out in high school. 

I also share about how being an openly gay person has played out for me in professional settings, including when a former boss encouraged me to be transparent with my identity as a way to build rapport, contrasted with another time when I was pulled into a closed-door meeting with a superior, told not to push my agenda, and threatened with losing my job. 

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Show Notes:

Eric:

Welcome to part one of my series, 10 essentials for LGBTQ+ inclusion in the workplace. This series is for company leadership, business owners, people who work in HR, DEI champions, or anyone who wants to help level up their company's inclusion. I designed this series because I know that most companies want to be more LGBTQ+ inclusion, they just don't know how.

Through listening to this series, you will learn the most important things an organization needs to have in place in order to create a safe and welcoming environment for LGBTQ+ people, and you will get practical tips for how to level up your company's inclusion. On this episode, I'll be covering what needs to go in your non-discrimination policy.

Let's get into it

True or false: LGBTQ+ employment discrimination in the United States is illegal.

True. Now, disclaimer, I'm not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. However, firing someone for being LGBTQ+ is now illegal. And this is not the only thing that a company could do to get into trouble. If a staff, or if a consumer or one of your clients enacted LGBTQ+ bias to one of your employees, you could also potentially get in trouble for that.

No one wants that. No one wants even the potential to be sued. So having a non-discrimination policy in place as a safeguard for business owners, employees, and consumers of a company.

LGBTQ+ employment protections were decided by two landmark Supreme court cases in 2020. So this is recent. And just for, you know, trivial knowledge in case you're curious those two cases where Bostock versus Clayton county, Georgia. And RG and GR Harris Funeral Homes Inc versus Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

So prior to those two Supreme court cases in 2020, several states and cities in the United States did have employment protections for LGBTQ+ people. However many did not. So it was up to individual states and cities to decide if they were going to offer those protections. Historically, I would say I was pretty naive to the realities of having to stay in the closet professionally.

I entered my professional career in my mid twenties and at the time I was living in California, a state that did have explicit employment protections for me as a gay person, as well as for all members of the Queer community. Those protections helped me out during a challenging time that I had with one of my former companies that I worked at.

I'll get into that in just a little bit, but also even before that, one of my very first paid jobs as an LGBTQ+ therapist, I was working for an organization that I was working as a school counselor for at-risk youth in high schools and I was a counselor to them. So while I was sort of naive to the realities of having to be in the closet, I also did have some apprehension about that.

I like just, you know, through the years sort of internalized this message that like, I'm not sure if it's okay to be openly gay at a job. And then when I was thinking about working with teens, I also knew that historically, teachers and other professionals who work with youth are either explicitly told not to be out, or they were not allowed to be out for so many years.

And I'll get into that a little more in just a little bit, but so like I already kind of had this worry about it. Am I allowed to be out? Is this going to be a problem? Like here I am this out and proud gay person and in a non-Queer specific job, I'll be counseling youth. I want to be out. I don't want to have to hide that.

It's not like I was going to walk in and be like, Hey everyone, I'm Eric and I'm gay and I'm your new counselor, but I didn't want that to have to be a secretive thing. And so I asked my supervisor at the time, while I was training and before I got started, you know, she's like, Eric, do you have any questions?

It's like, you know, something I have been wondering, I am an out and proud gay person and. If I'm to the asked by any of the youth that I'm working with, am I allowed to tell them that? And she was like, you know, well, quick side note, you know, historically therapists are trained, don't tell the people that you work with, anything about yourself.

You know, don't share any personal information, which don't get me wrong. That has merit to it, for sure. But it doesn't mean across the board. Don't share any personal information. It means be intentional with it. Give it thought what's the reasoning for sharing it. Is it because you want to tell them, is it because it might benefit them therapeutically?

So coming from that lens, she was like, look, if they ask you, of course, you're going to tell them because otherwise, what are you going to do, lie to them? And then they're not going to trust you, right? Like if you're their counselor, how can you ask them to be open and honest with you? If you can't do that with them as well?

I was like, thank you. It was so refreshing. It was so validating to hear that, especially for my boss, right. Somebody who had a position of power to tell me that, that way it wasn't just me saying, Hey, I want to be openly gay at this job. She was actually saying like, of course you can do that. And it's actually important for you to do that because of the work that you're doing.

