General
Living Advice
Question:
Should I Come Out at Work?
As
far as work: I’ve always known I am a lesbian, but just because I know it
doesn’t mean everyone else needs to know it. That’s my personal business,
and I pick and choose where and whom I decide to tell about my life.
A long time ago I worked at Sears Repair. I had been there about 4 years when
I came out to a couple of my co-workers. They were so fine and easygoing about
it, it didn’t even occur to them that not everyone would have that same opinion.
One of the guys told another person, and it spread like wild-fire--really a bad
situation.
My boss called me into his office and started out with something
like: “There are things I’ve heard about your personal relationships
--”
But I cut him off with “I’ve worked here and done
a really good job for you for 4 years. Unless you start paying me for when I’m
not here, it is none of your business what I do on my time off!”
That was that, and it was never brought up again. The guy who outted me was really
upset over this, and we all got a lesson on how narrow-minded some people can
really be.
The last few jobs I’ve had I’ve been totally out,
but I’ve had some where that just wasn’t an option; the people were
homophobic and I would just put myself through a hard time, and more-than-likely
get fired in the end. It was just not worth it to me. Of course, now I’m
so out there’s no going back, which was evidenced when I went for a freelance
interview a few years ago.
Things were going great, but then the son
of the person who was interviewing me came in and whispered something in his mother’s
ear. This is a mom who was in her 50s and a son who was in his 30s. The mom gave
me a weird look, like she was really shocked, and that was the end of the interview.
I was pretty much asked to leave, and I always figured that the son had gotten
online and looked up my name, and found that I had written some lesbian books.
Anyway, I’m not wanting to scare you. What I am wanting to do is to
point out that you don’t have to out yourself to the world if you don’t
want to do so. There are a lot of straight women who don’t blather on about
their personal lives at work, and if you fear that you could loose your job, that’s
just how I’d handle it...
