What to Do When Your Boss Is a Homophobe

It's the 21st century, yet some people still live in a time warp, where it's OK to tell antigay jokes, make homophobic comments and even fire someone for being gay/lesbian. Most of the time, you can ignore the offenders. But what do you do when one of them is your boss?

Discrimination Is Real According to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, 14 percent of a workforce sample of more than 2,000 gay, lesbian and bisexual workers experienced workplace discrimination during 2002. University of Massachusetts associate professor of economics Lee Badgett analyzed 10 separate surveys from the late 1990s and found that up to 44 percent of those respondents had suffered discrimination based on sexual orientation during their careers.

Discrimination can be overt: a cutting remark directed at you, for example, or being passed over for promotion. It can be covert: not being asked to bring your partner to the boss's party, or uncomfortable looks when you put your partner's photo on your desk. Whatever form it takes, it hurts. It also prevents you from doing the best job you can -- so it hurts your company, too.

Three Options Bob Witeck, CEP of Witeck-Combs Communications, has extensive experience with gay/lesbian employees at corporations, public agencies, foundations and nonprofit groups. He says that employees with homophobic bosses have three options: Accept the situation, change it or leave it.

“Unless you have benefits you absolutely can't risk, like health insurance for a sick partner, I would argue in favor of confrontation,” he says. “If you don't face it, you can't change it. And if you can't change it, that person will continue that behavior against other people. No one wins.”

The first step in confronting antigay behavior is to document everything. Write down all the details of each incident, including the effects on your frame of mind and ability to work. In addition, ask for copies of past evaluations, from the boss in question and others.

Next, find an ally. Witeck calls this “an island in the company where you feel comfortable.” Less poetically, an ally is a colleague in whom you can confide your frustrations, who will offer constructive suggestions, and who may stand for or with you as you take your next step. Your ally need not be another gay/lesbian person; in fact, straight colleagues can be tremendously effective. Your ally should, however, be someone who knows your boss and the company and who has experience with office politics. Also, be careful not to choose somebody who is overzealous -- you don't want someone who will go in with guns blazing and alienate people.

Know Your Rights It is important to know your rights. Find out if sexual orientation is included in your company's antidiscrimination policies. The human resources department can provide this information. If you're hesitant to ask yourself, enlist your ally's help. Check to see if you are covered by state or municipal legislation. If your state or city does not protect you, check for regulations where your company is headquartered or incorporated.

Plan Your Next Move You might speak to the boss directly, or your ally might step in for you. You may decide to talk to the boss's supervisor or assistant. There is no right or wrong solution; each workplace and every situation is different.

If you do decide to confront your boss, there are many approaches. Some people can speak frankly, while others try flattery. Humor is a strong tool, but it must be used wisely.

Andrew Stone, senior editor at Gotham, Hamptons and Los Angeles Confidential magazines, suggests subtlety. “Begin by commenting on how nice your boss's family pictures look on the desk.” Then, you can establish a dialogue based on shared values.

Sometimes a boss won't care about shared values or anything else you say. In that case, investigate your company's workplace grievance policy. Most firms have standard procedures for resolving disputes.

However, Stone warns: “Don't compromise yourself. Your work should speak for itself. And if an employer discriminates against you and you don't want to go the route of pressing charges, then leave your job. Life is too short to work for a jerk.”

I have found that most flaming bundles of sticks to be too obnoxious and offensively disruptive to work for me, especially when on display in front of customers/clients or chatting themselves into frenzies. Swishers, I've fired them for cause, and the ones who came after them, so to speak.

Sapphics can control themselves far better, in my experience. Lipstick lesbians seem to have the game down so as not to offend customers with an in your face homo or comrade agenda. However, the plaids have a more difficult time of not becoming sand in my business machinery, in my experience.

Austin, Texas is full of the above homo agenda homoos looking for work and looking for litigation. Rainbows are welcome, but they must absolutely control themselves, as must any sexual predators.

Homosexuality is not normal. It is a biological deadend. Too many of these biological mistakes and disease vectors flaunt their sexual obsessions rather than go about their work lives as psychologically normal people. Too many are damaged goods which is not our problem.

On-site video/audio helps kill premeditated litigation in the crib.

I have had remarkably good experience with physically damaged men and women who strive to be just normal, productive employees - where sexual and political agendas are not foisted on those who dislike clowns on display.

Homo sit-com characters are apparently too often role models for immature homosexuals.

I don't phob homos; I find the masterbation by committee trolling behavior and/or high risk/suicidal sexual activity agenda at work to be offensive, disruptive, and harmful to my places of business, so I fire them as needed, if they were hired by accident. I don't accept inappropriate behavior.