So that was awesome. I didn't even, I, maybe I did, maybe I did it. I didn't even know at the time that the law was on my side, for that, she couldn't have said, no, you can't tell them that she wouldn't have any way, but a lot of other people in her position probably would have won because of anti-gay bias.

But also to just, again, there's this history of employers in the workplace saying you're not allowed to be out. So many people, probably in her position would have told me, no, you can't tell them that. And she didn't. Now let's contrast that to another job that I had also in the state of California, where again, there were explicit legal protections saying you cannot tell someone they are not allowed to be openly gay at a job.

However, at one of my former companies, I learned that that was a common practice. It was also a youth serving organization, so I think that was probably a factor there. I'm being a little cryptic because I don't want to put this company on blast, but I had several different Queer identified people at that organization approach me and let me know, you know, by the way I want to share I'm a community member as well.

Which was great. I loved it, that they did that. I loved that. We got to like bond over that and have that shared connection. And then one by one, they started letting me know and BT dub, I was told I was not allowed to be out at this job. And it was like, that's not cool on multiple levels. And I started doing some research and, you know, That was illegal to be doing.

And so, you know, what did I do? I started sharing that with people in positions of power at this company, not in a threatening way, you know, I wasn't like, you're breaking the law or we're going to sue you, you know, it wasn't like that. I approached it from more like a curiosity standpoint, because also, you know, I was hearing one side of this.

I wanted to hear the other side. I wanted to hear the company side. And so I started having meetings and I started telling the people that I was meeting with. Hey, here's what I'm hearing again. I didn't put anyone on blast. I kept their confidence. I didn't want to get them in trouble. I didn't want to rock the boat for them.

But I said, Hey, people are telling me that people at this company I've told them they're not allowed to be out here about being LGBTQ+. This is a long story. I'm going to keep it kind of brief today, but essentially it made its way up the chain. I ended up being pulled into a meeting with like my boss's boss who pulled me into a private meeting with, you know, Closed door meeting and essentially said, Hey, I hear you're, you know, you're asking some questions and you're kind of making some waves here.

And he said, I've been at this company for a long time. And in my experience, people that try to push their own agenda, it didn't work out well for them.

Whoa. I mean, there I was sitting there. I was like, you have got to be kidding me. Like he did not just say that. It's wrong on so many levels. Like, you know, he basically said, um, sit down and shut up, you know, stop, stop making waves here. Not only that, you know, I can find some humor in this and I kind of even did at the time.

I was like, he did not just tell me to stop pushing my agenda. Right. That's such a cliche, this idea of the gay agenda, right? Like what is our gay agenda? Here's the reality? Our agenda is we're trying to get equality and we're trying to get equal rights, so that he used that as a light in that moment was very telling on multiple fronts.

Perhaps I'll come back to that story another day, but here's the thing. I'll just give you a spoiler alert. I did not sit down and shut up. That's not the, you know, I respectfully let him know I would not be doing that. I continued to pursue it. And we ended up getting this addressed and getting it changed and amending some policy and procedure and letting it be known that that was no longer going to be a practice.

No one was ever going to tell someone at that job that again, right. And let's keep it real. Why did they do that? Cause they got called out. Right. And they realized, Hey, this is illegal. We could get in a lot of trouble for this. So even if we have reasons we don't want this to happen, we got to figure this out and they did.

And I helped them. Which I was happy to, again, I wasn't trying to put them on blast. I wasn't trying to get them in trouble. I enjoyed working for that company a lot, but that was not okay. So cut to, I ended up moving back to South Carolina in 2017. And like I mentioned earlier, some states had these protections.

Some states did not. South Carolina did not. And that was certainly a factor for me in deciding to move back. You know, I was like, all right, I'm moving back to a place where essentially I don't have legal protections. Makes me feel like I'm not really welcome in that state, but it's where I want to live.

And so like, what do I do here? I had so many friends and colleagues in California being like, you're crazy. Don't move back there. Like you need to stay here, but cut to here I am. And so luckily I'm very grateful that those Supreme court cases in 2020 did rule. Boom. All of a sudden everyone, every state federally in the United States now has those legal protections in place.

So, I mean, that hasn't been that long. It's not like everything's perfect. Now. I think probably a lot of people in the workforce are still kind of figuring that out. Uh, like this law has passed. What does that mean? What does that mean? We're not allowed to do anymore. How do we do things going forward? So, you know, here we are, one of the reasons why I'm talking about nondiscrimination policies today is because that helps protect you as a company.

