myGwork stories #9 France - Being out at work, integrated & successful: take your chances

Looking back on my still very short life, I realize that one of the biggest lucks I had was my parents valuing education above anything else. If you couple it with the fact that I was not particularly drawn to join the professional world anytime soon, you get as a result 9 years of highly enjoyable student life. A time of pleasures, travels, intellectual stimulation but mostly a perfect time to become a gay adult.

With my generation being much more open to homosexuality, I grew up during those years assuming that being gay was a completely accepted fact, and even in some cases a great claim to make one stand out in the crowd of exchange students. I never had to develop any strategies to hide my sexual orientation and never was the victim or witness of any homophobic behaviours. The simple concept of somebody being in the closet was just foreign to me. My first professional experience in a large asset management firm however rapidly taught me that all is not so “pink” in the world outside top tier universities and cosmopolitan students.

A few weeks after my arrival, the casual remark made to a fellow intern about a male co-worker being cute turned into widespread shocked comments, and eventually led to an awkward lecture from my mentor about being careful of what one says in a company. Given the fact that this fellow intern was a woman who had herself made a similar remark right before, I could logically conclude that the gayness of my comment was the only source of controversy. So much for being an accepted fact. Since then, my experiences in various international companies in various countries have all confirmed that far from being a non-topic, sexual orientation in the workplace is still a source of derogatory comments from colleagues.

The extreme scarcity of openly gay senior managers in all the teams I worked in is also a cruel reminder that career paths can potentially be slowed down, if not stopped, because of one’s sexuality. Those challenges are some that I face for refusing to consider hiding my true self as an option. There is definitely hope for the future though.

The first one being that large companies have enforced anti-discriminatory policies to such an extent, that it seems almost impossible today to be openly ostracised for being gay. The homophobic remarks I have been exposed to were never said to my face, only behind my back. Although it doesn’t make it OK, it makes it easily bearable. The second reason for hope is the slow emergence of gay informal networks within companies that can compensate obstacles one can face on the way up. With young graduates being more open about their sexual orientation, I easily found everywhere I worked allies and support, something that has benefited my career. Finally, the recent coming outs of iconic leaders such as Tim Cooks, CEO of Apple, is proving that homosexuality and professional success are not mutually exclusive. Something I never doubted of course but which is nice to be reminded of from time to time.

JT is one of our members and works in the Marketing department of Unilever UK.


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This article is part of myGwork Stories: a series of articles about being LGBT in the workplace in different countries, cultures and industries.