I never hire law students regardless of which of the 5 sexes they purport or through behavior to be. I enjoyed firing two who provided said false information on their job apps. I don't know if they were normal or homosexual as I didn't care. Both were liars.

Gay people are hurting their own cause, it is as if they need to create percieved oppression in order to have any worth.

Agreed. Here's a true story to back it up.

My brother . . . married for 20 years, two daughters . . . announced to the family in August of 2002 that he is gay and getting a divorce. He didn't just call everyone and tell them, he made a bus tour out of it and traveled from town to town to tell each family member in person.

I wasn't shocked, or even surprised since I'd predicted such was the case ten years earlier because of the marital "habits" of him and his wife and a hit-and-run accident that didn't make sense, BUT OTHER MEMBERS WERE SHOCKED AND OUTRAGED. Hell, they said, he was with the (Professional sports team) for twenty years! How in the hell can he . . . Did he . . . Did the players know . . . Why would . . . The questions were many, the answers few.

I'll skip the details and get back on point . . . Why did he tell us now? After 50 years, according to him, of knowing he was gay? Why now?

My brother was the victim of a hit-and-run accident a few years ago that just never quite made sense to me. He's outgoing and definitely not shy about giving his opinion on ANYTHING, yet this story was hush-hush and never to be discussed. My brother was seriously injured at the time . . . why wasn't he pissed off and raising hell? It just never made sense to me so one time while I was on a business trip to the city he lives in I decided to check into it. All I had to do was go to the address where the "assault" took place. Gay and lesbian bars were the predominant businesses for two blocks in any direction.

I could reenact the events as though I'd been there . . . The teenaged driver and a few tough friends decided to bash some queers. My brother was the bashee.

By the way . . . the teenaged driver's parents came up with a big, big cash settlement. The driver, however, was never charged with a crime. My brother refused to press charges at the time.

Remember, I'm the only one in the family that definitely knows all this . . . but I'm guessing my brother's wife put two and two together as I had and that explained the divorce.

I know this is along and I apologize but I think it's important for others to know that militant gays affect their families' lives too.

Okay, remember the timeline? My brother took his grandiose tour in August of 2002 announcing to the world and the family that he was gay. He was defiant and defensive and spoiling for a fight. I was the only one to give him one but I'll explain later why I did.

My father died May 28, 2003. He'd been in relatively good health in August of 2002. Is there a connection? We'll never know. But we do know it didn't help. My father was a World War II veteran, a Texas rancher from a ranching family, a man's man -- lean, mean, and way too damn proud for his own good.

My brother used to dominate all the family discussions. Hell, he'd been involved with professional sports and this association enlightened all our lives because we'd gotten to mingle with the folks similarly involved. I'm still on a first name basis with some sports icons . . . how could we not talk about such things?

After August of 2002 my father never talked about my brother again. Never. He didn't raise hell to my brother when he made his tour, he never spoke ill of my brother to anyone, he just never spoke of him again. Never.

My brother's wife -- soon to be ex-wife -- and I have always been close. At my father's funeral I learned from her that my brother had joined a "radical" gay rights group in May of 2002. I also learned I was wrong about how she learned he was gay . . . she's an airline attendant and was gone when the assault occurred and the address of the hit-and-run had never come up. She was just as shocked as everyone else by his admission.

I exploded. I cornered my brother where we could be alone. I suddenly realized I didn't know this man. He rattled off the gay "talking points" as though he'd been indoctrinated in North Korea. He was the victim . . . Being gay was normal . . . The Bible doesn't condemn homosexuality . . . Gays were being oppressed just like the slaves were in the 1800's . . . He didn't give a shit what either I or anyone else in the family thought . . . He was sick of having to hide it and he would spend the rest of his life fighting for equal rights.

Right before I broke his nose, I said, "Great, you've already spent the rest of Dad's life. Feel better now? I don't care whether you're gay or a devil worshipper but Dad didn't know about it for fifty-three years, why did you have to come out of the closet now? Why are your rights of self-expression more important than his rights of ignorant bliss? You knew how he would take it. Why tell him now?"

I'm not proud of it, and I'm damn sure poorer for it, but I couldn't take his smugness so I hit him.

He never did get it. He still doesn't.

He's the oppressed. Their rights trump all others.

I've lost a father. I've lost a brother.

I hope it's worth it to him. I'd never been pro-gay or anti-gay before. As you said, conservo, I didn't care one way or the other. It didn't affect me.

But it's intruded into my life now. I don't appreciate anyone who gets in my face about anything . . . brother or stranger . . . queer or straight.

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