Now what I've heard anecdotally from friends, colleagues, and mentors who are older than I am, perhaps like a generation or two older than I am, is that historically being openly gay in the workplace was not a thing. It was just not a thing at all. Not only was there the explicit threat of getting fired, you know, it was perfectly legal for a long time, but the on.

From what I've heard kind of anecdotally is it was like, people also didn't want to be othered. They didn't want to be mistreated. They didn't want to be passed on promotions. They wanted to be able to advance within their career field. And so I think for a long time, the practice, we'll call it, just what happened was people Queer people

we're not out at their jobs. They had a work persona that did not include them getting to be openly Queer, and then they got to do so otherwise. Now anyone out there listening who lived through that and went through that and did have to be closeted at work or came out and then had negative consequences from doing so, if you want to tell your story, reach out to me and let's talk.

Now while I historically wasn't as sort of personally touched by the fear of being closeted in the workplace. One explicit way that I did see this was at my schools growing up, particularly at my high school. There were teachers there who seemingly may have been Queer. Now, this is very important, speculating about anyone's sexual orientation or gender based on stereotypes is not okay.

Other people would speculate about some of these teachers, other students, parents, even other teachers would speculate that some of the teachers at the school may have been, and do so in a disparaging way, making fun of them, putting them down. So me saying today that I had teachers at my schools that I thought were probably part of the Queer community, that that's not based on how they looked or how they acted it's based on knowing them, forming relationships with them and learning a lot of things about them and learning things that suggested that they were probably community members.

There was one teacher that I was particularly close with, who very much celebrated me when I came out as gay in high school. Very much so, which I appreciated, you know, they made it a point to say in front of other students, like, wow, how cool is it that Eric came out? That was so amazing. And like so brave.

And like, you go boy, and you be you. And all of that was so amazing. But there was a part missing. I wanted them. I wished they could have somehow been like, you know, Hey, by the way, I'm gay too. And I think what you're doing is amazing. And also like, I want you to know that, like, it might be hard to be a gay student here.

It does get better when you get older. I would've loved to have heard that I really needed to hear that at that time. And not them not getting to say that to me is not at all their fault. I don't fault that I don't fault them for that at all. I'm sure they very much wanted to do so because not only did I think that that teacher was also a part of the Queer community, I think they were also proud

to be a part of the community and probably did get to celebrate that in aspects of their life outside of school, but in their teaching profession, we're not able to do so, which is really unfortunate that's not cool. That's not okay for them. It was unfortunate for me as a student who looked up to them as a mentor.

Again, speaking to it's very important for people to get, to be who they are. Right. There's no reason. For that information to be hidden or to be asked to be a secret. So again, yes, it's great that these 2020 Supreme court rulings gave protections to Queer people in the workplace. These effects are still seen today.

Just this week. I had someone learn of the work that I do and helping companies to be inclusive. And they were like, that's so amazing. You know, a friend of mine is a teacher, right here we go. I think school systems have a long way to go here. And they were pulled into a private meeting and they were told that they were not allowed to have a book that promoted openly Queer artists.

What like, wow, like this stuff happens all the time. It happens every day. And from what I heard, it sounds like that person did not just say, okay. You know, I think they too were like, uh, no, that's not gonna fly. So we need to figure this out.

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(Episode continues)

So for a lot of people, there is still a real fear in getting to be who they are in the workplace. And largely that stems from whether or not their employer creates a safe space for them to be out. It's so important to be able to be out, not being out or being forced to be closeted means having to hide who you are.

There's a fear of whether or not you will be accepted. And that takes a major toll on a person's concept of self that then impacts their self esteem, their confidence, their mood, their relationships, their hope to have a happy and successful future. I see this all the time in my therapy practice in working with people who,

it's not yet safe for them to be out and that's not on them. That's on the world and that's on systemic oppression and it causes a great deal of harm to them and it doesn't feel good. So for organizations, it's super important to have a company culture that supports people being able to be themselves.

That includes people that are LGBTQ+. And a non-discrimination policy is an essential component of creating that safe culture. So what is a non-discrimination policy? It's a written policy that protects marginalized groups. Why do companies have these? Because oppression exists. Which means that dominant groups holds power and that power translates into the harassment and discrimination of marginalized groups.

