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Integrating sexual identities and workplace realities

Practical and Theoretical Implications of Successfully Doing Difference in Organizations

ISBN: 978-1-78350-677-4, eISBN: 978-1-78350-678-1

Publication date: 10 June 2014

Abstract

Social identity shaped by sexual orientation is unique because it is invisible (as compared to age and some ethnic identities); a circumstance that may activate homophobia perceptions when an individual’s sexual orientation becomes fodder for speculation. Chapter 7 enjoins a wide variety of related issues in order to sharpen a focus on sex in the workplace; love and sex in the literal sense, as well as social identity shaped by sexual orientation, sex-based discrimination, sex as political action, and important ways that sex intersects with other social identity dimensions including age, gender, ethnicity/race, and socioeconomic status. An important distinction made throughout the chapter is the degree that protections are offered to various groups with regard to sex and work. These protections (or lack of them) are critical for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, the transgendered, and queer or questioning people who consider whether or not to disclose information about their sexual identity at work.

While many multinational corporations have adopted policies or guidelines and implemented programs to communicate an inclusive perspective on sexual identity in the workplace and to promote diversity training for all employees, too few workplaces around the globe offer legal protections for workers relative to sexual identity. People are subject to workplace discrimination whether they are gay or lesbian, or simply appear to be so and sexual harassment according to gender remains a fixture of organizations. To explore the organizational research on sexuality, Chapter 7 attends to subthemes of: love, lust, and sex-based harassment in the workplace; how organizations address sexual orientation and sex-based harassment in the workplace; managing one’s sexual identity in the workplace; and intersectionalities of sexual identity with ethnicity, gender, and social class.

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Citation

(2014), "Integrating sexual identities and workplace realities", Practical and Theoretical Implications of Successfully Doing Difference in Organizations (International Perspectives on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Vol. 1), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 119-134. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2051-2333(2014)0000001006

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2014 Emerald Group Publishing Limited