Out in the Workplace

A word from Human Rights Commissioner Joy Liddicoat

With employment rates at their highest in many years, we can suppose that more lesbians and gays than ever before are in the workforce. But we can’t know for sure because that data is not collected. That is one reason why it’s important for lesbians and gays to identify themselves and for employers to create workplace environments which are supportive. Over the last decade the number of lesbians and gays setting up and running their own businesses seems to have grown. The flourishing of lesbian and gay business and professional associations is a sign of a healthy, vibrant and energetic economic environment for them.

But it remains true that what we can’t talk about we can’t deal with. I think that the biggest enemy is still the closet and that closet can paralyse us, our families and employers. Leadership by lesbians and gays is vital and that begins with your own decision to be proud of who you are. In the last fifteen years we have seen more and more young people growing up with either lesbian and gay parents or with aunties and uncles and other family members who are out and proud of who they are. Those young people are also entering the workforce with a different set of experiences and ideas about sexual orientation.

We know that lesbians and gays of all ages and at all stages of life can face discrimination. For me personally, in the 1980s and 1990s, that discrimination tended to be “the polite silence.” So long as I didn’t talk about being a lesbian others felt comfortable knowing that I was. Today it’s different, and I can talk about my family and friends with greater freedom and there is more genuine acceptance.