So it's important to specify rights to those groups. This not only protects your staff and clients, but it protects you as a company. Why? It gives guidance to your staff about what is acceptable behavior and what is not. If you don't have it in place, you've got nothing to back you if someone at your company and acts prejudice or prejudicial behavior, harassment, discrimination, acts of bias, any of the above, it also speaks to your company's values.

If you are proactively protecting marginalized groups, you're showing that you support diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace, and that attracts talent, what needs to be stated. In order to have your non-discrimination policy be LGBTQ+ inclusive is that people will not be discriminated based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.

This is of course not all of the marginalized groups that commonly are and should be represented in a non-discrimination policy. These are the ones that are LGBTQ+ focused. Other commonly protected social identities include race, ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, religion. And it's important to keep in mind that a person who falls into multiple of those groups is experiencing oppression at amplified degree.

So approaching that with an intersectional lens, which means recognizing that person for all of their identities, we are not just defined by one group that we're a part of an actively recognizing the ways in which those identities intersect with one another intersectionality. That's what that means.

That's where that comes from. Now let's break down. What are those different groups that are LGBTQ+ focused? Sexual orientation describes the category of who you are attracted to. We all have a sexual orientation that is not just for LGBTQ+ people. However, members of our community are often targeted discriminated against

et cetera for having a sexual orientation that is non-heterosexual or non heteronormative. Gender identity speaks to the way that a person knows their gender to be their psychological concept of their gender, who they are and who they know themselves to be. Gender expression describes the various ways that gender can be communicated to the world.

Note. These are often based on societal norms and stereotypes and constructs around gender, but that can include things such as the way that someone dresses, the way that they act, the way that they express their style. The way that they're here is. Various things like that, that we have put contracts on and decided what is masculine, feminine, androgynous, et cetera.

A note here about gender identity versus just saying gender, sidestep from non-discrimination policy. I'm just talking about generally right now. I am gravitating more toward just using the word gender versus gender identity, right? Like just saying, this person is male. This person is female. This person is non-binary.

This person is agent or whatever their gender is versus saying, this person identifies as non-binary. This person identifies as female. One reason. More drawn to that is it's kind of become like a joke in anti Queer pop culture and anti Queer rhetoric to spoof using the term identifies as right. Like, you know, so-and-so identifies as, like it said in a way that suggests it's not actually real and true.

And it said in a disparaging way, even just like, you know, Ridiculous and mean spirited things are spoofed and like pop culture, like, you know, oh, so-and-so identifies as a tree, right? That's like mocking who a person. Oh, well, first of all, and I'm not, that's not real identity. It's basically like trying to make fun of that.

People in the Queer community are often like to use the word identifies as, and where did that even come from? It came because cis-gender and heteronormative ideals. Didn't allow people to just say I am blank. Right? If they were assigned female at birth, people were given the freedom and legitimacy to just say, I am male.

And that's where that identified even came from, was getting to say, I identify this way, it's who I know myself to be, it's who I am, which don't get me wrong. There can be a lot of power in that. And certainly for any Queer people out there who are like, no, I love the word identify or identifies. And I use that and that feels good to me.

And that feels empowering to me. I totally support that. And I see how it can be very empowering. I sometimes say I identify as a gay person. I identify as a member of the Queer community and it can feel really good to me where it's getting kind of tricky for me is I don't want it to take away from the legitimacy of those identities.

And sometimes for me, it feels better to just say I am gay, right. That one's not typically questioned. If I say I am gay people, aren't. Oh, what do you mean? You didn't say you identify as right? Because they just accept that. Like they believe that versus for example, a transgender person who was assigned male at birth and said, like, if they say I am female, a lot of people still question that. "Well no you're not well based on what, and that's not what your, you know, your body is," or, you know, all of these different things.

And so. I think that's where like, "identify as" does kind of give some freedom to be able to say that hopefully without people questioning it as much. Okay. That was a whole sidestep. Let's get back to the non-discrimination policy because it does matter to have the word identity in their gender identity, not just gender in that written policy.

Why? Because. It explicitly recognizes that gender is decided by that person. It's how that person identifies. It's helped that person know themselves to be, it's not what gender they were assigned to, to.

So without having a non-discrimination policy in place one, you can see direct effects from that. For example, people used to get fired from jobs all the time, like back the day for being gay and as more people had visibility to come out as transgender all the time, people got fired for that. Again, it's not to say it still doesn't happen.

And not to say their safety and not doing so, but that's less of a direct effect now that there is legal protection there, but other effects, historically, people can make disparaging jokes against somebody. People could be outed at work. That means like other people sharing someone's Queer identity, whether that was a known thing or they were just speculating without that person's consent to do so historically in lots of different.

Over an implicit ways. People are told at their jobs to like tone down their Queerness. And if we're thinking about big picture here, oppression is systemic. When you're part of a marginalized group that faces oppression by dominant groups to then not recognize that and offer protections to that group,

there's a message being communicated there that those people don't matter. That message permeates the system. And that is what gives people permission to discriminate a license, to discriminate. It facilitates people in acting explicit bias. Now your non-discrimination policy, it needs to be more than just a formality.

It needs to be more than just words on paper. So how it should be used. One, recruiting. If I was doing a job search, and if I saw a job ad and I saw a policy that did not explicitly include sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression, I would then think that company is not Queer inclusive and I would not feel safe to apply to it.

I also would not want to work for them because not having that in there would instantly communicate to me, I'm like, oh, this company is an LGBTQ+ informed enough to even know that those things are supposed to be included. So if they didn't even know that I certainly would not feel like they would have my back if I was ever discriminated against and them not knowing that it would make me not want to offer my talent and services to that company.

Now, here's the thing I'm speaking hypothetically here, I'm speaking if I was somebody who was applying to work at a company that is not the same as the consulting work that I do. When I consult with companies come, as you are. And that includes not having the right things in your policy. In fact, those are the people that I especially want to work with because I want to help them get it together so that they can attract great talent and they can have a thriving company called.

Another way this policy can and should be used is within an employee handbook that should be discussed when you're onboarding new people to your company. It should also be posted in plain sight and physical spaces at your company. This is a reminder for people and it helps people to speak out if bias is enacted.

And I have literally seen this play out at companies I've worked for. The non-discrimination policy will be posted in the break room and that's a common practice, right? That's kind of an HR thing. It's like, here's all the policies. We're putting it in plain sight. We want to make sure everybody knows about them.

And I can remember a time where I was in the break room and someone was standing in front of all of this written policies and reading them and then said to me, Hey, this thing happened. And according to what a reading right now, it's not allowed. So I think I'm going to say something and I was like, cool, go for it.

I support you. And so, you know, it's kind of neat that the power of visibility and the power of like that reminder of seeing that policy, oh, this wasn't allowed to happen will it did. And since you're telling me it, wasn't okay. Maybe I feel safer to speak out against. It's also really, really important to have a protocol in place if the policy is violated.

Right. It can't just be words on paper, because then what happens if someone goes against the policy, what are you going to do? You need to have a corrective procedure in place. If a staff demonstrates anti LGBTQ+ bias, which is there for violating that policy, otherwise when it happens, which it will.

You won't know what to do. You'll be scrambling to figure it out or you won't address it properly. And then that's going to have bigger implications are going to have a bigger problem on your hand than what you already had. Going back to, no one wants to get sued. No one wants that. So, not only should you have this policy in place and that's something to reference and that's your protective backbone.

If something happens, if somebody demonstrates bias or does something that violates the policy, and then if you have the corrective procedure in place that gives you the relief of knowing exactly what to do when someone at your company reports a violation. Now what to do if someone violates the policy, this is something that I cover in my inclusion program for companies proud coaching, which includes a script for exactly what to say and exactly the steps to take to correct it

if there's an incident at your company. But for now, you've got exactly what you need to have in your non-discrimination policy to offer LGBTQ+ protection. I want it to get us started off with not only one that is so foundational. It's also pretty easy to do. So takeaway here is that most companies already have a non-discrimination policy in place.

If yours does not include sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression, add those in. Stay tuned for the next episode, in this series to continue learning about the essential things your company needs to have in place in order to be LGBTQ+ inclusive.

(Outro)

Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. If you're feeling inspired by today's ep, help your boy out by subscribing to the show and leaving a review. To learn more about how I can guide you through your Queer glow up head over to beproudwitheric.com and remember, always be proud of who you are.

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